When Donna Sabia went into labor on April 1, 1984, she was expecting healthy twins. Two days earlier during a visit to the maternity clinic at Norwalk Hospital in Norwalk, Connecticut she been told that everything seemed fine. Yet, when the babies were born, one was dead and the other barely alive. The delivering obstetrician, Dr. Maryellen Humes, who had never before seen Donna, realized that the stillborn baby had been dead at least twenty four hours. What happened?

Damages brings to life the struggles of those entangled by a horrific medical outcome. With the life of the surviving twin in the balance, the Sabias filed a medical malpractice lawsuit against Dr. Humes and Norwalk Hospital. Barry Werth takes us through the seven year lawsuit, allowing us to see the legal strategy plotted by the Sabias’ attorneys, Connecticut’s premier medical malpractice law firm. He narrates a mesmerizing tale of doctor, midwife, hospital, and insurance carriers all angling to shift the blame elsewhere, and of rival attorneys searching for medical experts to help them wage battle.

But Damages is also the immensely moving story of the Sabias, grief stricken at first, then challenged daily by the extraordinary amount of care Little Tony

required. He was unable to eat, talk, walk, or even sit, yet despite the enormous strain on their marriage and the staggering financial cost, they never considered putting him in a home. Nor are they the only victims. Dr. Humes is forced to struggle with the stain of the lawsuit and the financial and psychological burdens it brings. Meanwhile, the experts debate what happened and who, if anyone, is at fault.

​

Praise for Damages:

 

“A legal thriller that has an advantage over John Grisham’s books — it is fact, not fiction.”

–St. Louis Post-Dispatch

​

“Meticulous detail, profound emotion…By viewing the medical malpractice suit through many sets of eyes, Damages enables us to see the absurdity of the process. We’re left with a mixed bag of emotions: sympathy for the victims, frustration with the system (both health and legal), and abhorrence that our society has sunk to this level.”

–San Diego Union-Tribune

 

“The great astonishment in Barry Werth’s Damages is its ability to completely inhabit two worlds at once: the wrenching world of the Sabia family, whose effort to raise their profoundly disabled son cannot help but break your heart, and the coldly calculating world of the malpractice lawsuit, where emotional distress is just one more consideration in the quest to decide what a case is ‘worth.’ The result is at once gut-wrenching and thought-provoking. You’ll never think of a lawsuit quite the same way again.”

–Joe Nocera

​

“Damages deserves to be read and thought about and discussed by people on all sides of the complex and often ugly collisions of law and medicine.”

–The New York Times

 

“Richly detailed…a gripping, page-turning story, and a revealing and troubling look at our medical liability system.”

–Kirkus (starred review)

​

“A powerful tale of a medical malpractice suit…moving, skillfully told.”

–Publishers Weekly

​

“A disturbing biopsy of a system in serious need of an overhaul.”

–The San Francisco Chronicle