The Real John Edwards Story

This is a long post, so be warned.

I don’t know about you, but I’ve had it with the stories about John Edwards and the $400 haircuts (and based on this Media Matters column – hat tip to Atrios – I believe Eric Boehlert has also). The sole function of these columns is to feed into the corporate media narrative that Democrats are nothing but self-obsessed elitists who continually do the opposite of what they tell other people to do instead (and in the case of Edwards, it is to add somewhat of an effeminate touch in an effort to demean him in a particularly childish way).

What I just described was what you may call Phase 1 of The John Edwards Haircut Narrative, in which it was good sport to make fun of the obsessive care he took with his appearance. The reason I am writing about this now, though, is that Leonard Pitts, Jr. wrote this column that appeared in The Philadelphia Inquirer recently in which he initiates what you could call Phase 2 of The John Edwards Haircut Narrative.

See, in Phase 1, we were supposed to merely laugh at Edwards and the whole YouTube video thing. Now, in Phase 2, we are supposed to assume that, because he paid a Beverly Hills hair stylist $400 for a service that could be performed at a barber shop for probably not much more than $20-$50, he is not only a vain prima donna, but he is actually guilty of “fake authenticity” because, in his days as a trial lawyer, Edwards stood up for the common man (no quotes around any of that as far as I’m concerned).

And before I say another word, I want to point out that I am truly repulsed that a writer as accomplished as Leonard Pitts, Jr. has decided to shill himself as part of this nonsensical smear campaign (and make no mistake – that is what this is, as surely as the Barack Obama madrassa nonsense and the fact that his middle name is Hussein qualifies also, with the same objective as any guttural utterances that could seep out of the oozing, festering human sore that is Rush Limbaugh). The stirring, award-winning post-9/11 commentaries from this man are merely a hollow echo at this point, I suppose.

So Edwards is guilty of “fake authenticity”? Edwards is “hoity toity”? Somehow Pitts believes it’s appropriate to try and manufacture some delusional equivalency between John Edwards’ appearance and the communication between Mike Brown and Kathleen Blanco and their staffers over fashionable attire their bosses should be wearing while the Ninth Ward was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina?

Enough.

I think it’s time that I try to establish a narrative of my own here about John Edwards, and I will try to do so beginning with the information from this link, which takes you to a page that summarizes the highest-profile legal cases of his career. The page also includes articles about Edwards that appeared in 2004 when he ran as a candidate for president in the Democratic primary, as well as when he was named as a vice-presidential candidate on the ticket with John Kerry later that year (and by the way, a big hat tip goes out to The American Observer for this link).

The narrative I will attempt to create here is one of a Southern populist lawyer advocating for those who cannot advocate for themselves and are denied help available to those with better means than they possess. To do so, I will provide some passages from the book “Four Trials,” written by Edwards with John Auchard. The book describes, quite literally, four trials that established Edwards as the individual I just described. Also included in the book are loving remembrances of the Edwardses son Wade, who was killed in a vehicle accident (and one more thing; this is a narrative you will never hear from Kate O’Beirne, Mike Malin, or their ilk).

I recommend the book, by the way, if you truly want to learn about John Edwards, his experiences as a trial lawyer, and his depth of understanding and support for his family, his clients, and his neighbors (and yes, his faith also). What I’ve included here is merely a small sampling of the richness of the true narrative of his life.
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The first trial (noted extensively in this excerpt from USA Today) had to do with a man named E.G. Sawyer, who was a salesman doing his job well and living a good life until he hit some rough patches and turned into an alcoholic.

As Edwards recalls in the book…

Five days after (Sawyer’s boss) Charles Tate checked E.G. into St. Joseph's (Hospital), the doctor recommended aversion therapy — which would mean that E.G. would be given disulfiram, a drug better known by its brand name, Antabuse. If E.G. drank any alcohol, the Antabuse would make him nauseated and perhaps even profoundly ill, and ultimately, it would keep E.G. from drinking and allow the eventual repair of his liver function. E.G. acknowledged that the approach sounded like a good idea, and his boss and several other friends pledged that they would be there to keep up his spirits. So, on September 14, 1978, the doctor initiated the aversion therapy by prescribing the maximum daily dosage, 500 milligrams of Antabuse.

The next day, the fifteenth, the doctor prescribed double the maximum daily dosage of Antabuse for E.G., and on the sixteenth he tripled the dosage to 1500 milligrams. The doctor had attended a seminar in Atlanta in which this kind of aggressive therapy was discussed. The hospital's pharmacists dutifully filled the prescriptions, and the nurses dutifully administered them to E.G. Each day for the next two weeks he received three times the maximum daily dosage. Although at first he seemed cheerful and resolute about defeating his alcoholism, soon there were alarming signs that something had gone wrong. He complained of headaches and became increasingly drowsy and confused, and his blood pressure went up. On the evening of October 1, a nurse found him unconscious and lying crosswise on his bed. When Libby Tate, Charles Tate's wife, phoned the hospital the next day to see how the salesman was coming along, she was informed that E.G. Sawyer had been transferred to the intensive care unit. He was in a coma.

In December, E.G. emerged from his coma with extensive brain damage, unable to walk or talk without great difficulty. His friends transferred him to Duke University Hospital for continued treatment and therapy, then took him back to a rehabilitation center in Asheville (N.C.). By that time, his transformation from robust and attractive man to a severely handicapped shadow of his former self was complete. On E.G.'s behalf, Charles Tate consulted four or five local attorneys, but none of them would take the case. Medical malpractice lawsuits had rarely been filed in conservative Buncombe County, and when they were filed, the results were usually the same: verdicts for doctors. Furthermore, no local jury was going to side against the beloved local hospital in favor of an alcoholic. When E.G. Sawyer was wheeled into the law office of state senator Robert Swain in the summer of 1981, the three-year statute of limitations — the period in which a lawsuit for negligence could be filed — had almost run out.

As the FindLaw link notes, Sawyer had suffered permanent brain and nerve damage due to the over-prescription of Antabuse, and the jury awarded a sum of $3.7 million dollars as a result.
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The second trial involved a couple named Peggy and Jeff Campbell; Peggy was pregnant with the couple’s child, a daughter named Valerie. Before delivery, the girl moved to a breech position necessitating a caesarian delivery, though the doctor, an established old-time obstetrician, ordered Jeff to stay out of the delivery room while attempting to deliver the baby through a vaginal birth (the doctor was heard to say, “I believe I feel a scrotum” though the couple had expected a girl). In the process of trying to deliver Valerie vaginally, the doctor fractured her shoulder, though far worse was yet to come.

After the child was finally delivered, the hospital gave the Campbells a cruel runaround, first telling them their baby was fine, then getting them to sign consent forms for procedures that had already been performed, then telling them their baby “will probably be a vegetable and she may die,” and then they were asked if they wanted to keep her (the couple, shocked and heartbroken, of course said yes).

(And by the way, as the Campbell case was brought to trial, Edwards recalled hearing snickers that he won the Sawyer case “because of his hair.” As you can see, what has been taking place recently is sort of a more corporate-media-and-internet-friendly version of an old tactic that has been tried many times before).

After Edwards won the original trial and the judge set aside the jury’s verdict, Edwards turned down the judge’s remittitur of damages, and a new trial was ordered on the damages question. For the next 2 ½ years, the case wrangled its way through the appellate courts.

On February 17, 1988, Pitt County Memorial Hospital finally agreed to settle the case with the Campbells for $4.25 million, meaning that Jennifer Love Campbell, a child suffering from cerebral palsy and quadriplegia, would be taken care of for the rest of her life.
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The third trial noted in the book is Howard vs. Collins & Aikman, a trucking company. A driver from the company sped recklessly down a street in Yadkinville, North Carolina, trying to make as many deliveries as possible within the maximum of 12 hours in which the driver was allowed to work; the driver was paid by the mile instead of the hour. In the process, a minister named Greg Howard was killed when he was hit by the reckless truck driver.

(Actually, the driver killed both the mother and father of young Josh Howard – it’s truly heartbreaking in the book to read about the child’s sad wonderment about his parents not picking him up from day care on the day of the accident – but because the parents of the mother settled with the company against the judge’s advice, her death could not be mentioned in any civil action.)

As you can see from the FindLaw link, Edwards won a $6.5 million verdict, but as he recalls in the book…

Unfortunately the insurance company…did what many powerful businesses do (as a result of the judgment against their client), and when the Republican Party took control of the state legislature in 1995, its lobbyists seized the moment. Soon a bill was passed disallowing punitive damage awards against a company as a result of an employee’s actions, unless that particular action was specifically ratified by corporate officers. Meaning, among other things, that today Golda Howard (Greg’s mother) would not be able to seek punitive damages from Collins & Aikman. Yes, our lawsuit had sent a message, and the message ultimately was: if you don’t like the law, change it. Which, regrettably, they did.

And during the course of the trial, someone from Collins & Aikman was heard to say “lost lives are an inevitability in the trucking business.” Nice guy.
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The fourth trial involved David and Sandy Lakey and their young daughter Valerie who was caught in a swimming pool filter, and it took three adults to pull her off of the filter, which disemboweled her in the process (the mother of the little boy playing with Valerie who helped pull her from the pool told Valerie’s mother in a quaking voice that, “I’m holding her intestines in my hands”).

Four parties were named in the suit: Medfield Area Recreational Club (because they did not maintain a safe wading pool), Wake County (whose health department was responsible for supervising the safety of the area’s pools), Hayward Pool Products (the pump manufacturer), and these three settled before cases were brought to trial. The fourth party was Sta-Rite Industries, which manufactured the pool drain cover over the pump and maintained that it did nothing wrong throughout the trial.

As Edwards recalled (and I’m paraphrasing a bit here and adding somewhat), it took considerable skill to represent Valerie Lakey at the trial given the anemic product liability statute of the state of North Carolina, where the Lakeys lived and the accident took place.

Other evidence of Sta-Rite’s negligence started to emerge during the trial. As the book states…

In the depositions, we had received a dark hints that more Valerie Lakeys were out there…A New Mexico boy whose arm was trapped in a pool drain and had drowned. A South Dakota boy eviscerated. An eight-year-old Texas boy who had miraculously survived for ten minutes while several adults fought to wrench his arm free from the suction. A Fresno girl who had died when her hair was entrapped in a whirlpool drain. Other head and leg injuries. Allegations of brain damage. Seizures. Deaths.

At some level, Sta-Rite knew all of this. Now we did too. And soon the jury would know it.

And (not surprisingly) it also turned out that the company had a history of settling out of court with plaintiffs for comparatively meager sums to avoid publicity.

And what happened as a result…

On the morning of January 13, 1997, the jury began deliberation. When they returned to the courtroom later that day, they had awarded David, Sandy, and Valerie Lakey $25 million for compensatory damages for Sta-Rite’s negligence. Sta-Rite said that if the Lakeys would agree not to pursue punitive damages, it would agree not to appeal. They would settle the case for the amount of the verdict.

As you can see from these excerpts from documented case histories, John Edwards has been advocating for and representing wronged individuals, primarily children and families, and those who could not obtain representation anywhere else for years. He has fought diligently for these people so they could live their lives to some degree despite the negligence that has victimized them. And in doing so, he has won some big awards and managed to take a bite or two out of the collective hide of corporate America.

And that is why he is hated. That is why the stories, the rumors, the innuendo have persisted and will persist for as long he walks this earth. That is why Smerky and his fellow travelers accused him and Elizabeth of being bad parents when he decided to continue his campaign despite the recurrence of her cancer. That is why Maureen Dowd and others resurrect this utterly juvenile “Breck Girl” name calling. That is why he is commonly referred to as a used car salesman by people who don’t know any better.

I hope this post gives you a better understanding of what John Edwards is all about, and I hope it helps you to understand why he has my unequivocal support as he runs for the Democratic nomination to be President of the United States.

And I also hope it helps you to understand why Leonard Pitts, Jr. owes John Edwards the apology that he will never receive.