Beauty Vs. The Beast. M.J. Rodgers
“Exactly, Your Honor. You’ve stated the matter perfectly.”
Ingle leaned back, his smirk returning. “Hmm. Nothing mundane about this cause of action,” he mumbled as though to himself. “Is this true, Ms. Kellogg?”
“Your Honor, Lee Nye—not Roy Nye—was the patient who came to Dr. Steele for treatment. The Roy manifestation was only a dysfunctional personality fragment that—”
Croghan banged on the table, interrupting once again. “Your Honor, I protest! That man’s attorney just called my client’s husband a dysfunctional fragment!”
“Your Honor,” Kay began again, “Mr. Croghan’s outbursts are disruptive to—”
Croghan’s fist hit the table yet again. “Disruptive nothing! We have a right to be furious! This so-called psychologist thought of Roy Nye as only a dysfunctional fragment. We have it on record now!”
“Your Honor,” Kay said in a voice that sounded as if it was rapidly losing patience. “I appeal to you. It is very difficult to state the defendant’s position while the plaintiff’s attorney continues to interrupt with these pounding theatrics. I respectfully ask the court to admonish Mr. Croghan—”
“Yes, yes,” the judge interrupted. “A little less noise, Mr. Croghan,” he said without any real enthusiasm for the censure.
“Now, Ms. Kellogg,” the judge continued, “do I understand the defense’s position correctly? Is it your contention that Roy Nye was only a dysfunctional personality fragment and, therefore, Dr. Steele had a right to eliminate him?”
“Your Honor, I am not a psychologist, so it would be inappropriate for me to make any such contention, just as it would be inappropriate for this court to attempt to do so. The real issue—the legal issue—facing us this morning is whether or not a man has died. I have presented documentation to show that he has not.”
“Roy Nye is dead, Your Honor!” Croghan bellowed again. “Dr. Damian Steele psychologically murdered him!”
Ingle nodded appreciatively, his dark eyes as shiny as fresh fountain ink waiting for the dip of a feathery writing quill. “A psychological murder, eh? I like the sound of that. What do you say, Ms. Kellogg? Did your client psychologically murder Roy Nye?”
“Your Honor, despite the natural human titillation and intellectual draw of such a question, it is clearly not one that can be answered by lawyers. A debate over whether a man can be psychologically murdered, as the plaintiff claims, does not fall within the purview of the legal system.”
Again Croghan shouted. “Your Honor, I protest! Defense counsel is trying to cloud the issue.”
“No, Mr. Croghan, you are the one filling the air with the foggy fumes of rhetoric in order to try to block out the clarity of reason,” Kay said quietly, but firmly. “This is not a legal matter and you know it.”
“It is a legal matter! If a medical doctor’s malpractice results in death to his patient, the avenue of financial redress for the family is the court. This is no different. Dr. Damian Steele is a psychologist who deliberately performed psychosurgery to cut Roy Nye out of his own life. Mrs. Nye’s only course of redress for the loss of her husband is this court. Her case deserves to be heard!”
Ingle ran the palm of his hand over his mohawk appreciatively. “Hmm. I like your analogy to a medical doctor.”
“Except that logically and legally it doesn’t hold up,” Kay quickly interjected. “No medical definition has ever recognized death as occurring with the removal of a dysfunctional personality part—”
“The defense attorney is wrong, Your Honor! Brain-dead is legally dead!”
Kay turned to Croghan. “You know perfectly well that Lee Nye is not brain-dead. He is a functioning—”
“But he is not Roy! It is not a man’s body that defines him, but his thoughts, his emotions!” Croghan’s arms made great circles around him, building momentum before pointing accusingly at Damian. “Roy Nye’s essence is gone—murdered by that man!”
“Your Honor, there are absolutely no legal grounds—”
Ingle’s hands came up. “Yes, yes, Ms. Kellogg. You are right about there being no legal precedent for Mrs. Nye’s unusual cause of action. But it’s a damn interesting cause of action, you must agree. Hell, I can’t wait to see what the cri—uh...I mean, the jury will make of this one.”
Ingle picked up his gavel and held it high. “Motion to dismiss due to lack of cause denied.” He rapped the gavel once, its vibration bouncing ominously off the walls of the mostly empty courtroom.
Damian felt the legal blow of the judge’s decision. But Kay seemed amazingly calm and collected in its wake. Without hesitation, she walked up to the judge’s podium, papers in hand.
“Your Honor, this is a motion to dismiss Mrs. Fedora Nye’s suit based on the fact that the plaintiff’s petition for redress was filed a month after the three-year statute of limitations.”
Croghan was instantly shouting again. “I protest, Your Honor! Washington’s wrongful-death statute does not contain an express statute of limitations.”
Kay’s soft voice retained its elegant calm. “Your Honor, Mr. Croghan is in error. The statute of limitations is provided in the Washington Revised Code, which sets forth time limitations for commencing various forms of legal actions. A three-year statute of limitations is applicable to a personal-injury suit. Lee Nye legally eliminated the Roy part of his name three years and five months ago, yet it wasn’t until four months ago—a full month after the three-year filing deadline—that Mrs. Nye commenced her personal-injury suit against Dr. Steele for the wrongful death of her husband.”
Ingle’s forehead frowned under the clear logic of Kay’s thrust. He glanced at Croghan hopefully. Croghan couldn’t have missed the fact that the judge was rooting for him. And he was ready with his rebuttal.
“Your Honor, Mrs. Nye did not discover that her husband—I mean, Lee Nye—had changed his name from LeRoy until at least six months after the fact. That puts the filing of her suit well within three years of learning of the legal name change.”
Damian caught Fedora Nye looking up quizzically at Croghan. She obviously was surprised to learn that she didn’t know of the name change until six months after the fact.
Kay shook her head much like a tired but patient parent. “Your Honor, I gave the official name-change date as the last possible time that Lee was still in any way identified by the Roy name. In truth, the plaintiff’s husband officially divorced her in court four years ago, giving as his reason the fact that the Roy personality no longer existed and he wished to legally sever all ties to the man’s life. As Mrs. Nye officially learned this in their divorce proceedings four years ago, how can her attorney claim she didn’t know that her husband was gone until nearly a full year later?”
“Because my client’s religion does not recognize divorce,” Croghan rebutted in his louder-than-life voice. “In the eyes of God, Fedora was still married to Roy and hoped for his return to her and their children. It wasn’t until she learned of the legal name change—months after it took effect—that she realized Roy was gone forever from her life, a victim of that man.”
Croghan was back to dramatics, pointing his finger in Damian’s direction. Ingle once again picked up his gavel.
“Applying the discovery rule to this case, I find that the statute of limitations for filing the wrongful-death action did not commence until Roy Nye’s statutory beneficiary, Mrs. Fedora Nye, discovered all the elements for her cause of action, to wit, that her husband’s name had been changed. Motion to dismiss based on a tardy filing denied.”
A second rap and it was official. They were going to trial.
Damian was surprised to realize that he was as disappointed for Kay as he was for