My head hurts

I spent the last 3 weeks of my life learning, in agonizing detail, about the anatomy of the foot. 

I did so for no other reason than our crack judicial system demanded it of me. And because one whiny plaintiff (I won't say his name because he appears to be quite litigious) brought a charge of medical malpractice against a doctor at Keck Medical Center. 

In other words, because his foot hurt, so the lives of 14 people (12 jurors and 2 alternates) would have to hurt too. Naturally because I'm the world's worst liar, I got picked to be one of those unfortunate jurors. This was my second time on a panel. Also, the second time I was made Jury Foreman. 

Ain't that a kick in the head?

I could bore you with all the tedious details of the case, but unlike the plaintiff, I have respect for the lives of other people who might just have better things to do than listen to a grown man whine. Or learn about the painstaking path an electrical signal must travel along the Calcaneal Nerve through the Tarsal Tunnel by way of the Flexor Retinaculum. 

Note, of all the body parts that could malfunction and trigger a lawsuit, I get stuck on the one concerning feet. I know some people have foot fetishes (fetishi?), I'm not one of them.

The trial started with the plaintiff's lawyer droning on about the initial diagnosis -- Plantar Fasciitis. 

As a former 10k and marathon runner, I was quite familiar with this. I had it in both feet, as most people do. The plaintiff, Mr. Ouchie Foot, only had it in one. But the medical chart, a template generated by Keck, erroneously indicated it as Bilateral Plantar Fasciitis -- bilateral, meaning both feet. 

Mind you, the doctor's notes never said both feet, but the internal electronic charts, used for billing and insurance purposes had it listed as bilateral. 

Someone alert the FBI! 

This little typo, which never affected the care given to the plaintiff, gave rise to a demand for more than $4 million. I'd put my foot on the Bible and swear to it.

You might accuse me of exaggerating. But I'm not. And many of my fellow jurors concurred. One young lady, as exasperated as we all were, said, "I had my mind made up within the first 20 minutes."

Wait, it gets worse.

The origin of the Mr. Ouchie Foot's claim goes all the way back to a surgery for the foot pain in 2017. Go ahead, do the math, That's SIX YEARS ago!!!

The two competent legal teams lived with this for close to 2200 days. It would have been simpler to chop off his foot and build this crybaby a new damn bionic foot.

This case, which generated thousands upon thousands of legal documents -- I know because we had to view them ALL -- also gobbled up thousands upon thousands of lawyer hours, generating millions and millions of legal fees. 

Like the infinite nature of the time/space continuum, I just can't get my head wrapped around it.

At least we, the jurors, all got about $137.92 for our service and gas mileage.

I'm happy to say Mr. Ouchie Foot got nothing. 

When we finally made it to the Deliberations Room, we chatted, vented and laughed. We also had our decision in less than an hour. The judge graciously also sent in a case of bottled water and a box of various sweet and salty snacks. But none of us wanted to take any more time than necessary to get the hell out of the Stanley Mosk Courthouse.

One wise-cracking juror -- and I wish it had been me -- said, "I sort of feel bad we're not giving the guy the $4 million dollars, maybe we should pay him in Nutter Butters!"

Had we gone through with this retaliatory plan of action, guess who would have been the person to announce the confectionary award?

We should have done it.