Transcript for Episode 50, with Render Freeman

Scott Glovsky:

Welcome to Trial Lawyer Talk. I’m Scott Glovsky, and I’m your host for this podcast where we speak with some of the best trial lawyers in the United States. We simply have great lawyers, tell great stories from cases that had a profound impact on them. So let’s get started.

I’m very happy to be sitting across the table from Render Freeman, who is phenomenal. I use that word a lot as all of you know, but it’s absolutely true. A wonderful, talented, creative, and … just spectacular lawyer who practices out of Duluth, Georgia, although he does cases all over the country. His focus is medical malpractice.

Render, thanks so much for being with us.

Render Freeman:

Yeah, sure. I’m not sure I’m willing to accept all that praise, but it’s certainly nice to hear. Thank you.

Scott Glovsky:

Render, is there a case that had a profound impact on you?

Render Freeman:

Yeah. Yeah, and I think most people that know me know what case it is. It’s the Cindy Martinez case.

Scott Glovsky:

Tell us the story.

Render Freeman:

So, Cindy is a remarkable person. She is a young mother in her 30s, but she’s at this point in her life of a retired marine, or former marine. I always forget how I’m supposed to say it. She’s married to a retired marine that is now a police officer, and they have two children, and they’re living the suburban life, and trying to raise young dated and their little daughter. His name is escaping me right now, which I think is beyond crass. It’s been a little while.

One morning, Cindy wakes up with a sore shoulder, and she thinks, “Well, I just slept on it funny.” So she goes about her routine, and gets the kids off to school, and goes to work. Comes home, shoulder’s still bothering her. Fixes dinner, goes to the Friday evening retain, they watch movies together on the couch with the kids.

She wakes up Saturday, and she’s again, she’s got shoulder pain. She’s gonna power through. She gets the kids up, takes them down the street to the playground in the neighborhood, and shoulder’s still hurting. Now, she’s starting to feel tired and weak.

She goes home. She gets in bed, and that day her husband’s down in the basement doing some guy project with his dad. They decided a window needed to be where a door was, and the door needed to be where a window was. The kids are running around loose, and they hadn’t been fed.

So they come down, and they’re like, “Dad, we need lunch.” Dad was like, “Well, where’s your mother?” He goes upstairs, and she’s out in the bed, just sick as a dog. So he takes care of the kids.

Saturday night, she’s just still not feeling well, and she’s talking about how much her shoulder hurts. He looks at the shoulder. There’s nothing going on with the shoulder.

Well, as she sleeps through the night on Saturday evening into Sunday morning, she’s going to the bathroom, and throwing up, and having diarrhea. When he looks at her shoulder in the morning at like six, there’s this red patch on her shoulder blade. He’s like, “Okay, we’re going to the doctor.”

They go to an urgent care facility. They take the kids to the grandparents’ house and they go to the urgent care facility. This doctor in the urgent care facility, and the nurse in the urgent care facility don’t even bother to take her shirt off to look at her shoulder.

She’s like 8 out of 10 pain. She’s got a fever in the morning, which is unusual for adults. She’s got a high heart rate. She’s septic, and they don’t figure it out, and they don’t even try to figure it out. They just give her medicine for the pain, and they give her Zofran for the throwing up and vomiting, and they send her home.

Well, she’s got flesh eating bacteria. She’s got a group a strep in her shoulder muscle that is eating her tissue. That’s the source of the pain, and they don’t even bother to look at it.

So she goes home, and she gets sicker, and sicker. The Zofran keeps her from throwing up, but the patch gets bigger. The red patch on her shoulder gets bigger, and David takes her to the emergency room on Monday morning. Eventually, after about 16 or 17 hours, the people at the hospital figure out that she’s got flesh eating bacteria. She’s now advanced in the septic shock, and she’s put on a medication that’s called vasopressors. When your blood pressure is crashing in septic shock they give you pressers, so that you cut off blood flow to your extremities so that blood is prioritized to your heart and to your brain.

As a result, your limbs can die if they can’t get you off of the pressers quickly enough. Well, too much time had gone by. They had to leave her on the pressers to save her life. At the end of the day, she had to have both of her legs amputated below the knees, and her right arm amputated at the elbow. She lost almost all the fingers on her hands, but she’s got a few of the digits left on her hands and part of her thumb. So she can grab things and she can do amazing amounts of things with her hands. She survived, and she’s an incredible survival story.

Scott Glovsky:

What happens next?

Render Freeman:

She ends up in the hospital for a month where she’s fighting for her life. She’s on a ventilator. They eventually transfer her to another hospital to do the amputations, and then they send her to a third hospital that’s a burn unit, ’cause burn units are highly specialized in infection control.

She’s still on a ventilator. She’s still fighting the infection. She’s still fighting for her life for another 30 or 45 days. She finally is able to be extubated and put into a rehabilitation facility in Atlanta called the Shepherd Spinal Center. Which is an amazing place where she was fitted with prosthetics, and went through rehab, and learned how to walk again. After about, gosh, it was probably over 100 days, she was able to go home to her kids.

They had hired me. David, her husband came to see me during the summer. I was their lawyer from the beginning, and was there the day that I got the call that they had to do the amputations, which was a terrible day. So we began the process of building the case against the urgent care.

Scott Glovsky:

Well, tell me more about that day. You’re called in to represent a woman who’s about to have her limbs amputated.

Render Freeman:

I’d handled cases like this before, so I knew that there was a period of time where you really didn’t know, and you’re waiting to see what tissue’s gonna live and what tissue’s gonna die. We were really hoping and praying that she would not have to have these amputations.

I got a text message. I remember exactly where I was. I know exactly the intersection where I was when I got the text message from David that they had had to amputate both of her legs and her right arm. I don’t think I knew about the fingers yet on her left hand.

I finished the commute into the office, and I kind of bolted by the receptionist. I was going into my office and was gonna close the door, and my secretary or paralegal assistant, whatever you want to call her, amazing person in my life, Tammy, who takes really good care of me was in my office, which was unusual, and I had already started to let go of the emotion as I walked in, and she picked up on it. She looked at me like, “What?” Like, “What is wrong?” and I told her. We both hugged, and we both cried, and we kind of got through that, and then got back to work.

To this day, Cindy continues to inspire us with how she lives her life and adapts to her new situation.

Scott Glovsky:

You obviously had a connection with Cindy before this.

Render Freeman:

No, not before any of this. I didn’t know her before this. I had handled other cases, and David started calling around asking people that had had similar conditions, and he’d happened to call a person that I had also represented. They told him, “You have to call Render.” So he did, and we met very early in the process. That was my introduction to Cindy, was through David.

I met her when she was in the burn unit, and we actually were doing a will for her and were preparing for the possibility that she might not live. We went and met with her, and she’s still on a ventilator. It’s really awkward and difficult to assess whether she was there intellectually and competently to … execute these documents. We talked for a while, and I felt like she was able to signal to me and communicate with me in writing. In a weird way, she was able, she’d already started learning how to write with her left hand.

That’s the relationship, again, with the engagement.

Scott Glovsky:

What did that feel like? I mean, obviously you care about her. I can see it in your eyes. I can hear it in your voice. What did that feel like, that responsibility?

Render Freeman:

It was a lot of pressure and wondering if I was up for it, or, “Maybe I need to bring somebody in, an associate, a lawyer.” I had handled a fairly large case along the same lines, also a quadrupole amputation from flesh eating bacteria and septic shock. I felt like I had the team already together of the experts. So, I was gaining confidence, but I was still like, “Can I do this? Can I put this together?” So I felt pressure, but I also felt confidence at the same time, kind of balancing back and forth between those two things.

Scott Glovsky:

How did you deal with that pressure?

Render Freeman:

We got busy. We got the, you have to wait awhile, because you have to get all the records, and the records are voluminous. There’s four or five thousand pages of records in these cases when they’re in intensive care for months on end, but we were able to get the records pretty quickly from the urgent care facility, because that was a super limited experience. It was like 15 minutes of medicine, drive-through medicine. So we were able to get that and assess that pretty early.

In these cases, there’s always this dynamic of causation. Like, “Well, if something had happened differently, if they had realized it sooner and provided different treatment, what difference would the outcome have been?” So that’s like a totally different battle front that we have to deal with. You don’t know until you get into the medicine and you start talking to the infectious disease doctors, and vascular surgeons, and intensive care guys.

So we just kind of started going through the, “What’s the next right thing to do?” The next right thing is get the medical records and get them to the experts.

Scott Glovsky:

How did you approach telling the story and learning the story?

Render Freeman:

With psychodramatists, and with a lot of help. Mary Jo Amatruda was the main person that I relied upon that had an incredible, she cracked me like an egg.

When I’m here in 2016 … Cindy is home, and is starting to live her life again, and we’re engaged, and we’ve got experts, but I had a … an amazing experience in the milk barn with Mary Jo. She was my latest and favorite of many psychodramatists, so I brought her down to work with Cindy and David in their homes, and get them ready to discover the story before their depositions were taken.

Scott Glovsky:

Tell us about that.

Render Freeman:

We spent the whole day at the house, and we walked through the entire weekend. Starting on Friday morning, we were in their bedroom, and Cindy and David were in their bed, and … we … reenacted pieces of the entire weekend in order to really fully discover when this happened or that happened, and how many times he looked at it, and what it looked like at various moments in time.

As a result, they really were taken back to that weekend. It was obviously difficult and emotional, but they were taken back to that weekend and reliving it anew just prior, like a couple weeks prior to their deposition. They felt very confident and relaxed at their depositions, which was perfect because they were our greatest asset in the case. Which, what great people they were.

Scott Glovsky:

Through the reenactments you obviously developed a love for your client. What is it that you were drawn to?

Render Freeman:

Just her strength that she … You know that you, you’re kind of looking at it from a couple of different perspectives. One, you’re in the moment, and you’re in their home, and you’re doing the psychodrama, and you’re amazed by their strength to go back to these moments and relive them. Just incredible that you would have the courage and the trust in us as her lawyers to do this. I was … inspired by that, I was flattered by that, and I was encouraged to really continue to work hard for her, but then also to have the privilege of seeing those moments.

When they wake up on Monday morning, and they’re gonna go to the ER, and this is the last time that they lie in bed together with Cindy’s full body, with her old body with all of her arms and legs. To freeze that moment and realize that, and have them talk about it. I think in a lot of ways I’m a frustrated therapist. I figure out ways to … moments in our cases when I can help people, or bring in people like Mary Jo or Louise or my trainer, and have them help my clients and heal some of the situations that need to be healed. I think that’s helpful to the case, but it’s more importantly helpful to them. So, I feel really privileged that I get to be a part of that.

Scott Glovsky:

What happens next in this story?

Render Freeman:

Before we even file the lawsuit, we put together the entire package of all the expert reports, the life care plan, the economics of her lost wages, the present cash value of this tremendous life care plan of 25, 35 million dollars.

Scott Glovsky:

All the lawyer stuff.

Render Freeman:

Yeah, all the lawyer stuff. All the stuff that, you know, sometimes I feel like there’s two stories you have to tell. You have to tell the story to the insurance company so that they are hearing it in their terms. Then, you gotta figure out, and switch gears, and tell it to the jury, which is a totally different format. Too many times in my life I have stuck with the same storytelling technique and it doesn’t work with the jury.

We are speaking the insurance companies’ language, and we figure out what the, in Georgia you can actually find out what the coverage amounts are in advance. So, we figure out that there’s a very large piece that is on the hospital, and then there’s a bunch of excess policies above that. So, we sort of psychodrama’d the defense and the insurance carriers, and realized that the hospital was probably, the hospital network that owned the urgent care was probably scared to death of this case from a PR standpoint. They probably wanted to get it resolved.

We made a big number demand-

Scott Glovsky:

Let me stop you there.

Render Freeman:

Yeah, sure.

Scott Glovsky:

How did you psychodrama the insurance companies?

Render Freeman:

We thought about the relationship between the hospital network, the health system, and their insurance carrier. It was an unusually large self-insured retention that the hospital had. So we thought, “What if we could get them adverse to each other? What if we could get them angry with each other before we even start the case? What if we could get the hospital sort of angry with its carrier for not stepping up to the plate to take care of this problem?”

When we made our opening proposal, which was a crazy high number, we said to them, “We would be willing to go to a confidential pre-suit mediation if you guys will put a certain amount on the table to start.” So we made that amount slightly more than the self-insured retention so that the carrier, the insurance carrier, would have to put some skin in the game to get us to come to mediation.

Now, we learn later that the hospital immediately tendered its self-insured retention and was willing to go to mediation. We’d only put a very small amount that the carrier had to pitch in to get us there, and the carrier wouldn’t do it. They refused to do it, and the hospital was furious about that.

So we filed suit, and the case ended up being almost like … Not really, but to some extent it started to feel like the hospital was on our side and was frustrated like we were with their carrier that they would let this go to litigation and not resolve it.

Scott Glovsky:

So, what happened?

Render Freeman:

We litigated the case for a full year. One thing I did is that I took a page out of Lloyd Bell and Nelson Tyrone’s book, which was that Lloyd had a really significant case. It was a consortium piece to the case, a loss of consortium. The spousal claim for loss of martial services, and we have a forefather of court law in Georgia. Tommy Malone, who used to say, “Every good consortium case deserves its own lawyer.” In that situation, Lloyd brought in Nelson to handle the consortium case so that they had, they were like co-counseling the case.

I did that, and I brought in Lloyd to handle David’s consortium case. We were double teaming them like they were kind of double teaming us. Right? Then, the doctor has his lawyer, and then the hospital has his lawyer, but they’re really just doing it to double team us.

We had that dynamic going, and we’d file the litigation. We brought in Mary Jo to get them ready for their depositions. They performed beautifully. I hate using the word “perform”, but they showed up, and they were themselves at the deposition.

At one point, they were going through Cindy’s sort of equipment that she needs to get through her daily life. She told them that she has a manual wheelchair and an electric wheelchair, but she needs help with the manual wheelchair. They were like, “Well, why do you need help with the manual wheelchair?” She kind of held up her right arm, and she said, “Well, I would just go in circles.”

They started laughing. I mean, it’s an awkward, tense laugh, but it’s like, “Oh my gosh, this woman can actually have a sense of humor about her situation, and she’s that comfortable in this environment to be herself and be relaxed.” I think that was the greatest threat, that they realized that they cannot allow a jury to decide this case, because of how inspiring Cindy is and David is, as people.

Scott Glovsky:

Where is Render Freeman in this case? What’s your connection emotionally?

Render Freeman:

My connection emotionally is that … I come from a family of doctors. My great-grandfather was in the first graduating class from Emory Medical School. My grandfather was a small town doctor. My uncle’s a doctor, and I wanted to be a doctor, but I couldn’t hack it. I couldn’t get the grades in biology.

So I have a real reluctance to sue doctors, even though I’m a medical malpractice lawyer. So that’s kind of why I do this olive branch approach at the beginning before we file the case, to give them a chance to resolve it. I sort of, I call it the gift of righteous indignation, that I extend the olive branch and I get nothing in return. I make it more about the insurance company, and fairness, and fighting for what’s right.

So I felt completely above any kind of criticism for suing this hospital, or health system and this doctor for what had happened to Cindy, because we had tried to make peace with them and they were odd. The carrier that is, was obstinate about the case and their exposure.

Scott Glovsky:

How does that feel when you’re dealing with power, and this case, and a lot of cases, and an insurance company who basically says, “To heck with you”?

Render Freeman:

Right. It feels righteous. I mean, that’s what the gift of righteous indignation is that you need to be corrected. I need to stand up to you. You are not being fair in this situation, and it’s my job to bring fairness.

Scott Glovsky:

Does your fear ever get in the way?

Render Freeman:

Oh, sure, especially with trial work that … to actually go the distance, and put it to the jury, and trust the jury to decide the case, and trust yourself to be able to tell the story correctly, or effectively in a way that … Then, but at the same time you’re in this sort of ego check phase where you’re like, “Hey, this is not about you. This is about Cindy and David, and it’s not your job to inspire the jury. It’s their job to inspire the jury,” and they’re inspiring you.

Cindy participated in the Marine marathon 16 months after she had her amputations, after the event. She bicycled the first 25 miles on a recumbent lay-back bicycle. Then, David met her at the 25-mile marker and switched out her legs into the spring legs. They call them cheetah legs, ’cause they’re designed after the cheetah. She and David ran the last mile, or whatever it is, 1.2 together. She was a workout fiend.

Great mom, driving the car. Somebody had donated a handicap van to her. A dealership gave it to her. After a couple months, she gave it back. “Thank you, but I don’t need it. I can just drive with a regular car. All I need is a knob on the steering wheel to grab.”

That was the sort of emotional battle, was trying to realize that it’s not about me, that it’s about the client.

Scott Glovsky:

What did you learn from the case?

Render Freeman:

I learned very much, and that was the first time that I’d ever brought in a psychodramatist to help me prepare the client, the deposition. I learned that that is a very important task to do, and I’ve done it several times since. I did it just last week with Louise in another case, but to …

I suppose also, I think the base skill that I have learned from this group is the listening skill, and to really pay attention to our clients, and to hear their story, and to gain their trust by taking the time to hear their story, and to spend time in their home. Then, to bring in a psychodramatist who has this healing power that’s separate in a part of the case, and to get through those days together. That bond that it creates, and the trust level that it creates between the whole team, the client and the lawyers is just nothing. There’s nothing like it anywhere.

Scott Glovsky:

I’d like you to reverse roles with your client.

Render Freeman:

With Cindy?

Scott Glovsky:

With Cindy.

Render Freeman:

Okay.

Scott Glovsky:

And Cindy, what do you want to say to Render?

Render Freeman:

I miss Render. I miss him. We spent a lot of time together for almost a year and a half. He would come to our house a lot.

Scott Glovsky:

Well, he’s right here, so tell him.

Render Freeman:

Yeah, so I miss you, and I am really thankful for you. You did a great job for us and we’re thankful for that, but really more than anything you were our companion, and you walked with us and got us through this whole process that we were really freaked about by and didn’t understand. You brought in these people that helped us, and then you brought Mary Jo back again, and you helped with some relationships, other family relationships that were gonna end up being part of the case.

I wish there were some reason or some excuse for us to continue to have an ongoing relationship where we needed to see each other and just catch up with each other. I know that David goes by your office and just stops in just to see you because that’s part of his patrol, and he loves that. He says that you’re always there and happy to see him. If it’s not you and you’re on the road, then Tammy, and Tyler, and everybody else is happy to see David.

Yeah, we miss you.

Scott Glovsky:

Now, reverse back. When you’re Render, respond to Cindy.

Render Freeman:

I miss you too very much. Your humor, your … insistence on being who you are. Not caring about how your body is changed and just kind of doing the things that are important to you, raising your kids, and raising awareness, challenging yourself physically to be an inspiration to your children that you’re unstoppable and you want them to be unstoppable. I wish that I had met you earlier in life so that I could have learned from your example and been a better parent.

I will always, I will find an excuse. We will find an excuse to get together, and maybe it’s some sort of fundraiser, or thing that that’d buy a table at, or something. You and David will come, but we have got to figure out how to stay in each others’ lives.

Scott Glovsky:

Now, Render, you have a very moving story about your middle name. With the passing of John McCain recently, would you share that story with us?

Render Freeman:

Sure. I’ll start with meeting John McCain.

I’m in the Atlanta airport about five years ago, and there’s a place in the Atlanta airport where there’s a switch back in the escalators. I’m going down an escalator, and I see John McCain. He’s got one guy with him, just one guy. I figured he’d have an entourage or something, but just one guy who’s probably like some kung fu guy that can kill you with a paperclip.

So, I hurry down. There’s an adjacent escalator that’s running right next to Senator McCain’s. I get on the adjacent escalator, and I scurry down so I can be next to him. I reach across, and I don’t know if this guy’s gonna like, the bodyguard or whoever he is is gonna beat the heck out of me.

I reach across and I say, “Senator McCain, my name is Render Crayton Freeman.” Senator McCain gets this huge smile on his face and says, “What a great man. What a great man.”

He’s not talking about me. He’s talking about the guy I’m named for who’s Captain Render Crayton, who was shot down in Vietnam as a Naval pilot in 1965, or ’66 actually. I think it was February of ’66. Before he was shot down, he had taught John McCain how to fly, and he survived the crash. He broke his shoulder in the crash. So he could not climb the ladder. This is the story I’ve always been told. He could not climb the ladder up to the evacuation helicopter. So they went back for one of those baskets that he could climb into, and when they came back with the basket they saw him being led away by the Vietcong. They knew he was alive, but they had no other indication that he was alive for over seven years, is I think what the number is.

So he was a POW in Vietnam for seven years. He spent three years in solitary confinement. He was in Son Tay prison. He was in Hanoi Hilton with McCain. There was a large release, in I think 1972, ’73 time frame where a lot of the POWs came back at the same time on a commercial airline plane. There was a big press coverage thing.

Render had gotten married six months before he had gotten shot down, and Patsy had stayed faithful and loyal, and believing that he was alive. He was, and he came back. They had a son, and Render stayed in the Navy, and was head of Naval activities in Rota, Spain where I went to visit him when I was a teenager.

Scott Glovsky:

How did you become named after him?

Render Freeman:

When I was born in May of ’67, we had not heard from him. My parents had not heard from him, and my father had grown up with him in Lagrange, Georgia. They were very close friends. Render’s mother, Mary Jane Crayton, was a central figure in my father’s life, sort of a personality that shaked him. So to honor Render, when I was born my parents decided to name me for him.

My family name is in fact Freeman. It had this sort of, somehow that didn’t dawn on me until about five years ago that this, there was the poetry of Render Crayton Freeman was my name, and it was sort of a prayer that he would come home, and he did.

Scott Glovsky:

What a story. We often get requests for advice for young lawyers. What advice do you have for young lawyers out there?

Render Freeman:

I’m really enjoying working with young lawyers. I have a number of opportunities in my life right now where I work with younger lawyers. I would just, my advice is to have an insatiable appetite for learning, and to open yourself to all sorts of avenues of learning. That there, and it’s not just things that are explicitly for trial.

I mean, for example, psychodrama is nothing. I mean it was not created for lawyers, but it’s an incredible tool that we can learn from. Psychology books that are out there, I’m a big fan of Johnathan Haidt, the author of The Righteous Mind or The Happiness Hypothesis. These books are written purely for people that are interested in psychologists, or psychology, not for lawyers in particular.

To have an insatiable appetite for learning, and to pursue that, and to stay on it, and to chase what’s interesting to you and figure out how to apply it in your cases.

Scott Glovsky:

What would you like your tombstone to say?

Render Freeman:

My tombstone? Oh God. Oh man. Well, I’m not sure I want a tombstone. When my father died, he does have a tombstone. It doesn’t say anything on it. It just says he’s, it just says his name and dates of birth and death, but he’s buried with his parents in LaGrange. He was cremated and gave some of his ashes to each of his children to scatter where they wanted to scatter them.

So, I think that’s what I’ll do. I’m hopeful that some ashes, if my children are listening to this at some point that I’m gone, that they will scatter some of my ashes at the Thunderhead Ranch in Dubois. There’d be a few other special places.

Scott Glovsky:

Well, thank you so much for spending time with me and sharing with us your wonderful story.

Render Freeman:

I’m privileged to have been asked Scott. Thank you very much for doing these, ’cause I think they’re very helpful. A lot of people, including me, really enjoy them.

Scott Glovsky:

I thank you brother.

Render Freeman:

Alright.

Scott Glovsky:

Thank you for joining us today for Trial Lawyer Talk. If you like the show, I’d really appreciate if you could give us a good review on iTunes, and I’d love to get your feedback. You can reach me at www.scottglovsky.com. That’s S-C-O-T-T G-L-O-V-S-K-Y dot com, and I’d love to hear your feedback.

You can also check out the book that I published called Fighting Health Insurance Denials, A Primer for Lawyers that’s on Amazon. I put the book together based on 20 years of suing health insurance companies for denying medical care to people, and it provides a general outline of how to fight health insurance denials.

Have a great week, and we’ll talk to you in the next episode.