Free Impact by Stephen Greenleaf Page A

his side, Martha stirs, turns a page of Aviation Week , squirms to a more comfortable position, and reads on, oblivious to both her companion and her distance from the ground. Martha has no fear of abstractions. He doubts that she ever anticipates disaster, doubts that she sees a crucial distinction between mortality and its converse, doubts that she would react visibly if the airplane began to pitch and yaw and plunge toward the sea that very second. He shakes his head. Robots have their advantages, but it would be nice if this one would hint a bit of frailty. Like modesty and a file full of recipes, frailty was an endearing trait in a woman. Too bad they all had fallen out of favor.
    As Hawthorne observes her covertly, Martha closes the magazine and plucks a larger document out of her briefcase. It is a helicopter flight manual, and it will be the chief exhibit in one of their most difficult lawsuits.
    Because their clients in the case are neither dead nor obviously injured, they lack reliable damage claims. Whiplash and headache, back trouble and blurred vision—although their lives have been permanently diminished by the crash, their complaints are of the type considered risky in the business, of uncertain value compared to overt maladies. He will be lucky if he gets them a hundred thousand each. Had they lost an arm or leg, he could get them a million.
    The helicopter matter is interesting from another angle. Had the chopper gone down in California he would not have taken the case, but because the crash was in Alaska and Alaska law applied, he could afford the price of admission. Alone among the fifty states, Alaska allows successful personal-injury plaintiffs to recover attorneys’ fees, a potential gold mine given precise record-keeping and a judge who was formerly a trial lawyer. Alaska also allows recovery of damages for pre-impact terror, and Hawthorne has already hired a psychologist who, with the help of sound effects, Equity actors, a Hollywood set designer, and a cassette of 8mm videotape, has re-created the moments before impact in such chilling detail that before Hawthorne is through with them, the jury will think they went down in the damn thing.
    But as always, there are problems. The shuttle service that owned the helicopter is broke, and its insurance carrier is claiming a defect in coverage because of a late premium. The pilot, whose blood tested .08 alcohol immediately after the incident, has no money either, so there is only one source of funds to pay the victims—the company that built the chopper.
    Hawthorne is trying to blame the amphibious skids—the balloon landing gear that were attached to the helicopter when it crashed, causing it to bounce and somersault after it hit the ground, aggravating the situation tenfold. Hawthorne’s experts will say the bounce, and not the initial impact, was the proximate cause of the injuries; the manufacturer’s experts will say the opposite. He has to establish that the manufacturer should have made it mandatory that the inflatable skids be used only over water.
    Proof of an inadequate warning will be in the manuals and service bulletins circulated to purchasers of the particular model—in the hundreds of thousands of pieces of paper the manufacturer has turned over to Hawthorne during the discovery phase of the case, documents Hawthorne’s legal assistants are at this moment pawing through in the bowels of his office—indexing, summarizing, computerizing, microfilming—preparing to present the relevant ones at trial. Ironically, if they nail the proof in the documents, there will be no trial. The company will settle so it will not risk alerting other customers to the problem with the skids and spawning additional lawsuits. Hawthorne has decided to take $150,000 per plaintiff if it is offered, but no less than twice that once the trial begins.
    He wonders if it is a function of his age or his cash flow that he is hoping so