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Date:         Tue, 21 Jul 1992 06:27:17 -0500
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From:         "Chuck Payne -- Quad/Tech S&R -- Ext. 7976"
              <CPAYNE@CORP.QGRAPH.COM>
Subject:      Ethical ramifications of neck injury...
Comments: To: uga.cc.uga.edu!ETHICS-L@POLYVM.BITNET

Hello,

>I believe that one's responsibilty as a human being takes precedence over
>the adversarial nature of legal proceedings.  Consequently, the defense
>attorney must inform the plaintiff of the nature of his injuries.

I'd agree that this is probably the correct ethical course of action.  Unfort-
unately, many issues related to lawyers and ethics are defined by law.  (I'm
not a lawyer myself, nor do I play one one TV.  :-)  )  In many cases where
there is an ethical conundrum like this one, they have no choice.  In this
case, since the attorney was hired by the defense, he may have no choice but
to withold the evidence from the plaintiff.

I'd be the last one to advocate taking the position that the law should take
the place of morality and ethics.  And I believe it is wrong to hide behind
the law as an excuse for unethical or immoral actions.  But for a lawyer,
disobeying the laws regarding legal ethics can result in serious consequences,
including being disbarred (good bye career, hello unemployment), fines, or
even jail time.  These possibilities make for strong motivation in deciding
which course of action to take.

>I have no knowledge of legal proceedings.  However, if plaintiff settles his
>court case and the defense attorney does not inform him of the true nature
>of his injuries, plaintiff dies, and his estate discovers that the true
>nature of his injuries could have been determined by the tests you are in
>possesion of, then either you were negligent in your analysis or else were
>aware of the situation and took no action, and it would seem either would be
>grounds for an additional suit.

The same laws which would require the lawyer to keep quiet would also protect
him from the liability, I would guess.  It doesn't seem right for the law to
say, "Say something and go to jail, keep quiet and be sued."  From an ethical
standpoint, I don't believe it's right to justify actions based on laws (as I
said above), but from a legal standpoint, it's all there is.  If it were
possible for a losing litigant to sue the lawyer from the other side in the
case for witholding information, there wouldn't be many lawyers left out
there (criminal cases excluded, where the prosecution is required by law to
make all evidence available to the defendant).

>But I'm a human being, not a lawyer...   :-)

Like I said before, I think that as a human being, the lawyer should probably
say something.  But it may not be possible for him, because so much of legal
ethics is defined by the law.  This doesn't make it right, but it would be
something that the lawyer would have to live with...

Chuck
--/--
===========================================================================
Charles D. Payne    <cpayne@corp.qgraph.com>     Quad/Tech International
Safety Engineer                                  Div. of Quad/Graphics Inc.
Sussex, Wisconsin, USA             "Quad/Tech...In Control of Web Printing"
===========================================================================
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