1. Description
Should Arm & Hammer have to pay when a man’s stomach explodes after ingesting baking soda? What about a doctor who botches a skin graft operation? This week, we look at two wild lawsuits, one of which set the standard for how we measure harm when someone breaches a contract.
2. Topics
3. Additional Resources
4. Merchandise/Support the Show
5. Contact Us/Follow Us/Rate/Subscribe
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6. Credits
1. Description
Should Arm & Hammer have to pay when a man’s stomach explodes after ingesting baking soda? What about a doctor who botches a skin graft operation? This week, we look at two wild lawsuits, one of which set the standard for how we measure harm when someone breaches a contract.
2. Topics
3. Additional Resources
4. Merchandise/Support the Show
5. Contact Us/Follow Us/Rate/Subscribe
New episodes every week!
Listen, rate, follow, and subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts!
Follow us:
6. Credits
[00:00:00] Jeff: This week, why you should read that warning label on the baking soda, and just what caused a boy to end up with a hairy hand? Welcome to Subpar Talks.
Hey everybody. Welcome to another episode of Subpar Talks, where we have conversations about everything. I'm Jeff.
[00:00:33] Chris: And I'm Chris.
[00:00:34] Jeff: Thank you so much for joining us for another episode here. We've got another good topic to get to you this week. If you haven't done so, make sure you listen to last week's show. Oh my goodness. You can hear about Bathroom Larry and learn what you should probably not do in a Minneapolis airport bathroom. Um, so make sure you give that a listen.
[00:00:54] Chris: Or any bathroom.
[00:00:55] Jeff: Well, yeah, besides go to the bathroom, probably shouldn't do much else. If you haven't done so you might wanna check out bloopers from episode one, we decided to put together some bloopers that we, um, compiled after episode one.
And so we put that up. We think you'll enjoy it. It's about five minutes long. And you might wanna also go back to episode zero. That's where we give just a little bit of background on us regarding what you can expect from this show on a week to week basis. So you'll learn just a little bit more about what we're doing here at Subpar Talks.
And before we get into this week's episode, we have our typical disclaimer. Our tagline is conversations about everything. So there's really nothing off the table. We will talk about a lot of different topics on this show. And some of those, maybe a lot of those, are gonna be touchy subjects, hot button issues, but we're going to inject humor into those.
And if you don't think that humor and touchy subjects can go along with each other, then maybe this is not your show. And that's OK, to each, uh, his and her own. So you can go on about your way. That's fine, no hard feelings, but for the rest of you, here we go. Buckle up, saddle up, whatever, get ready.
We've got two pretty crazy court cases, uh, to sift through today. So, I don't know if I said this in episode one. I probably did, but I am an attorney, although I have not practiced in quite a long time. So, I did go to law school and I have read, thousands, literally of cases. And so I think visiting court cases from time to time will be something that we do on this show because there's so many interesting ones out there, and I'm not gonna pick any boring cases.
Nobody wants to hear about those. So we've got two pretty crazy ones today. I will get to those. Chris and I are big Seinfeld fans. And I just have to let you know here that there are two Seinfeld references coming up in today's episode. If you're a fan of the show, you might wanna, uh, be listening for that.
Chris, I fully expect you to get these and chime in for sure once you get them.
[00:03:21] Chris: Oh, I'll jump right on it.
[00:03:22] Jeff: Yeah, OK. We're gonna go back to 1979. Uh, what's going on in 1979? The country's pretty shitty, I think. Inflation.
[00:03:34] Chris: Nothing very good.
[00:03:35] Jeff: Yeah. Gas shortage. Were we done with the energy crisis yet? Or was that still going on?
[00:03:40] Chris: Uh, it was still going on. You got hostages in Iran.
[00:03:43] Jeff: Yeah.
[00:03:44] Chris: High inflation, high unemployment
[00:03:48] Jeff: Disco. Yeah. Wild hair. Upstairs and down. Lots of bushes. Afros, so much hair. Uh, so anyway, that's our time period here in 1979. Let's talk about a guy named William Graves. He was 52 at the time this happened and he was on vacation at his, uh, summer home in Martha's Vineyard.
So . I've got a home, thankfully, but I never have to put an adjective in front of it. Like, it's a home. Like that's it.
[00:04:28] Chris: It's your everyday home.
[00:04:29] Jeff: Right. This is, I don't have a seasonal home, but this guy had a summer home in Martha's Vineyard, and he is with his wife in this, uh, summer home one night. And let me tell you what old William had here.
He had a bowl of chili. He had two martinis. And a glass of wine. Now, I'm no connoisseur of wine or food or anything like that, but can we all agree that those don't go together? Chili...
[00:05:02] Chris: Interesting combination.
[00:05:03] Jeff: Yeah, chili and martinis, or even chili and wine. So anyway, he eats a big bowl of chili, downs his two martinis, his glass of wine, and he goes to bed. And he wakes up in the middle of the night, and his stomach is hurting. He's got indigestion, which that's what chilly will do to you, right? Like...
[00:05:23] Chris: Big surprise.
[00:05:24] Jeff: Yeah, I know. Like somebody offers me a bowl of chili now, like I gotta think long and hard. Do I wanna, do I want to eat it? Is it gonna be worth what I'm gonna deal with in a few hours? Probably not, but he went ahead and ate all that, drank all that, his stomach is hurting, so he gets up, he's got indigestion.
He's looking for Tums or some kind of antacid and he can't find any. And then he remembered when he was little and he had an upset stomach, his mother would put some Arm & Hammer baking soda in a glass of water and he would drink it. So he thought, OK, that's what I'll do. So he went looking in the kitchen for some Arm & Hammer baking soda and lo and behold, he found some.
So he just poured some in a glass, and he takes several swallows. Before he could even put the glass back on the counter, he had an incredible pain in his stomach. He collapsed to the floor, screamed out in pain, crying. His wife comes in there. She calls an ambulance. They rush him to the ER. So they start doing tests on him.
What the hell is wrong with this guy? And he is diagnosed with a tear in his upper gastrointestinal tract. In layman's terms, that's a ruptured stomach. So he tore his stomach up.
[00:06:54] Chris: Wow.
[00:06:54] Jeff: Yeah. OK. So the surgeon goes to the wife and he's like, we gotta operate now. She said no, I want to go to Boston. I guess she felt more comfortable at the hospital or a hospital there in Boston or whatever. And he was like, no, this has gotta happen now. Um, he told her that if we don't treat it, there's a 90% fatality rate if you have a ruptured stomach and it's not treated. So this is dire, we gotta operate right now. So she's like, OK. Go ahead.
So they get in there. It turns out the tear is two and a half inches long. So this is a significant tear. It was so large that the contents of his stomach, this is disgusting. The chili was enough, disgusting enough going down. But now it's coming out. It's seeping out into his abdominal cavity and I'm assuming the wine and the martinis.
And that's a major risk for infection. Like food is not supposed to end up outside the stomach.
[00:07:58] Chris: That's really not supposed to happen.
[00:08:00] Jeff: No, it's not, not at all. So this was so bad that the surgeon initially considered just removing the entire stomach. It was like, this is in such bad shape, I just need to rip this thing out right now and sew the guy back up.
But he ultimately decided that, OK, I'm gonna repair the stomach. I think I can repair it. And that's what he did. He sewed the guy back up. The surgeon also noted that he found an ulcer in an area around the tear, which he found unusual because this was in his upper gastrointestinal tract. Usually ulcers are lower.
So he made that notation on his, um, on his chart. William Graves here had complications following this surgery. He, uh, had to have six more operations over the course...,
[00:08:59] Chris: Dang...
[00:08:59] Jeff: Yeah, over the course of like the next four years, just to help stabilize this whole thing. So, he's not doing well. Can we say that? Is that safe to say, he's not in good shape?
[00:09:11] Chris: I bet he's second guessing that chili.
[00:09:13] Jeff: Yeah, absolutely. So he's going on about his life as best he can, I suppose, with his repaired stomach. And he's sitting at home one night and he gets a call from a friend. And his friend says, Hey, I'm watching the news. They're talking about a guy in Washington, DC who drank some Arm & Hammer baking soda in water and his stomach ruptured right after it.
He's like, that's what happened to you. So, he said, you need to check out this news story. So William Graves goes running to the news. For those of you, like under what, 30, you might not realize how things used to be, but if you didn't catch something on TV, when it aired, you were pretty much done. Like you're not, you're probably not gonna see that again.
And that was especially the case with a news story. Like, if you don't get it, you're not gonna get it. There was no internet, you know, people aren't typically recording news programs or whatever, so he wasn't gonna see it. So he was like, I gotta find out more about this. This is exactly what happened to me.
So he goes to the news station and he asks them for a copy and they give it to him. They give him a videotape and he watches it and he's like, OK, something's going on here. This guy drank Arm & Hammer baking soda, his stomach ruptured. I drank Arm & Hammer baking soda, my stomach ruptured. I wanna find out more about this.
So he goes and consults an attorney and he ends up filing a lawsuit. OK. So, immediately Arm & Hammer says well, it's too late to file a claim. The statute of limitations has already run. And in case anybody out there doesn't know, the statute of limitations is, it's just a generic term, but you have only so long to bring a case whether it's a criminal case or a civil case.
Really the only exception to that is a murder case. I think some states now have gotten rid of the statute of limitations for rape or sexual assault. But by and large, every single thing is gonna have a statute of limitations on it, whether it's a criminal case or a civil case. Especially in a civil case like this, like typically it's like two years that you have to bring a claim.
And after that, you're just shit outta luck. It doesn't matter how much you've been harmed or whatever. Like, that's it. But anyway, he appeals that decision, cuz the judge initially says, yeah, statute of limitations has run. That's it. He appeals that decision. And the issue initially with the court of appeals, this was in New Jersey, they said he didn't necessarily know exactly what might have caused his stomach to rupture. And that is generally one of the exceptions with the statute of limitations. If you have a legitimate complaint, but you had no reason to know that what you're complaining about is what caused your injury, then you might have a loophole there with the statute of limitations and you can still bring your, your case.
So that's what ultimately the court ruled is, OK, he can go ahead with his case. In fact, he had, he had seen like 12 different doctors all through these surgeries and none of them had made that connection. Uh, in fact, the initial surgeon put on there that he had ingested baking soda right before, but nobody ever made the connection that, oh, could that be the culprit here that caused his stomach to, to rupture.
So anyway, the court allows him to, to bring the case. So, they go to trial. All right. In trial, of course they did a lot of discovery. Right. And so they get all this documentation from Arm & Hammer and it turns out there were a lot of consumers who had contacted Arm & Hammer who had said they had had stomach discomfort after ingesting the baking soda.
There was one letter in 1983 from a woman who had, I feel bad for laughing, but she had holes in her intestines for 10 years.
[00:13:46] Chris: Whoa.
[00:13:47] Jeff: And she had been hospitalized on several occasions. And so she was one, I mean I don't know what her letter said. It just informed her of her condition. I don't know if she was looking for money or what, but it was legitimate and Arm & Hammer responded, "We're very sorry to learn that you believe Arm & Hammer baking soda to be the cause of the medical problems you've been experiencing since 1973. We would like to assure you that the Food and Drug Administration panel on over -the- counter drugs recognizes baking soda as a safe and effective antacid, taking as directed one half teaspoon of baking soda in one half glass of water, it alleviates heartburn, sour, stomach, and acid indigestion. Baking soda neutralizes acids in the digestive system which cause discomfort."
OK. Let me ask you, have you ever taken baking soda as an antacid?
[00:14:45] Chris: No, I mean, I've heard of it, but I've not ever done it.
[00:14:49] Jeff: I have never, I'd never heard of it. I've never done it. I'd never heard of it until I became aware of this case. I didn't even know that that was a thing. And one of the judges in this case, uh, on one of the appeals court judges in New Jersey said this is a really weird case.
I'm paraphrasing what he said, but it's a really weird case because Arm & Hammer baking soda has been around since the 1840s, and it's used for all sorts of shit. Right? Like people use it to brush their teeth. They use it to get rid of odors. They put it in their fridge, like it's... so it's been around for so long.
And therefore people just assume OK, it must be safe because it's been around for so long. Certainly, if there was a problem with it, it would've been brought to our attention before. So everybody here is just assuming that it's safe. There was never a proper dosage determined. Like they never did any studies to find out, OK, what's the proper dosage. Like they didn't, not like a typical, typical medicine, like, OK, if you're under 12, you need this. If you're an adult, it's OK for this or whatever. They never had any type of dosage done. They never even had any kind of a warning on the product until 1982.
[00:16:11] Chris: So the FDA had acknowledged that this was a good solution, a good treatment, but didn't have a dosage?
[00:16:20] Jeff: According to Arm & Hammer, the FDA had, the panel had said it was, uh, good for, you know, safe and effective and acid. And then yeah, uh, supposedly that happened in 1972. Now I don't know what that process is. I would think it's the FDA. I would hope right, that they did some kind of rigorous testing, but anyway, it got approved in 1972.
In 1982, Arm & Hammer did put a warning label on the box, but all it said was not to be used on a "overly full stomach". That was it. So, that's really vague and it puzzles me that, so certainly that had to get by attorneys, right. Like, if they're putting, if they're considering putting a warning label on a box...
[00:17:12] Chris: Absolutely.
[00:17:13] Jeff: That people are gonna use, that's gonna have to go through attorneys. How an attorney could sign off on such vague language is beyond me, but they did. So that was all that was on there as far as a warning goes. So here's what the jury determined. They had to first determine, did he actually drink the, drink the, the water that had the baking soda in it.
And there was no doubt about that. Like that wasn't even in dispute. The jury found that there was a failure to warn. OK. Let me ask you before I get to the rest of this, who do you think should win here? You think William Graves with his exploded stomach, or Arm & Hammer?
[00:17:57] Chris: Well, so one of the things that I'm thinking here, and this, this really goes along with, you know, changing attitudes I guess, is people used to do a lot of things that may or may not have been an approved use, but yes it worked and it was just kind of, you know, common remedies of different things. And I have absolutely heard that about using baking soda for that purpose. No, I've never done it, but honestly, if I were in that situation and I didn't have the, I didn't have any medicine and I knew that that was a, a thing, then I probably would've done it and not thought anything about it. Um, and especially if, you know, Arm & Hammer is not the, I guess this is the thing too, Arm & Hammer is not marketing their product for that purpose.
[00:18:49] Jeff: Right.
[00:18:49] Chris: So then, you know, if you're using it for an unapproved purpose, I mean, it's not a poison, so it's not like they need to label it like that.
[00:19:00] Jeff: Yeah.
[00:19:00] Chris: But...
[00:19:02] Jeff: I, I feel like, yeah, I'm the same way. Like he had no inclination that anything like this could happen because, it's kind of like what that judge was saying, like, he had done it. Like, his mother had given this to him when he was little, and I'm sure her mother gave it to her when she was little, and on down the line. Yeah. The jury determined that there was a failure to warn. So, in other words, they should have had a better warning label on the box.
But, um, during the trial, Arm & Hammer, of course, cross-examined William Graves here. And the jury ultimately determined that if they had had a warning on the box, a sufficient warning, it wouldn't have mattered anyway. And the reason they determined that was that the defense attorney for Arm & Hammer got William Graves to admit that he was a smoker.
And so, if you're a smoker, clearly you're aware of the warning labels on a cigarette package, right. And yeah, he was.
[00:20:10] Chris: Yeah.
[00:20:10] Jeff: And they said, well, that never deterred you from smoking. So why would this have deterred you from drinking the baking soda? And the jury ultimately determined that, well, it wouldn't have, cuz he clearly doesn't pay attention to warning labels.
It also came out that he had a smoker's cough. Like people testified that he had smoker's cough. Like evidently he was a big smoker. They said he got winded when he climbed stairs. So there was a lot of evidence that he's, uh, you know, puffing on cigarettes pretty regularly.
[00:20:40] Chris: Right.
[00:20:41] Jeff: So anyway, um, he doesn't get any damages.
They don't award him any money, but they do find Arm & Hammer at fault for not having a sufficient warning label. Um, because they ultimately decided that the baking soda was not a substantial contributing factor to the stomach rupture. And so New Jersey law said there would have to be a, a substantial contributing factor here, not just a factor in his stomach rupturing.
And they determined that no, it was not substantial enough to warrant, Arm & Hammer having to pay for damages. So there you go. That is the case of the exploding stomach.
[00:21:26] Chris: You know, I know that what cases sound like to those of us who were not part of a jury, um, you know, they can hear all kinds of evidence and that, that just may not become public.
Um, that it's, that's not widely known. But I just, I don't know. I mean, if that happened with someone else and... how is eating chili? I, so here's another thing. I mean, you know, did he have any kind of prior conditions?
[00:22:03] Jeff: Yeah.
[00:22:03] Chris: But like how is eating chili and drinking the wine, martinis, whatever, like that going to cause that to happen.
I mean, you would think that...
[00:22:12] Jeff: Yeah.
[00:22:12] Chris: OK, clearly that, you know, Arm & Hammer baking soda is going to release a gas when you ingest it. So gas is pressure and then it ruptures. I, I just have a hard time with, with thinking that that's logical, that it didn't have something to do with it.
[00:22:35] Jeff: Something to do with it. I'm the same way. And it amazes me. I know hindsight's 20/20, right. But, it amazes me that so many doctors saw this notation from that original surgeon that noted clearly in there, patient ingested Arm & Hammer baking soda, and then complained of stomach pain. Like, you would think that somebody would see that and make that type of connection. And, and they never did.
[00:23:03] Chris: Exactly.
[00:23:04] Jeff: Yeah, it's bizarre.
[00:23:05] Chris: That's, that's really strange. And, and yeah, I don't really see that. And I mean, well, and then you gotta think, so, I haven't, I haven't looked at a, a box of baking soda to see what kind of warning is on it, but what kind of warning would you put on it? I mean, what's gonna make that OK?
[00:23:24] Jeff: Uh, so, so let me read what they have now. And this is a result of this case. So they were kind of forced in a way to update it. Now it reads, if you look at an Arm & Hammer, uh, box, it says now, uh, in all caps, "STOMACH WARNING: TO AVOID SERIOUS INJURY DO NOT TAKE UNTIL POWDER IS COMPLETELY DISSOLVED. IT IS VERY IMPORTANT NOT TO TAKE THIS PRODUCT WHEN OVERLY FULL FROM FOOD OR DRINK.". And then, that's when the caps are done. Next sentence says, "Consult a doctor if severe stomach pain occurs after taking this product." So, they still have the overly full from food or drink. What's overly full?
[00:24:09] Chris: Right. I don't know..
[00:24:10] Jeff: Like how do you, like, I, I just can't believe that attorneys have signed off on that, but evidently there haven't been any other court cases, even though they set a bunch of consumers had complained before. Yeah.
[00:24:22] Chris: That's, that's shocking. Well, I know what not to do now.
[00:24:27] Jeff: Exactly. Stick to Tums or whatever. Maybe we can get Tums. Tums, if you wanna pay us, we'll, we'll we'll tell you, or we'll tell everybody to stay away from Arm & Hammer baking soda and, and take the Tums. There you go. So this is interesting. I didn't know this. William Graves was the Editor-In-Chief of National Geographic.
[00:24:51] Chris: Oh, yeah?
[00:24:52] Jeff: He got that position in 1990, National Geographic magazine. Yeah, uh, before that he was a writer with him all the way back to, I think like the 1950s is when he started. And...
[00:25:03] Chris: Wow.
[00:25:04] Jeff: Have you perused National Geographic in your past, or currently?
[00:25:10] Chris: Uh, very little. I usually see the massive stacks of them and move on.
[00:25:18] Jeff: Yeah, just move on. And you just read the articles in it, right?
[00:25:22] Chris: Right.
[00:25:24] Jeff: William Graves, if you're wondering what happened to him, he died in 2004 of a stroke in a town in Pennsylvania. I don't know how to say it. It's L-I-T-I-T-Z, which could be "La Tits"?.
[00:25:40] Chris: Sounds about right.
[00:25:42] Jeff: Probably "Litits", but I'm really hoping it's "La Tits". In fact, I'm gonna call it "La Tits". He died in 2004 in "La Tits", Pennsylvania. So that's the exploding stomach case
[00:25:56] Chris: Smoker dying from a stroke. Never heard of one like that.
[00:25:59] Jeff: Bizarre, right?
[00:26:00] Chris: Right.
[00:26:01] Jeff: Bizarre. Actually the way they were describing him in the early 80s in that court case, I'm surprised he made it to 2004.
[00:26:07] Chris: Yeah. That's pretty good.
[00:26:09] Jeff: Getting winded walking upstairs.
[00:26:11] Chris: Yeah.
[00:26:12] Jeff: Maybe he quit. I don't know.
OK. Next case. Um, now we're going all the way back to 1914. Holy hell. What was going on then? World War I started in 1914.
[00:26:29] Chris: Yeah.
[00:26:29] Jeff: I feel like things are about to get bad. I mean, just aside from the great war . This seems like a bad time to be alive.
[00:26:38] Chris: People were barely driving.
[00:26:40] Jeff: Yeah. Yeah. There's gonna be horses all over. There's still shit in the road.
[00:26:44] Chris: Yeah.
[00:26:45] Jeff: Yeah. Things are muddy. People stink.
[00:26:49] Chris: Yeah. Think they were hairy in the 70s, it's even worse back then.
[00:26:56] Jeff: Right. They didn't have near the hygiene.
[00:27:00] Chris: Didn't even have a safety razor back then.
[00:27:02] Jeff: Yeah. Hygiene was terrible in the 70s. Think back to then, in the 19-teens. There just had to be a permanent stench in the air.
[00:27:10] Chris: Yeah. I don't think hygiene had been invented yet.
[00:27:13] Jeff: But the crazy thing is they didn't even know it. Like, they thought that was normal.
[00:27:17] Chris: Right?
[00:27:18] Jeff: Yeah, that's just how people smell. You just occasionally step in horse shit in the street. That's just, that's the breaks.
[00:27:25] Chris: This is life.
[00:27:27] Jeff: Yeah. All right. So let's talk about a kid at the time. He was 10 years old, named George Hawkins. This is in Berlin, New Hampshire. Could you locate Berlin, New Hampshire on a map?
[00:27:41] Chris: I can locate New Hampshire. Not Berlin.
[00:27:44] Jeff: I couldn't either. I know where New Hampshire is. Never heard of Berlin New Hampshire.
[00:27:49] Chris: Well, I know it's small enough. I could get in the vicinity pretty quick.
[00:27:53] Jeff: Yeah, no kidding. All right. So one night, uh, in fact this was March 1st, so I don't think World War I had started yet, but whatever. There was a bad storm. And, um, I, I'm unclear on, and I couldn't find exactly how this happened, but there were two electrical wires that became crossed on a light switch. So I don't know if wind was blowing in, but anyway, there was a bad storm.
These wires become crossed. George wakes up in the morning and his dad Charles tells him to go downstairs and to start a fire. OK, cuz this is early March, New Hampshire. It's gonna be chilly. Let's get a fire going. OK. So, it's dark and he reaches up, George does, to turn on a light over the stove and it sparked and it burned his right hand.
OK. So, he's trying to pull this cord to, to turn on the light and, and it sparks and it, it burns his hand. All right. So they call a doctor. A doctor comes out, back when doctors would, you know, come to your house, it's a house call, and the doctor treats him as best as he can. But the hand is, it's in bad shape.
He had a nurse that came like the next week and would change the bandages and, and all that stuff. A doctor would later testify that this was a third degree burn. So he put a label on it.
[00:29:20] Chris: Wow.
[00:29:20] Jeff: Third degree burn. Yeah. Um, so Charles, the dad, took George to Montreal to consult with a doctor there about what to do. Like, is there anything we can do, um, for his hand. Because there was scarring on his palm, the hand was contracted, he didn't have full use of it. So he's asking this doctor, I don't know how they found out about a doctor in Montreal, I don't know why they went all the way to Montreal, but this doctor there said there's really nothing that that can be done.
It's an, just an unfortunate thing. He's gonna have to live with it. Another doctor later testified that the damage was more than superficial. So kind of what the other doctor testified to, said there was structural damage that was affecting the ligaments, the muscles, and the bones. A neighbor would later testify that George's hand was "decidedly repulsive".
That's gotta make him feel good.
[00:30:20] Chris: That's what you want to hear.
[00:30:22] Jeff: Right. You're sitting there just, you know, in court and your neighbor's up there on the stand talking about our repulsive your hand is. As George aged, his hand got worse. It became more contracted, and he was losing more and more use of.
So, that brings us to Dr. McGee. Dr. McGee had served in the Army. He was in the Army during World War I. He was not overseas though. He was at an Army base in New Jersey, where they were treating, uh, troops who had been wounded in the war. And the doctor observed, um, some other doctors there performing skin grafts. So, George and his dad go see Dr. McGee in late 1921. And there's like, is there anything we can do? We had another doctor tell us years ago, there was nothing that could be done. Um, is there anything you can do? And, uh, they inquired about, you know, is there possible operation here? And Dr. McGee said he could do it. He could perform a skin graft.
And when he was done, he would give George a "a 100% good hand". Those were his exact words. So in other words, I'll do this surgery and when you're done with it, you're gonna have a 100% completely good hand. Good as new. OK. So this involved three operations. The first one was to remove the scar. So he's gotta remove the scar from the palm.
The second operation was to actually graft the skin. So, you've gotta find a place where you're gonna graft the skin from. And I don't, I know nothing about skin grafting other than what I've read in this case, but I don't know if this is still a thing. Maybe it is, maybe it's not, but he had to attach the hand to George's chest.
Like he had to pick somewhere on the body to attach the hand, so that the skin from that area of the body would join the hand, or the skin on the hand. And so he attached it to George's chest. And so for a period of several weeks, poor George had to walk around with, with his hand stuck to his chest. And then the third operation is, the doctor's gonna detach the hand from the chest.
Do you think this went well?
[00:32:57] Chris: I'm sensing a problem.
[00:33:00] Jeff: You have a good sense.
[00:33:02] Chris: Well, I've never heard of doing a skin graft that way, so I imagine there's a reason it doesn't happen like that anymore.
[00:33:08] Jeff: Well, OK. Well maybe you know more about it than I do, cuz I, I don't, I, I know next to nothing about it. But, evidently that's what they did back in 1921 or 22, I think is when the surgery actually happened.
So, when the third surgery was done, he detaches the hand from the chest. The hand had excessive skin. So, there's a lot of loose skin on this hand, mostly fatty tissue, and get this, there was hair on the palm. Yeah. Which, can you imagine, like that's the most cliche joke ever about excessive masturbation. Like you've got a hairy hand, you've got hairy palms. Poor George actually had a hairy palm.
So, they're like you promised us a 100% good hand and now I have a fat, hairy hand. So, you need to pay. So, they sued the doctor. And so they go to trial. And regarding the excess skin on the hand, like they had to tackle that first. Like, is this normal? Is somebody supposed to have all this excess skin on the hand?
The doctor testified, Dr. McGee, he said it is preferable to have too much skin rather than too little, because there is always shrinkage after the operation. So...
[00:34:38] Chris: There's your Seinfeld reference.
[00:34:39] Jeff: There you go. There's Seinfeld reference number one.
[00:34:41] Chris: Shrinkage.
[00:34:42] Jeff: So, I've never heard of shrinkage of...
[00:34:44] Chris: Not in the hand.
[00:34:46] Jeff: Not in the hand. Even with a hairy palm. There's no shrinkage of the hand. But, evidently it's better to have too much skin than too little, because you don't want too little because then it would go on, like your skin would crack. Like there's not enough skin there.
[00:35:08] Chris: Yeah. You couldn't move it right. But I mean, too much isn't good. That's not good either.
[00:35:14] Jeff: Yeah. So, this poor kid was promised a 100% good, hairy, uh, hand. And now he's got a, a fat, hairy hand. And so, he testifies at trial, of course. And he says to the jury, when he saw the hand, it looks so bad that he just asked the doctor to cut it off.
[00:35:36] Chris: Whoa.
[00:35:37] Jeff: It's like, I cannot possibly live with this. Look at it, just cut it off and I'll be done.
[00:35:44] Chris: Look at it!.
[00:35:45] Jeff: Yeah, I'll be done with it. It's a fat, hairy hand. That's not what I thought I was getting here. Um, he testified that the hand would bleed several times and become raw when he was doing work. So, any kind of manual labor, and this is disgusting and I don't even know what it is, but he said a yellow matter would run out of it.
[00:36:06] Chris: Oh, that's, that is far less than a hundred percent.
[00:36:14] Jeff: That's worse than the chili leaking out of the stomach.
[00:36:17] Chris: Yeah. Well, and I mean, wouldn't you think, I mean, skin is skin, isn't it? At least on the outside of your body. I mean, I know that like, you know, skin inside your mouth, nose, whatever. That's different. But, couldn't your, your chest skin hold up to the same thing that your hands can?
[00:36:35] Jeff: Keep yellow matter inside.
[00:36:37] Chris: Yeah. I mean, imagine if that was leaking out of your chest.
[00:36:43] Jeff: You have bigger problems, I think. But anyway, this poor kid is, his hand's bleeding several times a day. So, he's gotta deal with that. Yellow shit's running out of it.
Um, he was teased, of course. Because kids are the meanest people in the world.
[00:36:58] Chris: Of course.
[00:36:59] Jeff: Yeah. Um, so he felt self-conscious about it. He eventually dropped out of school. Which, back then that was not that unusual. I mean, by this time he was 10 and in 1910. So he's, I mean, by the time the trial happened, he's in his early twenties. But, I think he dropped out of school like 16 or 17.
So that was not that unusual back then.
[00:37:23] Chris: Yeah.
[00:37:23] Jeff: And even in rural New Hampshire, which I'm assuming Berlin, New Hampshire is rural, um...
[00:37:28] Chris: Time to start farming.
[00:37:30] Jeff: Exactly. Yeah. Get your ass to work. You don't need, you don't need no more books.
[00:37:35] Chris: Yeah.
[00:37:36] Jeff: No more book learning.
[00:37:37] Chris: No education.
[00:37:38] Jeff: Right. So anyway, this is a famous case. If anybody goes to law school, you're gonna hear about this case. You're gonna read it. Um, it involves contract law and I'll get to that, um, here in just a second. Well, I'll go ahead and get to that now. This is why it's a famous case, and this is why every law student under the sun knows about this case. The issue was what damages George should be awarded.
And originally the jury awarded damages based on the difference between George's hand before the operation and the condition of his hand after the operation. And so they appealed that verdict cuz they got like, I mean it was next to nothing, it was like 500 bucks, is what the jury awarded. And so they appealed that decision and said, that's not the proper measure of damages.
The proper measure of damages is what was promised in the contract versus what you ended up with. He was promised a 100% good hand and he ended up with a fat and hairy hand. So, that's the proper measure of what he should be awarded. So that's why everybody who goes to law school knows about this case.
And, have you ever seen the movie the, The Paper Chase?
[00:39:04] Chris: I have not. No.
[00:39:06] Jeff: It's, uh, it is a really good movie. It is about, uh, it was a book before it was a movie. I think it's from 1973 or something like that. Um, it's about a guy who is in his first year at Harvard Law School and John Houseman...
[00:39:23] Chris: Yeah.
[00:39:23] Jeff: Is the professor in, uh, Professor Kingsfield, and this is the opening scene. So, the main character is asked by John Houseman to get up and talk about this case, and the poor guy had not even read the case. So, John Houseman rakes him over the coals about that. But anyway, it's, it's a good movie,
[00:39:47] Chris: John Houseman.
[00:39:47] Jeff: Yeah. That's your, yeah, that's your second. That's your second Seinfeld reference. Did you finish your assignment? Um, but yeah, it's a really good movie. I typically don't recommend movies that are that old because I find a lot of movies back then are just really weird and boring, but that's a good one. So, uh, yeah, check out The Paper Chase.
[00:40:10] Chris: That, that justification of damages completely makes sense because what you have to look at is, if I had known that, like, if you, if you promised me a 100% good hand, then obviously I want to do that compared to the deformity I have prior to that. But if you say, hey, there's a chance that it could be fat, hairy and leaking fluids then I might say, no, I think I'll stick with what I have.
[00:40:43] Jeff: Think I'll pass.
[00:40:44] Chris: So, yeah, I mean, that's the damage because I would have rather stayed with what I had. Now, you made it worse and that wasn't the promise.
[00:40:53] Jeff: Yes, that's absolutely right. So, be aware everybody out there, watch out what you promise to other people, because whatever they're expecting you to deliver, that's what's gonna be taken into account if it ever does end up in front of a jury.
Yeah. So there you go. That is the case of the exploding stomach and the fat and hairy hand. Let me ask you this, between William Graves with the hole in his stomach and George Hawkins with the fat Harry hand, uh, who would you rather be?
[00:41:30] Chris: Well, so do we know what, I mean, I know you said the, the, uh, George had, you know, multiple surgeries, but I just wonder what his life was like normally, I, I mean, you know, on a daily basis, I guess.
[00:41:45] Jeff: So there was testimony about that, um, because they were trying to determine, OK, what, what was actually the condition of his hand before this surgery? And, there were people testifying that, well, he was able to shoot a gun, but then other people testified that, well, he wasn't a very good shot.
People said, well, he was still able to do work on the farm. So it, basically, it came down to some people said he could still do basically anything he wanted. And other people said, no, he was limited. So, this is one of those things, whatever the jury's gonna buy, you know, I don't know.
[00:42:25] Chris: And then what about the stomach guy? Like what's his daily life like?
[00:42:30] Jeff: I, uh, I have no idea. So yeah, he had multiple surgeries, six in all with that issue. But, as far as his life afterward, I think, well, OK, he became Editor-In-Chief of National Geographic in 1990. So, that was after all this happened. So, I'm guessing other than being winded walking upstairs because he smoked and all that, I mean, I think he was living a pretty normal life. Uh, I remember reading that he was very conscious of his diet afterwards, which that makes sense.
[00:43:02] Chris: That's a good idea.
[00:43:04] Jeff: Yeah, exactly.
[00:43:05] Chris: I mean, I, I guess I would have to say, and, you know, maybe I could be totally wrong about this, but I think I'd have to want the stomach thing.
[00:43:15] Jeff: Yeah, I think I would too.
[00:43:16] Chris: Because, nobody's gonna know that.
[00:43:19] Jeff: Right.
[00:43:19] Chris: I mean, I may be uncomfortable. I may have, you know, daily issues. Yeah. He had multiple surgeries, all of that, but I can walk around and conduct a fairly normal life, I'm assuming, without people knowing that. And, um, that's not gonna be the case with a leaky, hairy, fatty hand.
[00:43:41] Jeff: No, it is not. That's gonna be readily noticeable. Yeah. So bizarre.
[00:43:49] Chris: I mean, you couldn't even just shake somebody's hand. I'd say no, thank you.
[00:43:53] Jeff: No.
[00:43:53] Chris: That's alright.
[00:43:54] Jeff: Yeah, it was, he was right handed. It was his right hand. So, yeah. I mean, even if he did stick it out to shake, who's gonna, who's gonna touch it. What is that?
[00:44:06] Chris: I don't think so. What is that?
[00:44:11] Jeff: Did they have fist bumps back in 1914? Like...
[00:44:15] Chris: No, we hadn't evolved to that level yet.
[00:44:18] Jeff: No, we hadn't. No, they hadn't even moved to high fives yet.
[00:44:22] Chris: No.
[00:44:23] Jeff: OK, so there you go. That is two crazy court cases and there will be more to follow, I can guarantee you, because there are plenty of good ones out there to talk about.
As we close here, we wanna invite you to go to our website. That is subpartalks.com. You can email us. There's a link there to email us. You can even leave us a voicemail. We always love hearing from listeners. So, you can choose either one of those, or both if you want to get in touch with us, let us know what's on your mind.
If you wanna suggest topics, uh, that you would like to hear us peruse later on in this, um, podcast, then absolutely you can leave those suggestions there. We would absolutely love it if you could follow us on social media. On Twitter, we are @subpartalks, on Facebook we are subpartalks. If you wanna also follow us on Twitter, I am @independentjeff
[00:45:21] Chris: And I am @chrisbradfordtx.
[00:45:25] Jeff: And if you wanna find other social media links, you can go on our website and get those as well. We would also be very grateful if you would subscribe to us, follow us, whatever platform you're listening to this on. Go ahead and follow us.
You will get new episodes delivered automatically. You don't even have to do anything. That sounds really great. Those new episodes will just pop up on your device every week. We would also love it while you're at it, go ahead and rate us, give us five stars if you are so inclined. And also leave us a review, comment.
We always love, as I said, hearing from listeners. So, go ahead and, uh, say anything you want. Doesn't matter what you say. Just leave us a comment there. We would love for you to do that. And finally, get the word out about Subpar Talks. Share this on social media. Talk to your friends about it. Get the word out about Subpar Talks.
The more listeners we have, the easier it is for us to bring this content to you each and every week. So, any final thoughts about exploding stomachs or hairy leaky hands?
[00:46:36] Chris: I'm so thankful, every day, that I have neither of those. Knock on wood.
[00:46:42] Jeff: Knock on wood. Yes, we have intact stomachs. And, uh, I have no hair on my palms despite being warned that that would be a side effect of various activities. Um, that has not happened yet.
All right. Very good. We will be back next week with another exciting episode of Subpar Talks. Until then so long.
