Teddy had graduated from Penn Law and passed the bar just three months ago. But what made the case important was that it had been handed to him by Jim Barnett himself, as a favor to one of the firm’s biggest corporate clients. Teddy knew he had been given the assignment because expectations for success were low. For Teddy to win, Judge Brey would be required to break new ground. It didn’t take experience to understand that judges rarely liked to break new ground. Teddy also knew that no one else in the firm wanted to get involved because it amounted to a personal injury case. Barnett & Stokes represented thirty-five of the fifty richest corporations in the tristate area. PI cases were held at arm’s length. At best, they were quietly farmed out to one of three firms in the city who didn’t advertise their services on the side of a bus.

But this one was different. A favor for the president of the Pennwell Oil Company, who walked into Jim Barnett’s office and asked him to see what he could do.

Fifteen years ago the man’s son had been driving west on I-70 en route to college when he was rear-ended by a tractor-trailer carrying parsley and basil for Golden Valley Spices & Co. The accident had been horrific, the kid’s survival nothing short of miraculous. He’d been driving a Volkswagon bus and had stopped for road construction. The truck had plowed into the VW at full speed with the weight of the world behind it. The accident occurred in Washington, Pennsylvania, a small town about thirty miles south of Pittsburgh. When the ambulance arrived, the kid was taken to Washington Hospital, which was also under construction at the time and filled to capacity. After two hours, a doctor finally examined the young man and a series of x-rays were taken. When it was determined that no bones were broken, the kid was released without supervision or a place to go.

The next few days in the kid’s life were fairly complicated with most of the time spent in a local motel room. Unable to move due to a sprained neck and back, he was nursed by the motel staff until a college friend could make the five-hundred-mile drive to Washington. What was left of the kid’s possessions were then packed into the friend’s car, and together, they set off for school. The kid had been in strong physical condition when the accident occurred, running five miles a day and an active swimmer, which is probably what saved his life. After two months, his neck and back were healed and he was more interested in his studies than initiating a law suit that would require him to return home. His father agreed, thankful that his son had survived and made what he thought was a full recovery. Settlement was reached with Capital Insurance Life for material damages, though the father remembered being surprised at the time by the insurance representative’s tough attitude when it came down to negotiating the value of his son’s damaged possessions. The insurance company was getting off easy on this one and everyone involved knew it. Their bullshit attitude didn’t make sense.

Ten years passed, the accident forgotten. Then one day the son had to travel for business and got on a plane with a cold. When the plane landed, his right ear began ringing and wouldn’t stop. After the trip, he went to see a doctor. Tests were conducted and it was determined that he’d lost thirty percent of his hearing in his right ear due to the concussion he’d received a decade ago. The spectrum of sound lost was very specific and could not have occurred from a sudden loud noise or even music.