And in other sports-related trial news...

I don't want to make fun of obesity or surgery, doctors or football coaches, but from time to time, a situation presents itself when you get to hit all four with one post. Now is that time. A Suffolk County jury came back with a verdict against Notre Dame football coach Charlie Weis in his malpractice claim against two Massachusetts General Hospital surgeons, both of whom Weis blamed for botching a gastric bypass surgery for the planet-sized Notre Dame coach in 2002. The Details:

The jury deliberated almost three hours before finding Massachusetts General
Hospital surgeons Charles Ferguson and Richard Hodin were not negligent.

Weis, 51, who won three Super Bowls as offensive coordinator for the New England Patriots, accused the surgeons of negligence for allowing him to bleed internally for 30 hours before performing a second surgery to correct the complication.

Weis became gravely ill after the 2002 surgery and nearly died. He testified he still has numbness and pain in his feet and sometimes has to use a motorized cart. Seated next to the surgeons on the front row of a courtroom bench, he was stoic as the verdict was read and left the courtroom without comment.

Now I'm not condoning medical malpractice, egregious lawsuits or obesity at all here, and I understand why Weis would want to sue these doctors; it's the unfortunate state of medicine that law and insurance dictates what doctors will and won't do, but that's another post. But you had to think the odds were against Weis when the first trial ended after it was ruled a mistrial. Well, more like how the first trial ended:

This was the second time the case had gone to trial. The first ended in a
mistrial in February after Ferguson and Hodin rushed to the aid of a juror who
collapsed in the courtroom.

Guess what, Coach Weis? You're probably not going to win any trial when the docs you say screwed up have no problem saving a juror RIGHT THERE DURING THE TRIAL! They could have done your surgery shit-faced drunk and you could have presented evidence proving that. Bottom line: if they save my life right then and there, I'm siding with the M.D.s.

But this whole thing begs the question: does this sign hang on Weis's office door?