The plaintiff was visibly uncomfortable. She wouldn’t look at the defense lawyer as he ran through his deposition questions: “How large were your breasts before the surgery?” “What size did you want them to be?” “Why did you want them to be that size?” The plaintiff shifted in her seat and avoided eye contact as she responded, her replies pierced with defensiveness. “It was awkward,” says Marla Persky, the chief of litigation at Baxter Healthcare Corp. at the time, who was sitting at the defense counsel’s table.
It was 1991, and Baxter was in the early stages of defending against what would become a monsoon of lawsuits filed by women claiming that their leaky silicone breast implants had caused a slew of illnesses, such as chronic fatigue, headaches, arthritis and skin diseases. The suits accused Baxter and other defendants of defective design and negligence.
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