The trial lasted nine days.
I stood in the courtroom in a suit I had bought for the occasion and I opened for the plaintiffs, and I told the jury about Ruth Halbrook and her crossword puzzles and the bell that no one answered. I told them about the staffing logs, the way the hours had been cut, the way the cuts had been documented, the way the deaths had been predicted.
Ardenne's counsel objected forty-one times. The judge sustained eleven. I kept going.
On the fourth day, I put Robert Chen on the stand.
He was a small man with careful hands and a voice that shook at first and then did not. He testified about the meetings. He testified about the spreadsheets. He testified about the email from the regional director that said, "We need to be aggressive but survivable," and he testified a
