From: Steven Phillips <SPhillips@wprclaw.com>
To: Gagne, David
Subject: Fee agreement and related documents
Sent: August 24, 2012 11:09 AMDavid,
Attached are the following:
Intake information page
Our firm’s standard Contingency Fee Agreement
Client’s Bill of Rights
Medical Authorization releasePlease fill out the intake sheet with your contact information with your mom’s date of birth and social security number, not yours. I need this info to obtain her medical records.
Please sign each and return each document to me at the below address at your earliest convenience.
With regard to the medical authorization, please only sign this form. Do not date it. I only need your signature on it.
As we discussed, and as set forth in the fee agreement, you will not pay our firm a fee or owe us costs unless we make a recovery.
Call me if you have any questions.
Thanks,
Steve Phillips
Attachment: Gagne sign-up pkg.pdf
Kathie Gagne died 4,513 days ago.
Dr. Allen Cusack of Cusack Mortuary wrote me to say:
Good Evening,
I am writing to inform you that I have spoken with the pathologist who will perform the actual autopsy Saturday (08/25). Just wanted to touch base with you that we were in touch and also to share that I spoke with your sister [name redacted] and referred her to the News Journal regarding an obituary/newspaper notice. If you would let me know when/if you are planning to have a service for your mother and I hope to have an agreement for you by the weekend. Again, I hope you are doing well and continuing to transition smoothly.
Take care!!
He sent another email about thirty minutes later to say:
I did add the memorial service information to our web page. Will try to make contact with you Friday morning to see if you need anything for the service. It has also been faxed to our answering service just in case of any calls. – NO CHARGE….just for informative purposes
I replied to him (and copied my sister) at 10:00 PM EDT by saying:
Dear Allen,
Thanks again for all your help. I saw on your website that you have listed that we are having a memorial service for my mom on Saturday, and I realized that I still haven’t sent you a photograph. Attached please find a photo which should work. If not, please let me know.
I am planning on visiting your Deland facility on Friday (or early Saturday) to give you a check for the pathologist. Is there any specific time that I should target? I’d like to meet you, and thank you, in person.
Sincerely,
David Gagne
The photo I included is one that my sister and I found when going through some of my mom’s stuff last week. I am pretty sure it’s from sometime not long before my grandfather died, which was in 1986. She was in the best shape of her life, and it was the last time I remember my mom every being truly happy for an extended period of time. (You can also see a little bit of Goofy in the lower corner, and I think she would have liked that.)
Allen replied to me on August 24th at 10:39 AM EDT:
I should be around anytime after 2pm. We have an evening visitation, which will have me around say between 2:30-7 tonight. I will add photo and I did like the notice in today’s paper. Will prob incorporate that to the site as well.
I posted mom’s “official” obituary today. My little sister wrote it and submitted it to the Daytona Beach News-Journal (to <paidnotices@news-jrnl.com>) this afternoon.
Until just a few minutes ago, I had completely forgotten that mom worked for the News-Journal at one time. She was a copy editor there, if I recall correctly. I know that she spent a lot of time with the sports reporters — she loved baseball, basketball, football, and tennis — and got to meet the NASCAR driver Bill Elliott while she was there. (She brought us home a signed 8″ x 10″ of him.)
This was way back in the 80s, when we were still in elementary school. She also worked for the Holly Hill and Daytona Beach Police Departments as a dispatcher. I can clearly remember sitting on the bed in the front bedroom of my grandparents’ house at 122 Azalea Drive and watching her go to work the graveyard shift, and crying because I had wanted to play with her more.
Oh, and I might argue with my sister that “The Sound of Music” was not her favorite musical. She knew every word to it because she saw it hundreds of times when she worked as an usher one summer in high school, I think. Her actual favorites were “The Pirates of Penzance” (with Kevin Kline, Rex Smith, and Linda Ronstadt) and “Little Shop of Horrors” (with Rick Moranis and Ellen Greene).
My wife is a saint 2 put up with our son & me crying & laughing our way thru the Magic Kingdom on his 2nd bday, 10 days after my mom died.
— David Vincent Gagne (@davidgagne) August 22, 2012
I received a voice mail from Detective Whittier of the Deland Police Department while I was in the middle of a call with Dr. Wolf. After not talking to him for a week, even though I called him four times, he left me the following message:
“Hi, Mr. Gagne. This is Detective Whittier with the Deland Police Department. I guess you called me yesterday. I was at court all, all morning today so I wasn’t able to get back to you until now. I don’t know if you have any questions or any additional information. All I can tell you is that I got an email from Bob Burch talking it looks like Dr. Peele will sign off on the death certificate on your mother. If you have any questions, sir, feel free to call me. Area code (386) 740-6925. It’s now ten o’clock on the twenty-second of August, 2012. Thank you.”
At about noon on August 21st, 2012, a week and a half after my mother died, attorney Steve Phillips sent me this text message:
Dr wolf should be calling u now. She said she left MSG for u last night. Let me know if u don’t hear from her in the next hr.
I replied right away with:
She did not call or leave a message for me last night. Does she have incorrect phone number?
A few minutes later, he replied:
She had wrong number. Calling u soon.
And then a moment later:
Sorry
I replied:
Ok
Then about an hour later (at 4:41 PM EDT) I wrote:
No call yet, FYI
And then a moment later:
I’m happy to call her if you have her number.
Steve replied:
She has the correct number now. Pincus said she would be calling u ASAP. I’m sure she will get to u soon
And I replied:
10-4!
About an hour after that (at 5:19 PM EDT) I texted him with:
Still no call. Hate to keep bugging you, but really need to get this done so we can have cremation and service.
Steve sent this reply:
She understands the urgency. I’m sure she will call soon. Unfortunately she got the wrong number from us. She tried calling last night at 7 and earlier today
I called Detective Whittier of the Deland Police Department just after noon EDT today. I haven’t had any communication with him since last Wednesday, the day before he said he was going to visit Woodland Terrace in an attempt to speak with Dr. Peele in person. I’ve called just about every day since then and left him a voicemail asking for an update, but he hasn’t responded.
I have no idea if he ever made it to the nursing home on Thursday or if he was able to get in touch with Dr. Peele. I don’t know if he’s still actively interested in the case or if it’s been closed. It’s very odd because he seemed to be very invested in my story, even during out last conversation. He didn’t give me any indication that he was going to go on vacation or anything like that.
I called Detective Whittier of the Deland Police Department looking for an update on his investigation. He didn’t answer so I left him a voice mail message.
At about 1:40 PM EDT on August 20, 2012, eight days after mom died, I received a text message from attorney Steve Phillips. He wrote:
Dr. Wolf will be calling you directly to set up the autopsy. Pls let me know when u hear from her.
I replied immediately with:
I will. Thanks. Just dropped my dad off at airport.
At 4:05 PM EDT, I sent him this message:
Still no word from Dr. Wolf. Starting to get anxious.
About a week after she died, I contacted the corporate office of the pharmaceutical company which supplied drugs to Woodland Terrace, the assisted living facility where mom had been placed. I received an email from them three days later, which included a copy of mom’s (partial) pharmacy bill for August. It detailed that she was billed $223.05 for sixty 0.5MG tablets of risperidone, the drug which Woodland Terrace insisted they didn’t her, after refusing to tell me if they were giving it to her, after asking for my permission to give it to her, after Fish Memorial Hospital told me she was being administered it.
An attorney told me — in early 2014 — that records I later obtained from Woodland Terrace (which I firmly believe were either grossly and typically incorrect and / or altered) indicated that mom was only given this drug twice.
From: Zifkin, Laurie
To: Gagne, David
Subject: (No Subject)
Sent: August 20, 2012 12:23 PM ETDear Mr. Gagne,
Per your request of Mary Arellano, I am attaching the most current pharmacy statement for Kathleen Gagne.
Should you need anything further, please feel free to call.
Thank you.
Laurie Zifkin, Billing Dept.
Rxperts Management – Corporate Office
Attachment: STMTPRTP$(195).PDF