The papers had found him there, overseeing the dial-painting girls. He had ‘assumed responsibility for the operation’; which could well have been a promotion, since the New York plant was far more prestigious than the one in Ottawa. The company, it seemed, rewarded loyalty from its employees.
There was a disturbance then, as the chief security examiner of the commission came rushing into the room, bringing documents that Grossman had subpoenaed. The lawyer quickly flicked through the files. He could see at once that the girls’ test results from 1925 and 1928 were not included. There were, however, some letters of especial interest.
Kelly, the president of Radium Dial, had written to the Illinois Industrial Commission in 1928:
We have not been successful in obtaining compensation insurance since the cancellation of our policy [on] August 18 1928. In view of the publicity given the so-called radium poisoning cases of the United States Radium Corporation of New York, the [insurance company] decided they did not care to carry the insurance any longer and incur the risk of our having such cases at our plant in Ottawa, Illinois.
Kelly had applied to ten different insurance firms. All had turned him down.
‘You can readily see,’ Kelly continued, ‘that it makes it rather an unfortunate situation for us. Can you advise us how WE may obtain protection? Does the State of Illinois have any compensation insurance?’
Kelly’s only thought was how he could protect the financial assets of his company; he didn’t seem to consider that perhaps the insurance companies were refusing to cover him because what he was doing was too dangerous to support. In response, the commission told him: ‘The only thing you can do is to carry your own risk.’
Kelly had decided it was worth a punt. That was why there were no insurance-company lawyers at this trial: because Radium Dial had no insurers. On 30 October 1930, the IIC gave notice to Radium Dial that it had not complied with the Workmen’s Compensation Act, which required insurance; in response, Radium Dial ‘was forced to post securities and offer guarantees with the Industrial Commission that it was carrying its own risk’. And this is when Radium Dial paid to the commission the $10,000 that Catherine and her friends were now trying to share between them. This was how that meagre pot of money came to be.
And there was no more money. Grossman had had no luck in tracing Radium Dial assets for the girls to claim from; now the firm had fled to New York, it seems the Illinois Industrial Commission had no power to reach across state lines to commandeer any of the company’s funds. It was financially disappointing, but in many ways this case was not about the money. It would make a difference, sure – Tom and Catherine in particular would be saved from destitution if they won – but it was more important to the women by far that what had happened to them was recognised. The girls had been shunned, told they were liars and cheats and frauds; they had seen the company literally get away with murder. The truth was what they were fighting for.
To the almost continuous objections of Arthur Magid, which were all overruled, Catherine now told of her and Charlotte’s visit to Mr Reed after they’d been diagnosed. ‘Mr Reed said he didn’t think anything was wrong with us,’ Catherine whispered, as angrily as her weakened voice would allow. ‘He refused to consider our request for compensation.’
Marvel nodded, transfixed by Catherine. ‘Her emaciated body [was] shaking’ but she didn’t let it stop her.
‘After two years,’ she said, remembering back to 1924, ‘I began to feel pains in my left ankle, which spread up to my hip. Fainting spells also occurred. At night the pain became unbearable.’
She told of how her pains had spread, all across her body: her ankles, her hips, her knees, her teeth; how she had become a bedridden invalid, unable to eat, unable to care for her own children. And then, as her fingers twisted a scapular medal – a Catholic talisman – she told of no longer being able to kneel to pray. With immense pathos she described her suffering – and not just her own. Catherine told the court how her two children were also affected.
Shortly before her testimony ended, Catherine reached for her purse and withdrew a small jewellery box, which she held discreetly on her lap. She and Grossman had discussed this beforehand, so he asked her about the exhibit she had brought.
Catherine bent her head to the box and lifted it up with her thin hands. The court leaned in, wanting to know what was inside. Slowly, very slowly, she opened it. And then, from within it, she withdrew two fragments of bone.
‘These are pieces of my jawbone,’ she said simply. ‘They were removed from my jaw.’
51
Catherine’s friends, watching her hold up the pieces of herself, ‘shuddered’ in the courtroom.
Her bones were admitted into evidence, along with several of her teeth. After such staggering testimony, Grossman now allowed her to rest. She sat quietly in her chair, dabbing her handkerchief to her mouth and watching as Dr Walter Dalitsch came to the table to give evidence on her behalf.
He was a clean-featured man, with a strong forehead, thick lips and dark hair; he gave evidence authoritatively. Grossman took him through his dental treatment of Catherine and then they proceeded to a more general discussion of radium poisoning. When Magid objected to Dalitsch’s assertion that many dial-painters ‘became sick and died with diagnosis different to the truth’, Marvel overruled him. The judge added emphatically: ‘The doctor is skilled and testified as an expert.’ It seemed the arbitrator was on Dalitsch’s side.
Dalitsch gave his expert opinion on the cause of Catherine’s disease. ‘The condition,’ he said plainly, ‘is a poison from radioactive substances.’
With the killer statement in the bag, Grossman began more quick-fire questioning.
‘In your opinion,’ he asked, ‘is Catherine Donohue today able to do manual labour?’
The dentist looked across the table at Catherine, who was huddled in her chair, listening to him speak. ‘No,’ he said sadly, ‘she is not.’
‘Is she able to earn a livelihood?’
‘No,’ said Dalitsch, refocusing on Grossman.
‘Have you an opinion as to whether this condition is permanent or temporary?’
‘Permanent,’ he answered swiftly. Catherine dropped her head: this is forever.
‘Have you an opinion,’ Grossman asked now, ‘if this is fatal?’
Dalitsch hesitated and ‘glanced meaningfully’ towards Catherine, who was only metres from him. Grossman’s question hung in the air, suspended in time. Five days ago, after the examinations in Chicago, Catherine’s three doctors had indeed determined that her condition had reached its ‘permanent, incurable and terminal stage’. Yet the physicians, who in all kindness sought to spare her, had not told Catherine Donohue.