Perjury for Pay

Willis P. King was a doctor working for an American railroad company in the late 1800s - he examined patients who sued for compensation due to injury, finding many fabricated claims in order to gain money. Dr. King confronts the charge of favorable bias toward his employer, or that his employer might have paid him to write a book. Prior to becoming examining physician at the railroad firm, King was a trusted family doctor with a strong reputation for ethical practice. He contrasts his record to that of litigants, many of whom coached friends or relatives to lie in court in pursuit of financial gain. Cases reported on by King were notorious at the time; examples including apparently crippled defendants who, upon gaining cash settlements, discard crutches and limb braces within weeks of receiving the money. Dr. King himself reports resisting anger and confrontation when seeing such individuals walking in public, sometimes mere streets away from the courthouse that delivered verdicts in their favor.