Bibliograph

Accidentally, on purpose, the making of a personal injury underworld in America, Ken Dornstein

Type

Label

Accidentally, on purpose, the making of a personal injury underworld in America, Ken Dornstein

Language

eng

Bibliography note

Includes bibliographical references (pages [377]-447) and index

Illustrations

illustrations

Index

index present

Literary Form

non fiction

Main title

Accidentally, on purpose

Nature of contents

bibliography

Oclc number

34887291

Responsibility statement

Ken Dornstein

Sub title

the making of a personal injury underworld in America

Summary

Accidentally, on Purpose is the first book to document the making of America's most peculiar criminal underworld. Not centered on the traditional activities of organized crime - drug dealing, gambling, prostitution, loan-sharking, protection, or bookmaking - this improbable underworld has been built from the raw material of faked personal injuries. Accidentally, on Purpose takes readers back to the late nineteenth century to the earliest slip-and-fall artists, one of whom, "Banana" Anna, feigned injuries for money by slipping on banana peels on steam trains throughout the Midwest. Readers then encounter the "ambulance chasers" and "shysters" of old New York who pioneered the personal injury trade; the accident racketeers of the 1920s; the excesses of self-mutilation for profit during the Depression; and the whiplash industry of the 1960s and 1970sThrough original interviews and research, Dornstein also reports on contemporary gangs whose members travel the streets of cities around the country staging car accidents for insurance money - the "cappers" who script accidents, the "dummies" who sit in cars for crashes, and the doctors and lawyers who call the shots from behind the scenes. In this engaging chronicle, Dornstein tells an original story about a culture in which greed, desperation, and freemarket incentives in the legal system have transformed accidents and injuries from random instances of bad luck into the solid foundations of a vast secret economy

Table Of Contents

Prologue: Who Killed Jose Luis Lopez Perez? An Unsentimental Education -- Introduction: Prelude to a Fall -- 1. The Rise (And Frequent Falls) of the American Accident Faker -- 2. Accident Racketeers on the Streets of the City -- 3. The Nationwide War on Ambulance Chasers -- 4. Inside the House of Pain -- 5. Whiplash Culture -- 6. The Friends of the Friendless -- 7. El Toro y La Vaca -- 8. Mapping the Underworld -- Epilogue: Who Killed Jose Luis Lopez Perez? - The Making of a Personal Injury Underworld in America

Classification