SO SUE ME
A
short story by: Jack Kean
My name is Clifford
Davenport Collier III and I’m a lawyer in this pissant little Mississippi town.
Don’t get me wrong, being a lawyer was always my ambition and this pissant town
is where I used to find respite from a job that provides damn little in the way
of personal gratification.
Three times every
year the local university spews out a hundred or so new lawyers who want to
make the world a better place and sincerely believe they have been given the
knowledge to go forth and conquer evil. In a couple of years they will have
traded that belief for one more grounded in the reality that being a lawyer
means getting down and dirty with the hogs and the only goal that counts is not
ending up as bacon on some other lawyer’s plate.
Like I said, three
times a year the law school turns out freshly minted lawyers and those are sad
days for me. I usually put four fingers of Makers Mark in an ice tea glass and
sit out here on the Gazebo thanking God I made my money while these newbie
lawyers were falling off a jungle gym at some country grade school.
People say there are
two kinds of lawyers; honest and crooked. Most folks think they are the
opposite side of the same coin, but that’s not true. You see there are also
wealthy lawyers and poor lawyers. One coin won’t tell the story. It takes two.
The first coin has honest on one side and poor on the other. The second coin is
left with crooked and wealthy. Oversimplification and harsh indictment of the
legal profession you think? Well let me tell you that for almost thirty years
I’ve been practicing law and it ain’t far wrong.
So what kind of
lawyer am I? The gazebo I’m sitting in with my Makers Mark and lap top computer
is behind an antebellum home surrounded by five acres of landscaped lawn and a
hundred acres of pasture. My Hummer is parked in a three car garage with room
for my wife’s Volvo and a perfectly restored 1970 Corvette. There’s a special
garage out towards a Magnolia tree that looks like it was in the ground before
Mississippi was even a state; it houses an RV big enough to live in fulltime.
You can’t name a computer or electronic toy I don’t have and this isn’t
bragging, just the facts.
It wasn’t my intent
to go on about being wealthy but that’s part of the story. On this sad day when
a hundred bright young minds start down a path that will destroy their faith in
humanity and replace it with cynicism I want to tell you how this happens. My
last case has all the elements which have taken me down this path.
I’ve never had the
tort case lawyers dream about where a big, rich company with total disregard
for the safety of others puts some church going father, responsible for a
family of six and two elderly parents, into a lifelong coma. Haven’t been able
to glom onto one of those product liability, class action suits that brings a
pittance to thousands while enriching the attorneys beyond even their greedy
hopes. No, I’ve been a civil defense attorney almost my whole career.
For the first year I
took anything and anyone who could walk into an office and write a check that
might actually clear the bank. Doctors have the Hippocratic oath thing going
for them and lawyers have their own oath. First you get paid. Immediately after
receiving that coveted diploma and passing the bar exam you learn the lawyers’
oath. Getting paid is not just the first thing, it is the only thing.
Once back in the day
I was at The Varsity, a local pub and gathering place, looking for a wife
beater, who moonlighted as a drunk, to make good on the last and ? swear to God
? only check I’d ever take from him when I spotted a gaggle of lawyers drinking
and talking about this new delivery company that was expanding and might be a
boon for an eager attorney looking for money. Since I hadn’t yet worked my way
into this upper crust of esteemed attorneys, in fact it would be several years
before I’d told enough lies to be considered for membership, I just sipped a
beer and listened until they mentioned the company’s name.
Two days later I was
in Atlanta talking to some Vice President in a pin stripe suit and promising
him nobody would ever collect a dime no matter if their trucks ran over naked
children in the streets of Mississippi, and for good measure I threw in
Alabama, Tennessee, Arkansas and Louisiana. I charged a pittance of my present
income and was hired on a temporary basis for just Mississippi work. What I
made in the first year wouldn’t pay for this gazebo, but after winning a case
where one of their drivers got drunk and ran a school bus off the road hurting
a dozen kids I was made a permanent member of their extensive defense team.
It was one of the
best decisions they’ve ever made, I’ve saved that company millions and millions
of dollars. In my opinion a lot of people still think the civil justice system
is about truth, but its not. The civil justice system is about money, the
plaintiff wants some and the defendant doesn’t’ want to pay any. You can dress
the pig up in high heels and a dress, but that don’t make it a prom queen.
Money is all it’s about and if someone tells you different they’re not sitting
behind a million dollar house sipping Makers Mark and knowing they wouldn’t
have to work another day unless the mood hits them. If a lawyer says the civil
justice system is about truth then you damn well better get another lawyer, and
fast.
Please excuse the
rambling, but it’s sure to get worse as the Makers Mark and sun disappear. So
some woman sued this fine parcel delivery company. Since there’s got to be
dozens of hotshot attorneys on their payroll waiting for a reason to sue, I’ll
just call them the American Parcel Service. Even if their suit won’t hurt me
one bit, I’ve got to think of my children and grandchildren. Of course American
Parcel Service is not the company’s real name and as far as I know nobody else
uses that name. When you think of the American Parcel Service just remember a
certain color truck running all over God’s creation.
It seems one of their
overworked delivery drivers came rushing into a store with his dolly containing
22 boxes piled so high he couldn’t see what was ahead of him. This woman moved
to get out of his way before he ran her down. While trying to get out of his
way she fell down a flight of stairs and as you would expect this caused some
trauma. Now I knew immediately when the papers arrived the truth of what
happened. The American Parcel Service doesn’t deliver all those packages
without working its employees like field hands. The stories I could tell would
make your hair stand on end and encourage you to stay the hell away from their
drivers for fear of life and limb.
She fell down the
stairs about one o’clock in the afternoon and our driver had been running since
before eight that morning without even a stop for lunch. Of course he would
later testify that he didn’t take a lunch break by choice, but that was a lie.
He is a black man with a good paying job in Mississippi and if missing lunch is
what it takes to keep that job he’s damn well going to do it.
Actually nobody in
the company tells the drivers not to take lunch. They just keep putting on more
stops and punishing anyone who fails to make them all in time. Talk about anal,
these folks tell their drivers what finger to keep their keys on and how to get
out of the truck and how many seconds it should take them to blow their nose
and how many times a day they can blow. God help anyone who needs to use a
bathroom.
The American Parcel
Service has a policy that they don’t pay civil suits. So our job is not to find
out the truth of what happened and try to make it right, but to make it as
difficult and as expensive as possible for the plaintiff to see the inside of a
courtroom. I filed motions for her medical records since she was born. Getting
these records allowed me to pull an old stunt in court, but that’s for later.
We deposed the woman
and her husband and asked every lawyer question we could think of. By the time
we got around to that procedure, having delayed until I had another reason to
be in their town, they had forgotten a few details. That’s the main purpose of
delay. Memory fades and those little inconsistencies are the heartbeat of the
defense attorney. The old saw from law school goes like this: If the law is on
your side, pound on the law. If the facts are on your side, pound on the facts.
If neither is on your side, pound on the table. Much of what I’ve done is pound
on the table. I forgot to mention they also sued the store where the stairs are
located. That’s what you do if you are a plaintiff. Now after looking at the
stairs I could fully understand why they sued the store. In the first place the
stairs were located about twelve feet inside the front door at a ninety degree
angle. To say the least it was an odd place for stairs. Then there was the low
lighting and nothing to mark the presence of stairs. But all of that is pretty
much irrelevant to this recitation except the store’s lawyer, a little weasel
annoying guy who would piss off the Pope, managed to get in a few low blows.
That Kentucky bourbon
gets smoother with every sip, but I digress. The store involved had a set of
doors that open just opposite of the way most doors open, so both the man and
his wife forgot which door the driver had come in. Of course since the doors
were side by side, it didn’t make a hill of beans, but we made it seem like
nothing they said could be believed because they didn’t point to the right
door. That’s just one of the little tricks we use when pounding on the table.
It pretty much seemed like these folks thought they could win by telling the
truth, but you and I know it’s not about truth.
All in all it was to
be a simple case. The plaintiff and her husband would testify to what happened
and one store employee along with the driver would testify. The only other
witness would be the doctor who treated her. Yeah, we knew there were real
damages but who the hell cares? American Parcel Service doesn’t pay.
Doctors don’t like to
testify in civil cases, and in fact they usually don’t have to be present, most
of the time their depositions are just read into the record. Of course the
plaintiff had to get that deposition and we played games with the schedule for
months, hoping of course the plaintiff would give up. In this case she didn’t
and we finally trotted over to his office and used up as much time as possible,
knowing he was charging hundreds of dollars an hour and the plaintiff wasn’t
rich. That’s the good thing about representing a big company, they don’t really
give a damn about how much the suit costs as long as no bad court precedent is
set.
When we had played as
many games as possible, and I won’t bore you with a full list, the judge
ordered us to mediate the suit. Now in my mind that meant he thought there
might be a case and we should work it out. This is the good part. The plaintiff
had to travel hundreds of miles and spend a night in a hotel and pay for part
of the mediation cost. Hell, we didn’t intend to offer her even half of her
medical bills, but once again we made the plaintiff pay. Being a son of a bitch
has its rewards.
Mediation was made
even more laughable by the mediator’s total unwillingness to do anything but
serve lunch. When it was quickly over that left us with just one little
problem, the judge who ordered it was likely to be ticked off. He made it clear
the case should not go to trial, but he doesn’t know my boss, American Parcel
Service. It was damn well going to trial unless we had thrown up enough
roadblocks to make the plaintiff give up. Does that ever happen? Damn right it
does. You give me a reasonably poor person and even with the plaintiff’s lawyer
working on contingency I’ll make them miss so much work and incur enough
expenses that they’ll throw up their hands in disgust.
What was the deal
with the mediator? Well, in the first place his office is a block from mine and
we’ve been members of the same liars club of lawyers for over two decades. He’s
a wimp and wasn’t about to push my employer. American Parcel Service is no
company to screw around with. They could send him plenty of business. You’ve
got to ask yourself what the plaintiff could do for my old friend?
The big thing for me
was to get the American Parcel Service driver to testify right. That’s the
tricky part of being a civil defense attorney. You see I couldn’t out and out
tell him what it say, that might be considered subornation of perjury. For
those of you who are not lawyers just think of it as knowing my witness is
lying under oath. Truth is most of my witnesses lie on the stand, but they
can’t hold me responsible.
It goes something
like this: “Linus, when you entered that store you didn’t have those boxes
piled up high enough to block your vision did you?” “No sir.” “You saw the
plaintiff clearly and slowed down to avoid hitting her didn’t you?” “Yes sir.”
“Now it must have taken you at least 20 seconds to walk the ten feet from the
front door to the steps didn’t it?” “Yes sir.” Of course when he repeats it
back fifteen times he’s ready for the stand. Look at your watch and count
twenty seconds off. Imagine a parcel delivery man taking twenty seconds to walk
ten feet. Pretty stupid isn’t it, but thankfully we had stupid jurors.
Now, what should we
do about that judge who seemed to think the plaintiff had a case? Well it so
happens that an attorney trying a criminal case before him was in the law firm
of our little weasel friend. With a nudge and a wink weasel was able to
convince his partner to slow down just a bit. With that criminal trial
scheduled to end on Monday and our trial to start on Tuesday, it didn’t take
much to make our judge unavailable. It worked, and on trial day a brand new,
recently elected judge took the bench.
The thing about this
judge is that he’d never read the pleadings and knew nothing about the case or
how we had sandbagged the court ordered mediation. He did know that a nice
contribution to his reelection committee from American Parcel Service would be
mighty helpful to keeping his place on the bench. More importantly he knew that
making them an enemy might make him a one term judge.
At the trial
everything went pretty well as expected. Of the twelve citizens seated on the
jury two of them looked like they could find their way home. The plaintiff’s
attorney made a good opening statement and we talked about the plaintiff as if
she were an idiot too clumsy to walk down a street and suggested she should be
banned from walking up or down stairs.
The plaintiff
testified and we hammered her about picking out the wrong door and going to
numerous doctors over the years. Yeah, those doctor visits didn’t have a damn
thing to do with her falling down the stairs, but we were earning our money.
The plaintiff’s
husband testified and here’s where we had some fun. Sure we hit him about
picking the wrong door, but then the real enjoyment began. I held up those
medical records of his wife and I mean way up above my head. I even waived them
around a bit while I asked him, “Did you know your wife visited Dr. Harralson
in 1995 and complained of problems with her fingers and her back and her hip.
Did you know she was treated for these problems years before she fell down the
stairs?” He could only answer no. Hell I could have only answered no. It was
all a pack of lies but the jury got the message I wanted to send.
In fairness it was
the weasel who got in the very best trick of all. I still admire him for
thinking of this one. You see the plaintiff’s husband wrote humor columns for
several small papers and one of them was titled Get Your Story Straight
Before Doing Something Stupid. He got to him to admit that he wrote the
following: “If you ever think you might do something really stupid or even
possibly illegal let me make a suggestion. Take a moment to invent a story that
may be the least bit plausible or get you a whiff of sympathy.”
Now that statement
was taken way out of context and the whole piece was actually pretty funny and
of course had nothing to do with lying in court. But you see weasel was happy
to use anything to keep his client from paying. Remember my little diatribe on
what civil justice is really all about. We did such a good job that the judge
dismissed the case against American Parcel Service. In spite of the fact the
driver clearly would have run this woman over and never even saw her until she
fell down the stairs.
So there you have it,
a little tale representing my whole freaking career as a lawyer. Of course I’ve
done worse, much worse, but the bourbon helps me forget details. I’ve seen
plaintiffs confined to a wheelchair for the rest of their lives get nothing,
thanks to my stout advocacy of, well of whatever the hell keeps American Parcel
Service from paying out a dime. It was a deal with the devil, but the pay has
been just what he promised.
I forgot to mention
that my wife took our two children and left me yesterday. The trouble is that once
you get into the habit of lying, of twisting facts to make your case and only
your case, it is hard not to bring that habit home. Lying, rationalizing and
all of that became more than she could handle and even more than the money
could pay her for.
There’s a brand new 9
mm Glock on the floor beside my chair, just one of my toys. Today will be the
first time it has ever been fired. After today there won’t be any more lies, or
bourbon for that matter.
If you are reading
this the Glock did its job. I ask only that you remember once I was one of
those new lawyers who wanted to make the world a better place. What I wound up
doing is spending a career protecting an arrogant company with no regard for
doing what is right as long as I’m around to make certain they don’t have to
pay. Somebody will take my place willingly, maybe one of those idealistic,
freshly minted lawyers. What the American Parcel Service does is disgusting,
but they have plenty of help. After today, that help won’t come from me.
(Clifford Davenport
Collier III was found dead in his back yard shot with a 9 mm Glock. He left a
wife, two grown children, three grandchildren, an estate valued at four million
dollars and a laptop computer containing this story.)
Copyright 2004 by
Jack Kean
