The King of Torts

The King of Torts Page 23

All participants had been sworn to secrecy. Thick documents had been signed by the lawyers promising complete confidentiality concerning the Dyloft negotiations and settlement. Before they left New York, Patton French had told his group, "It'll be in the papers within forty-eight hours. Philo will leak it, and their stock will go up."

The following morning, The Wall Street Journal ran the story; of course, all blame was laid at the bar.

Mass Tort Lawyers Force Quick Dyloft Settlement

ran the headline. Unnamed sources had plenty to say. The details were accurate. A pool of $2.5 billion would be set up for the first round of settlements, with another potential $1.5 billion as a reserve for more serious cases.

Philo Products opened at $82 and quickly jumped to $85. One analyst said investors were relieved at news of the settlement. The company would be able to control the costs of litigation. No prolonged lawsuits. No threat of wild verdicts. The trial lawyers had been reined in on this one, and unnamed sources at Philo were calling it a victory. Clay monitored the news on the television in his office.

He also fielded calls from reporters. At eleven, one from The Journal arrived, with a photographer. During the preliminaries, Clay learned that he knew as much about the settlement as Clay himself. "These things are never kept quiet," he said. "We knew which hotel you guys were hiding in."

Off the record, Clay answered all questions. Then on the record, he wouldn't comment on the settlement. He did offer some insights about himself, his rapid rise from the depths of OPD to mass tort zillionaire, all in just a few months, and the impressive firm he was building, etcetera. He could see the story taking shape, and it would be spectacular.

Next morning, he read it online before sunrise. There was his face, in one of those hideous sketches made famous by The Journal, and just above it was the headline,

The King of Torts, from $40,000 to $100,000,000 in Six Months

Under it was a subtitle: "You gotta love the law!"

It was a very long story, and all about Clay. His background, growing up in D.C., his father, Georgetown Law School, generous quotes from Glenda and Jermaine over at OPD, a comment from a professor he'd forgotten about, a brief recap of the Dyloft litigation. The best part was a lengthy discussion with Patton French, in which the "notorious mass tort lawyer" described Clay Carter as our "brightest young star" and "fearless" and "a major new force to be reckoned with."

"Corporate America should tremble at his name," continued the bombast. And, finally, "No doubt, Clay is the newest King of Torts."

He read it twice then e-mailed it to Rebecca with a note at the top and bottom: "Rebecca, Please Wait, Clay." He sent it to her apartment and her office, and, while he was at it, he removed his own message and faxed it to the offices of BVH Group. The wedding was a month away.

When he finally arrived at the office, Miss Glick handed him a stack of messages - about half from law school friends who jokingly asked for loans, about half from journalists of all varieties. The office was even more chaotic than normal. Paillette, Jonah, and Rodney were still floating and completely unfocused. Every client wanted the money that day.

Fortunately, it was the Yale Branch, under the emerging brilliance of Mr. Oscar Mulrooney, that stepped up to the task and put together a plan to survive until the settlement. Clay moved Mulrooney into an office down the hall, doubled his salary, and left him in charge of the mess.

Clay needed a break.

Because Jarrett Carter's passport had been quietly confiscated by the U.S. Department of Justice, his movements were somewhat limited. He wasn't even certain he could return to his country, though in six years he had never tried. The wink-and-hand-shake deal that got him out of town without an indictment had many loose ends. "We'd better stick to the Bahamas," he told Clay on the phone.

They left Abaco on a Cessna Citation V, another toy from the fleet Clay had discovered. They were headed for Nassau, thirty minutes away. Jarrett waited until they were airborne before saying, "Okay, spill your guts." He was already gulping a beer. And he was wearing frayed denim shorts and sandals and an old fishing cap, very much the expatriate banished to the islands and living the life of a pirate.

Clay opened a beer himself, then began with Tarvan and ended with Dyloft. Jarrett had heard rumors of his son's success, but he never read newspapers and tried his best to ignore any news from home. Another beer as he tried to digest the idea of having five thousand clients at once.

The $100 million closed his eyes, turned him pale, or least a slightly lighter shade of bronze, and it creased his leathery forehead with a wave of thick wrinkles. He shook his head, drank some beer, then began laughing.

Clay pressed on, determined to finish before they landed.

"What are you doing with the money?" Jarrett asked, still in shock.

"Spending it like crazy."

Outside the Nassau airport they found a cab, a 1974 yellow Cadillac with a driver smoking pot. He got them safely to the Sunset Hotel and Casino on Paradise Island, facing Nassau Harbor.

Jarrett headed for the blackjack tables with the five thousand in cash his son had given him. Clay headed for the pool and the tanning cream. He wanted sun and bikinis.

The boat was a sixty-three-foot catamaran made by a builder of fine sailboats in Fort Lauderdale. The captain/salesman was a cranky old Brit named Maltbee whose sidekick was a scrawny Bahamian deckhand. Maltbee snarled and fussed until they were out of Nassau Harbor and into the bay. They were headed for the southern edge of channel, for a half day in the brilliant sun and calm water, a lengthy test drive of a boat that Jarrett said could make some real money.

When the engine was turned off and the sails went up, Clay went down to examine the cabin. Supposedly it could sleep eight, plus a crew of two. Tight quarters, but then everything was junior-sized. The shower was too small to turn around in. The master suite would fit in his smallest closet. Life on a sailboat.

According to Jarrett, it was impossible to make money catching fish. Business was sporadic. A charter every day was required to turn a profit, but then the work was too hard for that. Deckhands were impossible to keep. Tips were never enough. Most clients were tolerable but there were plenty of bad ones to sour the job. He'd been a charter captain for five years and it was taking its toll.

The real money was in private sailboat charters for small groups of wealthy people who wanted to work, not be pampered. Semiserious sailors. Take a great boat - your own boat, preferably one without liens on it - and sail around the Caribbean for a month at a time. Jarrett had a friend from Freeport who'd been running two such boats for years and was making serious money. The clients mapped their course, chose their times and routes, selected their menus and booze, and off they went with a captain and a first mate for a month. "Ten thousand bucks a week," Jarrett said. "Plus you're sailing, enjoying the wind and the sun and the sea, going nowhere. Unlike fishing, where you gotta catch a big marlin or everybody's mad."

When Clay emerged from the cabin Jarrett was at the helm, looking very much at ease, as if he'd been racing fine yachts for years. Clay moved along the deck and stretched out in the sun.

They found some wind and began slicing through the smooth water, to the east along the bay, with Nassau fading in the distance. Clay had stripped down to his shorts and was covered in cream; he was about to doze when Maltbee crept up beside him.

"Your father tells me you're the one with the money." Maltbee's eyes were hidden behind thick sunshades.

"I guess he's right," Clay said.

"She's a four-million-dollar boat, practically new, one of our best. Built for one of those dot-commers who lost his money faster than he made it. A sorry lot of them, if you ask me. Anyway, we're stuck with it. Market's slow. We'll move it for three million, and at that you should be charged with thievery. If you incorporate the boat under Bahamian law as a charter company, there are all sorts of tax tricks. I can't explain them, but we have a lawyer in Nassau who does the paperwork. If you can catch him sober."

"I'm a lawyer."

"Then why are you sober?"

Ha, ha, ha; they both managed an awkward laugh.

"What about depreciation?" Clay asked.

"Heavy, quite heavy, but again, that's for you lawyers. I'm just a salesman. I think your old man likes it though. Boats like these are quite the rage from here to Bermuda to South America. It'll make money."

So says the salesman, and a bad one at that. If Clay bought a boat for his father, his sole dream was that it would break even and not become a black hole. Maltbee disappeared as quickly as he had materialized.

Three days later, Clay signed a contract to pay $2.9 million for the boat. The lawyer, who was in fact not completely sober during either of the two meetings Clay had with him, chartered the Bahamian company in Jarrett's name only. The boat was a gift from son to father, an asset to be hidden away in the islands, much like Jarrett himself.

Over dinner their last night in Nassau, in the back of a seedy saloon packed with drug dealers and tax cheaters and alimony dodgers, virtually all of them American, Clay cracked crab legs and finally asked a question he'd been considering for weeks now. "Any chance you could ever return to the States?"

"For what?"

"To practice law. To be my partner. To litigate and kick ass again."

The question made Jarrett smile. The thought of father and son working together. The very idea that Clay wanted him to return; back to an office, back to something respectable. The boy lived under a dark cloud that the old man had left behind. However, given the boy's recent success the cloud was certainly shrinking.

"I doubt it, Clay. I surrendered my license and promised to stay away."

"Would you want to come back?"

"Maybe to clear my name, but never to practice law again. There's too much baggage, too many old enemies still lurking around. I'm fifty-five years old, and that's a bit late to start over."

"Where will you be in ten years?"

"I don't think like that. I don't believe in calendars and schedules and lists of things to do. Setting goals is such a stupid American habit. Not for me. I try to get through today, maybe give a thought or two to tomorrow, and that's it. Plotting the future is damned ridiculous."

"Sorry I asked."

"Live for the moment, Clay. Tomorrow will take care of itself. You've got your hands full right now, seems to me."

"The money should keep me occupied."

"Don't blow it, son. I know that looks impossible, but you'll be surprised. New friends are about to pop up all over the place. Women will drop from the sky."

"When?"

"Just wait. I read a book once - Fool's Gold, or something like that. One story after another about great fortunes that had been lost by the idiots who had them. Fascinating reading. Get a copy."

"I think I'll pass."

Jarrett threw a shrimp in his mouth and changed the subject, "Are you going to help your mother?"

"Probably not. She doesn't need help. Her husband is wealthy, remember?"

"When have you talked to her?"

"It's been eleven years, Dad. Why do you care?"

"Just curious. It's odd. You marry a woman, live with her for twenty-five years, and you sometimes wonder what she's doing."

"Let's talk about something else."

"Rebecca?"

"Next."

"Let's go hit the crap tables. I'm up four thousand bucks."

When Mr. Ted Worley of Upper Marlboro, Maryland, received a thick envelope from the Law Offices of J. Clay Carter II, he immediately opened it. He'd seen various news reports about the Dyloft settlement. He'd watched the Dyloft Web site religiously, waiting for some sign that it was time to collect his money from Ackerman Labs.

The letter began, "Dear Mr. Worley: Congratulations.

Your class-action claim against Ackerman Labs has been settled in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi. As a Group One Plaintiff, your portion of the settlement is $62,000. Pursuant to the Contract for Legal Services entered into by you and this law firm, a 28 percent contingency for attorneys' fees is now applicable. In addition, a deduction of $1,400 for litigation expenses has been approved by the court. Your net settlement is $43,240. Please sign the enclosed agreement and acknowledgment forms and return them immediately in the enclosed envelope. Sincerely, Oscar Mulrooney, Attorney-at-Law."

"A different lawyer every damned time," Mr. Worley said as he kept flipping pages. There was a copy of the court order approving the settlement, and a notice to all class-action plaintiffs, and some other papers that he suddenly had no desire to read.

$43,240! That was the grand sum he would receive from a sleazy pharmaceutical giant that deliberately put into the marketplace a drug that caused four tumors to grow in his bladder? $43,240 for months of fear and stress and uncertainty about living or dying? $43,240 for the ordeal of a microscopic knife and scope in a tube slid up his penis and into his bladder where the four growths were removed one by one and retrieved back through his penis? $43,240 for three days of lumps and blood passed through his urine?

He flinched at the memory.

He called six times and left six hot messages and waited six hours until Mr. Mulrooney called him back. "Who the hell are you?" Mr. Worley began pleasantly.

Oscar Mulrooney, in the past ten days, had become an expert at handling such calls. He explained that he was the attorney in charge of Mr. Worley's case.

"This settlement is a joke!" Mr. Worley said. "Fortythree thousand dollars is criminal."

"Your settlement is sixty-two thousand, Mr. Worley," Oscar said.

"I'm getting forty-three, son."

"No, you're getting sixty-two. You agreed to give one-third to your attorney, without whom you would be getting nothing. It's been reduced to twenty-eight percent by the settlement. Most lawyers charge forty-five or fifty percent."

"Well, aren't I a lucky bastard. I'm not accepting it."

To which Oscar offered a brief and well-rehearsed narrative about how Ackerman Labs could only pay so much without going bankrupt, an event that would leave Mr. Worley with even less, if anything at all.

"That's nice," Mr. Worley said. "But I'm not accepting the settlement."

"You have no choice."

"The hell I don't."

"Look at the Contract for Legal Services, Mr. Worley. It's page eleven in the packet you have there. Paragraph eight is called the Preauthorization. Read the language, sir, and you'll see that you authorized this firm to settle for anything above fifty thousand dollars."

"I remember that, but it was described to me as a starting point. I was expecting much more."

"Your settlement has already been approved by the court, sir. That's the way class actions work. If you don't sign the acceptance form, then your portion will stay in the pot and eventually go to someone else."

"You're a bunch of crooks, you know that? I don't know who's worse - the company that made the drug or my own lawyers who're screwing me out of a fair settlement."

"Sorry you feel that way."

"You're not sorry about a damned thing. Paper says you're getting a hundred million bucks. Thieves!"

Mr. Worley slammed the phone down and flung the papers across his kitchen.