The King of Torts

The King of Torts Page 30

On May 1, Rex Crittle left the accounting firm where he'd worked for eighteen years and moved upstairs to become the business manager of JCC. With the offer of a huge increase in salary and benefits, he simply couldn't say no. The law firm was wildly successful, but in the chaos it was growing so fast its business seemed out of control. Clay gave him broad authority and parked him in an office across the hall from his.

While Crittle certainly appreciated his own large salary, he was skeptical of everyone's around him. In his opinion, which he kept to himself for the time being, most of the employees were overpaid. The firm now had fourteen lawyers, all making at least $200,000 a year; twenty-one paralegals at $75,000 each; twenty-six secretaries at $50,000 each, with the exception of Miss Glick who earned $60,000; a dozen or so clerks of different varieties, each earning on the average $20,000; and four office gofers at $15,000 each. A total of seventy-seven, not including Crittle and Clay. Adding in the cost of benefits, the total annual payroll was $8.4 million, and growing almost weekly.

Rent was $72,000 a month. Office expenses - computers, phones, utilities, the list was quite long - were running about $40,000 a month. The Gulfstream, which was the biggest waste of all and the one asset Clay could not live without, was costing the firm $300,000 in monthly mortgage payments and another $30,000 for pilots, maintenance, and hangar fees. The charter revenue Clay was expecting had yet to show up on the books. One reason was that he really didn't want anyone else using his airplane.

According to figures that Crittle monitored daily, the firm was burning around $1.3 million a month in overhead - $15.6 million a year, give or take. Certainly enough to terrify any accountant, but after the shock of the Dyloft settlement and the enormous fees that had flooded in, he was not in a position to complain. Not yet, anyway. He now met with Clay at least three times a week, and any questionable expenditure was met with the usual, "You gotta spend it to make it."

And spending they were. If the overhead made Crittle squirm, the advertising and testing gave him ulcers. For Maxatil, the firm had spent $6.2 million in the first four months on newspaper, radio, television, and online advertising. This, he had complained about. "Full speed ahead," had been Clay's response. "I want twenty-five thousand cases!" The tally was somewhere around eighteen thousand, and virtually impossible to monitor because it changed by the hour.

According to one online industry newsletter Crittle peeked at every day, the reason the Carter firm in D.C. was getting so many Maxatil cases was that few other lawyers were aggressively pursuing them. But he kept this gossip to himself.

"Maxatil will be a bigger payday than Dyloft," Clay said repeatedly around the office, to fire up the troops. And he seemed to truly believe it.

Skinny Ben was costing the firm much less, but the expenses were piling up and the fees were not. As of May 1, they had spent $600,000 on advertising and about that much on medical tests. The firm had 150 clients, and Oscar Mulrooney had floated a memo claiming that each case was worth, on the average, $180,000. At 30 percent, Mulrooney was projecting fees of about $9 million within the next "few months."

The fact that a branch of the firm was about to produce such results had everyone excited, but the waiting had become worrisome. Not one dime had been collected from the Skinny Ben class-action settlement, a scheme that was supposed to be automatic. Hundreds of lawyers were involved in it, and, not surprisingly, major disagreements had arisen. Crittle didn't understand the legal intricacies, but he was educating himself. He was fluent in overhead and fee shortages.

The day after Crittle moved in, Rodney moved out, though the two events were not related. Rodney was simply cashing in his chips and moving to the suburbs, to a very nice home on a very safe street, with a church on one end, a school on the other, a park around the corner. He planned to become a full-time coach for his four kids. Employment might come later, and it might not. He'd forgotten about law school. With $10 million in the bank, before taxes, he had no real plans, just a determination to be a father and a husband, and a miser. He and Clay sneaked away to a deli down the street, just hours before he left the office for good, and said their good-byes. They had worked together for six years - five at OPD, the last one at the new firm.

"Don't spend it all, Clay," he warned his friend.

"I can't. There's too much of it."

"Don't be foolish."

The truth was, the firm no longer needed someone like Rodney. The Yale boys and the other lawyers were polite and deferential, mainly because of his friendship with Clay, but he was only a paralegal. And Rodney no longer needed the firm. He wanted to hide his money and protect it. He was secretly appalled at the way Clay was blowing through such a fortune. You pay a price for waste.

With Jonah on a sailboat and Paulette still hiding in London and apparently not coming home, the original gang was now gone. Sad, but Clay was too busy to be nostalgic.

Patton French had ordered a meeting of the steering committee, a logistical impossibility that took a month to put together. Clay asked why they couldn't do things by phone, fax, e-mail, and through secretaries, but French said they needed a day together, the five of them in the same room. Since the lawsuit had been filed in Biloxi, he wanted them there.

Ridley was up for the trip. Her modeling had all but ceased; she spent her time at the gym and put in several hours a day shopping. Clay had no complaints about the gym time, it provided icing for the cake. The shopping concerned him, but she showed remarkable restraint. She could shop for hours and spend a modest amount.

A month earlier, after a long weekend in New York, they had returned to D.C. and driven to his town house. She spent the night, not for the first time and evidently not for the last. Though nothing was said about her moving in, it just happened. Clay could not remember when he realized that her bathrobe and toothbrush and makeup and lingerie were there. He never saw her hauling her stuff into his apartment, it just materialized there. She wasn't pushy; nothing was said. She stayed three consecutive nights, doing all the right things and not getting in the way, then she whispered that she needed a night at home. They didn't talk for two days, then she was back.

Marriage was never mentioned, though he was buying enough jewelry and clothes for a harem. Neither appeared to be looking for anything permanent. They enjoyed each other's company and companionship, but both kept a roving eye. There were mysteries around her that Clay did not want to solve. She was gorgeous and pleasant and okay in the sack, and she did not seem to be a gold digger. But she had secrets.

So did Clay. His biggest secret was that if Rebecca called at the right time, he'd sell everything but the Gulfstream, load her in it, and fly away to Mars.

Instead he was flying to Biloxi with Ridley, who for the trip had chosen a suede mini-skirt that barely covered the essentials, which she had no interest in covering because it was just the two of them on the plane. Somewhere over West Virginia, Clay gave a passing thought to yanking out the sofa and attacking her. The thought lingered, but he managed to put it away, partly out of frustration. Why was he always the one initiating the fun and games? She was a willing player, but she never started things.

Besides, the briefcase was filled with steering committee paperwork.

A limo met them at the airport in Biloxi. It drove them a few miles to a harbor, where a speedboat was waiting. Patton French spent most of his time on his yacht, ten miles out in the Gulf. He was now between wives. A nasty divorce was raging. The current one wanted half his money and all his hide. Life was much quieter on a boat, as he called the two-hundred-foot luxury yacht.

He greeted them in shorts and bare feet. Wes Saulsberry and Damon Didier were already there, stiff drinks in hand. Carlos Hernandez from Miami was due at any moment. French gave them a quick tour, during which Clay counted at least eight people in perfect white sailor's garb, all standing at the ready in case he needed something. The boat had five levels, six state rooms, cost $20 million, and on and on. Ridley ducked into a bedroom and began shucking clothes.

The boys met for drinks "on the porch," as French described it - a small wooden deck on the top level. French was actually going to trial in two weeks, a rarity for him because corporate defendants normally just threw money at him in fear. He claimed to be looking forward to it, and over a round of vodkas bored them all with the details.

He froze in mid-sentence when he saw something below. On a lower deck, Ridley appeared, topless and, at first sight, bottomless as well. But there was a dental-floss bikini in the package, clinging somehow to the right spot. The three older men bolted upright and gasped for breath. "She's European," Clay explained as he waited for the first heart attack. "When she gets near the water, the clothes come off."

"Then buy her a damned boat," Saulsberry said.

"Better yet, she can have this one," French said, trying to collect himself.

Ridley looked up, saw the commotion she was causing, then disappeared. No doubt she was followed by every waiter and staff person on board.

"Where was I?" French said, breathing again.

"You were finished with whatever story you were telling," Didier said.

Another powerboat was coming near. It was Hernandez, with not one but two young ladies in tow. After they unloaded and French got them settled in, Carlos met the boys on the porch.

"Who are the girls?" Wes asked.

"My paralegals," Carlos said.

"Just don't make them partners," French said. They talked about women for a few minutes. Evidently, all four had been through several wives. Maybe that was why they kept working so hard. Clay did none of the talking and all of the listening.

"What's up with Maxatil?" Carlos asked. "I have a thousand cases and I'm not sure what to do with them."

"You're asking me what to do with your cases?" Clay said.

"How many do you have?" French asked. The mood had changed dramatically; things were serious now.

"Twenty thousand," Clay said, fudging just a little. Truth was, he didn't know how many cases were in the office. What was a little exaggerating among mass tort boys?

"I haven't filed mine," Carlos said. "Proving causation could be a nightmare." Words that Clay had heard enough and did not want to hear again. For almost four months, he'd been waiting for another big name to dive into the Maxatil pit.

"I still don't like it," French said. "I was talking to Scotty Gaines yesterday in Dallas. He has two thousand cases, but isn't sure what to do with them either."

"It's very difficult to prove causation based solely on a study," Didier said in Clay's direction, almost lecturing. "I don't like it either."

"The problem is that the diseases caused by Maxatil are caused by many other factors as well," Carlos was saying. "I've had four experts study this drug. They all say that when a woman is taking Maxatil and gets breast cancer, it's impossible to link the disease to the drug."

"Anything from Goffman?" French asked. Clay, who was ready to jump overboard, took a long pull on a very strong drink and tried to appear as if he had the corporation dead in the crosshairs.

"Nothing," he said. "Discovery is just getting started. I think we're all waiting for Mooneyham."

"I talked to him yesterday," Saulsberry said. They might not like Maxatil, but they were certainly monitoring it. Clay had been a mass tort lawyer long enough to know that the greatest fear of all was missing the big one. And Dyloft had taught him that the biggest thrill was launching a surprise attack while everyone else was asleep.

He was not yet sure what Maxatil might teach him. These guys were nibbling around the edges, probing, hoping to learn something from the front lines. But since Goffman had so thoroughly stonewalled the lawsuit since the day he'd filed it, Clay had nothing to give them.

Saulsberry was saying, "I know Mooneyham very well. We tried some cases together years ago."

"He's a blowhard," French said, as if the typical trial lawyer was tight-lipped and one with a big mouth was a disgrace to the profession.

"He is, but he's very good. The old guy hasn't lost in twenty years."

"Twenty-one," Clay said. "At least that's what he told me."

"Whatever," Saulsberry said, brushing them aside because he had fresh news. "You're right, Clay, everybody is watching Mooneyham. Even Goffman. The trial is set for sometime in September. They claim they want a trial. If Mooneyham can connect the dots and prove causation and liability, then there's a good chance the company will set up a national compensation plan. But if the jury goes with Goffman, then the war is on because the company ain't paying a dime to anybody."

"This is all according to Mooneyham?" French asked.

"Yes."

"He's a blowhard."

"No, I've heard it too," Carlos said. "I have a source, and he said exactly what Wes is saying."

"I've never heard of a defendant pushing for a trial," French said.

"Goffman's a tough bunch," Didier added. "I sued them fifteen years ago. If you can prove liability, they'll pay a fair settlement. But if you can't, you're screwed."

Once again, Clay felt like going for a swim. Fortunately, Maxatil was instantly forgotten when the two Cuban paralegals pranced onto the deck below in very skimpy outfits.

"Paralegals, my ass," French said, straining for a better view.

"Which one is yours?" Saulsberry asked, leaning out of his chair.

"Take your pick, boys," Carlos said. "They're professionals. I brought them as a gift. We'll pass them around."

And with that the windbags on the top deck were dead silent.

A storm arrived just before dawn and disrupted the quietness of the yacht. French, badly hung over and with a naked paralegal under his sheets, called the captain from his bed and ordered him to head for shore. Breakfast was postponed, not that anyone was hungry. Dinner had been a four-hour marathon, complete with courtroom war stories, dirty jokes, and the obligatory late-night bickering caused by too much alcohol. Clay and Ridley had retired early and double-latched their door.

Moored in Biloxi harbor, riding out the storm, the steering committee managed to review all the documents and memos it was supposed to review. There were directions to the class-action administrator, and dozens of signature blanks to be filled in. Clay was nauseous by the time they finished, and desperate to stand on solid ground.

Not lost in all the paperwork was the latest fee schedule. Clay, or more accurately, his law firm, would soon be receiving another $4 million. Exciting enough, but he wasn't sure if he would realize it when the money arrived. It would make a nice dent in the overhead, but only a temporary one.

It would, however, get Rex Crittle off his back for a few weeks. Rex was pacing the halls like an expectant father, looking for fees.

Never again, he vowed to himself when he stepped off the yacht. Never would he allow himself to be penned up overnight with people he didn't like. A limo took them to the airport. The Gulfstream took them to the Caribbean.