A Dell Book. Doubleday hardcover edition published March 2003. Dell international mass market edition: October 2003 ISBN 0-440-29606-4
Forlagsnote: This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used ficticiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Jeg opfatter forlagsnoten, som en tilkendegivelse af at bortset fra navne o.s.v. så er det bogen beskriver de faktiske forhold. (Jeg modtager meget gerne korrektioner til denne opfattelse, hvis nogen læser kan påvise fejl - dette gælder ganske særligt de juridiske forhold.)
Bogens kvalitet er netop, at den i fiktionens levende form beskriver et specielt træk i amerikansk ret, de store samlede erstatningsretssager, (mass tort litigation). Det er jo kun i en roman, man kan få alle sider med, den ringe erstatning til ofrene, de formuer advokaterne kan stikke af med, konsekvenserne for de sagsramte virksomheder, nogen virksomheders uansvarlige handlinger, offentlige myndigheders svigt, bestikkelighed, advokaternes kamp om byttet, nogen advokaters berettigede samvittighedskvaler, antallet af sager, o.s.v. Og selv det at få en ordentlig erstatning er ikke udelt lykke.
Og så kommer der lidt - særdeles rimelig - samfundskritik. F.eks. en vurdering af omkostningerne ved fængselsophold. Betragtningen, at det kan være bedre at sidde i fængsel end at leve på gaderne, er jo også rigtig nogen steder hos os - og i nogen fængsler. [Der var i den tid, jeg havde med det at gøre, en meget stor forskel på arresthusene i Næstved og Vordingborg]. Under de fleste omstændigheder er da bedre om vinteren !
Jeg har også en smule erfaring med den farmaceutiske og anden kemiske industri, der ofte har problemer med miljøgodkendelser og deres overholdelse, myndighedernes tilsyn, - også specifikt for den farmaceutiske industri, afprøvningen, herunder registrering af bivirkninger, tilvejebringelse af villige forsøgspersoner - et område, jeg kun har arbejdet med rent teoretisk.
Citater:
It cost $41,000 a year to house an inmate. Why was the system so anxious to burn the money? 21
In many ways, life in prison is better than life on these streets. I got lots of pals who prefer it. 38
"Hang on. I cannot tell you the name of my client now, perhaps never. If we reach an agreement, then I can tell you much more. Here's the story: My client is a multinational that manufactures pharmaceuticals. You'll recognize the name. It makes a wide range of products, from common household remedies that are in your medicine cabinet right now to complex drugs that will fight cancer and obesity. An old, established blue chip company with a stellar reputation. About two years ago, it came up with a drug that might cure addicion to opium- and cocaine-based narcotics. Much more advanced than methadone, which, though it helps many addicts, is addictive itself and is widely abused. Let's call this wonder drug Tarvan - that was its nicklame for a while. It was discovered by mistake and was quickly used on every laboratory animal available. The results were outstanding, but then it's hard to duplicate crack addiction in a bunch of rats."
They needed humans," Clay said. 85
A dirty feal was cut. It included big shots; from the White House, the State Department, the DEA, the FBI, and a couple of other agencies, none of whom put anything in writing. No money changed hands; there were no bribes. My client did a nice job of convincing enough people that Tarvan might just save the world if it could perform in one more laboratory. Since FDA could take two to three years for approval, and since it has few friends in the White House anyway, the deal was cut. These big people, names now forever lost, found a way to smuggle Tarvan into a few, selected, federally funded rehab clinics in D.C. If it worked there, then the White House and the big folk would put relentless pressure on the FDA for quick approval." 89
"Yes, and, of course, to compensate the victims. I don't want tumors in my bladder, benign or malignant. Most jurors would feel the same way. Here's the scenario: You put together a group of fifty or so plaintiffs, and file a big lawsuit on behalf of all Dyloft patients. At precisely the same time, you launch a series of television ads soliciting more cases. You hit fast and hard, and you'll get thousands of cases. The ads run coast to coast - quickie ads that'll scare folks and make them dial your toll-free number right here in D.C., where you have a warehouse full of paralegals answering the phones and doing the grunt work. It's gonna cost you some money, but if you get, say, five thousand cases, and you settle them for twenty thousand bucks each, that's one hundred millon dollars. Your cut is one third." "That's outrageous!" "No, Clay, that's mass tort litigation at its finest 152
"On July the second, we start the var by filing a class action here in D.C. on behalf of all patients harmed by the drug. It will create chaos, and we'll be right in the middle of it." 172
"Okay, let's say that's three thousand cases. Three thousand cases times the minimum of ten thousand dollars comes to thirty million, right?" She said this slowly, scribbling the entire time.
"That's right."
"And how much are the attorneys' fees?" she asked. The other three were watching Clay very closely
"One third," he said.
That's ten million in fees," she said slowly. "All to this firm?" 174
He owed something to Tequila, but he wasn't sure what. Nor was there any way of compensating his ex-client. He rationalized that he had spent most of his life on drugs and would probably spend the rest behind bars anyway, with or without Tarvan, but this did little to make Clay feel honorable. He had sold out, plain and simple. He'd taken the cash and buried the truth. 193
Patton French had never seen a mass tort class come together so beautifully. Because he and Clay won the race to the courthouse in Biloxi, their class had been certified first. All other Dyloft plaintiffs wanting in on a class action would be forced to join theirs, with the plaintiffs' Steering Committee raking off an additional fee. French's friendly judge had already appointed the five-lawyer committee - French, Clay, Carlos Hernàndez from Miami, and two other cronies from New Orleans. 221
Dyloft plaintiff could always "opt out" of the class, and take on Ackerman Labs alonc in a separate trial. As lawyers around the country collected the cases and put together their coalitions, the inevitable conflicts arose. 221
I saw the ad the first night it was on," said Bernie somebody from Boston. "Never heard of Dyloft. So I call your hot fine, get a nice guy on the other end. I tell him I've been taking the drug, feed him the line, you know. I go to the Web site. It was brilliant. I said to myself, 'I've been ambushed.' Three days later I'm on the air with my own damned Dyloft hot line."
They all laughed, probably because they could each tell similar stories. It had never occurred to Clay that other lawyers would call his hot line and use his Web site in order to steer away cases. 225
They turned onto Seventy-third and headed east. Saulsberry wasn't finished. "You're familiar with the lead paint cases?"
"Not really."
"They're not as famous as the drug cases, but pretty damned lucrative. I started the rage about ten years ago. Our clients are schools, churches, hospitals, commercial buildings, all with layers of lead paint on the walls. Very dangerous stuff. We've sued the paint manufacturers, settled with a few. Couple of billion so far. 248
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 acknowdedgment 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 rom 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 cailed 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 gettmg 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 he 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." 263-6
As was Clay The place was filled with tension and strife. So many Dyloft clients were unhappy with their meagcr settlements. The mail was brutal. Dodging the phone had become a sport. Several clients had actually found the place and presented themselves to Miss Glick vith demands to see Mr. Carter, who, it happened, was always in a big trial somewhere. Usually, he was hunkering down in his office with the door locked, riding out yet another storm. After one particularly troubling day, he called Patton French for advice.
"Toughen up, ol' boy" French said. "It goes with the territory. You're making a fortune in mass torts, this is just the downside. It takes a thick skin." 282-3
There were dozens of Web sites - one that purported to list all class actions now pending in the United States, a total of eleven thousand; one that instructed potential plaintiffs on how to join a class and receive compensation; ... 293
The mailman knew for a fact that the money was causing all sorts of problems for Nora [Tackett]. Every Tackett in the county called her for bail money when there was an arrest. Her kids, or the kids she was raising, were being picked on at school because their mother was so fat and so rich. Their father, a man unseen in those parts for the past two years, was back in town. He told folks at the barbershop that Nora was the sweetest woman he'd ever been married to. Her father had threatened to kill him, and that wasr another reason she stayed inside with the doors locked. 360
The only thing mass tort lawyers feared was one of heir own. A predator. A traitor who followed behind fixing their mistakes, A subspecialty had evolved in which a few very good and very nasty trial lawyers pursued their brethren for bad settlements. Helen Warshaw was writing the training manual. 369
DURING HIS years at OPD, Clay had conducted hundreds of initial interviews, almost all at the jail. They usually started slow, with the defendant, who was almost always black, uncertain about how much he should say to his white lawyer. The background information thawed things somewhat, but the facts and details and truth about the alleged crime were rarely given during the first meeting.
It was ironic that Clay, the white defendant now, was nervously walking into his own initial interview with his black defense lawyer. And at $750 an hour, Zack Battle had better be prepared to listen fast. No ducking and weaving and shadowboxing at that rate. Battle would get the truth, as fast as he could write it down.
But Battle wanted to gossip. He and Jarrett had been drinking buddies years earlier, long before Battle sobered up and became the biggest criminal lawyer in D.C. Oh, the stories he could tell about Jarrett Carter. 383-4
In Reedsburg, the news that Hanna was laying off welve hundred workers brought the town to a halt. The announcement came in a letter written by Marcus Hanna and given to all employees.
In fifty years, the company had been through only four layoffs. It had weathered cycles and slowdowns and had always worked hard to keep everyone on the payroll. Now that it was in bankruptcy, the rules were different. The company was under pressure to prove to the court and to its creditors that it had a viable financial future. 414
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Orla Jordal, 2007
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