The King of Torts

"But the drug is not okay."

"I’d worry about that later. For the first few days, it’s all spin, at least on the surface. If investors believe there’s something wrong with the drug, they’ll jump ship and the stock will keep falling. Once the spin is in place, I would have a serious talk with the big boys. Once I found out that there were problems with the drug, then I’d bring in the number-crunchers and figure out how much the settlements will cost. You never go to trial with a bad drug. Each jury can fill in the blank for a verdict, and there’s no way to control the costs. One jury gives the plaintiff a million bucks. The next jury in another state gets mad and awards twenty million in punitive damages. It’s a huge crap-shoot. So you settle. As you are quickly learning, mass tort lawyers take their percentages off the top, so they’re easy to settle with."

"How much cash can Ackerman afford?"

"They’re insured for at least three hundred million. Plus they have about a half billion in cash, most of it generated by Dyloft. They’re almost maxed out at the bank, but if I were calling the shots I’d plan on paying a billion. And I would do it fast."

"Will Ackerman do it fast?"

"They haven’t hired me, so they’re not too bright. I’ve watched the company for a long time, and they’re not particularly sharp. Like all drugmakers, they’re horrified of litigation. Instead of using a fireman like me, they do it the old-fashioned way – they rely on their lawyers, who, of course, have no interest in quick settlements. The principal firm is Walker-Steams in New York. You’ll hear from them very shortly."

"So no quick settlement?"

"You filed suit less than an hour ago. Relax."

"I know, but I’m burning up all that money you just gave me."

"Take it easy. Within a year you’ll be even richer."

"A year, huh?"

"That’s my guess. The lawyers have to get fat first. Walker-Steams will put fifty associates on the case with meters churning at full blast. Mr. Worley’s class action is worth a hundred million bucks to Ackerman’s own lawyers. Don’t ever forget that."

"Why don’t they just pay me a hundred million bucks to go away?"

"Now you’re thinking like a real mass tort boy. They’ll pay you even more, but first they have to pay their lawyers. That’s just the way it works."

"But you wouldn’t do it that way?"

"Of course not. With Tarvan, the client told me the truth, which seldom happens. I did my homework, found you, and wrapped up everything quietly, quickly, and cheaply. Fifty million, and not a dime to my client’s own lawyers."

Miss Glick appeared in the door and said, "That reporter from The Wall Street Journal is on the phone again." Clay looked at Pace who said, "Chat him up. And remember, the other side has an entire PR unit cranking out the spin."

The Times and the Post ran brief stories of the Dyloft class action on the front pages of their business sections the following morning. Both mentioned Clay’s name, which was a thrill he quietly relished. More ink was given to the defendant’s responses. The CEO called the lawsuit "frivolous" and "just another example of litigation abuse by the legal profession." The Vice President for Research said, "Dyloft had been thoroughly researched with no evidence of adverse side effects." Both newspapers noted that Ackerman Labs’ stock, which had dropped by 50 percent in the three preceding quarters, had taken another blow by the surprise lawsuit.

The Wall Street Journal got it right, at least in Clay’s opinion. In the preliminaries, the reporter had asked Clay his age. "Only thirty-one?" he’d said, which led to a series of questions about Clay’s experience, his firm, etcetera. David versus Goliath is much more readable than dry financial data or lab reports, and the story took on a life of its own. A photographer was rushed over, and while Clay posed his staff watched with great amusement.

On the front page, far left column, the headline read:

The Rookie Takes on Mighty Ackerman Labs

Beside it was a computerized caricature of a smiling Clay Carter. The first paragraph read: "Less than two months ago, D.C. attorney Clay Carter was laboring through the city’s criminal justice system as an unknown and low paid public defender. Yesterday, as the owner of his own law firm, he filed a billion-dollar lawsuit against the third-largest pharmaceutical company in the world, claiming its newest wonder drug, Dyloft, not only relieves acute pain for arthritis sufferers but also causes tumors in their bladders."

The article was filled with questions about how Clay had made such a radical transformation so quickly. And since he couldn’t mention Tarvan or anything related to it, he vaguely referred to the quick settlements of some lawsuits involving people he’d met as a public defender. Ackerman Labs got in a few licks with its typical posturing about lawsuit abuse and ambulance chasers ruining the economy, but the bulk of the story was about Clay and his amazing rise to the forefront of mass tort litigation. Nice things were said about his father, a "legendary D.C. litigator" who had since "retired" to the Bahamas.

Glenda at OPD praised Clay as a "zealous defender of the poor," a classy remark that would get her lunch in a fancy restaurant. The President of the National Trial Lawyers Academy admitted he had never heard of Clay Carter, but was nonetheless "very impressed with his work."

A law professor at Yale lamented "yet another example of the misuse of class-action litigation," while one at Harvard said it was "a perfect example of how class actions should be used to pursue corporate wrongdoers."

"Make sure this gets on the Web site," Clay said as he handed the article to Jonah. "Our clients will love it."

Chapter Eighteen

Tequila Watson pleaded guilty to the murder of Ramon Pumphrey and was sentenced to life in prison. He would be eligible for parole in twenty years, though the story in the Post did not mention that. It did say that his victim had been one of several gunned down in a spate of killings that had seemed unusually random even for a city accustomed to senseless violence. The police had no explanations. Clay made a note to call Adelfa and see how her life was going.

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.

Two pages over another article caught his attention and made him forget about Tequila Watson. Mr. Bennett Van Horn’s pudgy face was in a photo, under his monogrammed hard hat, taken at a job site somewhere. He was intently staring at a set of plans with another man who was identified as the project engineer for BVH Group. The company had become embroiled in a nasty fight over a proposed development near the Chancellorsville battlefield, about an hour south of D.C.

Bennett, as always, was proposing one of his hideous collections of houses, condos, apartments, shops, playgrounds, tennis courts, and the obligatory pond, all within a mile of the center of the battlefield and very near the spot where General Stonewall Jackson was shot by Confederate sentries. Preservationists, lawyers, war historians, environmentalists, and the Confederate Society had drawn swords and were in the process of shredding Bennett the Bulldozer. Not surprisingly, the Post praised these groups while saying nothing good about Bennett. However, the land in question was privately owned by some aging farmers, and he appeared to have the upper hand, at least for the moment.