The Summons (Page 44)
After a slow dinner of crawfish etoufee and shrimp remoulade, with some raw oysters thrown in, he drifted back across the bay, back through Biloxi and Gulfport. In the town of Pass Christian he found what he was searching for – a new, flat motel with doors that opened to the outside. The surroundings looked safe, the parking lot was half-full. He paid sixty dollars cash for one night and backed the car as close to his door as possible. He’d changed his mind about being without a weapon. One strange sound during the night, and he’d be outside in a flash with the Judge’s .38, loaded now. He was perfectly prepared to sleep in the car, if necessary.
HANCOCK COUNTY was named for John, he of the bold signature on the Declaration of Independence. Its courthouse was built in 1911 in the center of Bay St. Louis, and was practically blown away by Hurricane Camille in August 1969. The eye ran right through Pass Christian and Bay St. Louis, and no building escaped severe damage. More than a hundred people died and many were never found.
Ray stopped to read a historical marker on the courthouse lawn, then turned once more to look at his little Audi. Though court records were usually open, he was nervous anyway. The clerks in Clanton guarded their records and monitored who came and went. He wasn’t sure what he was looking for or where to begin. The biggest fear, however, was what he might find.
In the Chancery Clerk’s office, he loitered just long enough to catch the eye of a pretty young lady with a pencil in her hair. "May I help you?" she drawled. He was holding a legal pad, as if that would somehow qualify him and open all the right doors.
"Do y’all keep records of trials?" he asked, trying hard to string out the "y’all" and overemphasizing it in the process.
She frowned and looked at him as if he had committed a misdemeanor.
"We have minutes from each term of court," she said slowly, because he obviously was not very bright. "And we have the actual court files." Ray was scribbling this down.
"And," she said after a pause, "there are the trial transcripts taken down by the court reporter, but we don’t keep those here."
"Can I see the minutes?" he asked, grasping at the first item she’d mentioned.
"Sure. Which term?" ,
"January of last year."
She took two steps to her right and began pecking on a keyboard. Ray looked around the large office where several ladies were at their desks, some typing, some filing, some on the phone. The last time he’d seen the Chancery Clerk’s office in Clan ton there had been only one computer. Hancock County was ten years ahead.
In a corner two lawyers sipped coffee from paper cups and whispered low about important matters. Before them were the property deed books that dated back two hundred years. Both had reading glasses perched on their noses and scuffed wing tips and ties with thick knots. They were checking land titles for a hundred bucks a pop, one of a dozen dreary chores handled by legions of small-town lawyers. One of them noticed Ray and eyed him suspiciously.
That could be me, Ray thought to himself.
The young lady ducked and pulled out a large ledger filled with computer printouts. She flipped pages, then stopped and spun it around on the counter. "Here," she said, pointing. ‘January ’99, two weeks of court. Here’s the docket, which goes on for several pages. This column lists the final disposition. As you’ll see, most cases were continued to the March term."
Ray was looking and listening.
"Any case in particular?" she asked.
"Do you remember a case that was heard by Judge Atlee, from Ford County? I think he was here as a special chancellor?" he asked casually. She glared at him as if he’d asked to see her own divorce file.
‘Are you a reporter?" she asked, and Ray almost took a step backward.
"Do I need to be?" he asked. Two of the other deputy clerks had stopped whatever they were doing and were frowning at him.
She forced a smile. "No, but that case was pretty big. It’s right here," she said, pointing again. On the docket it was listed simply as Gibson v. Miyer-Brack. Ray nodded approvingly as if he’d found exactly what he wanted. "And where would the file be located?" he asked.
"It’s thick," she said.
He followed her into a room filled with black metal cabinets that held thousands of files. She knew exactly where to go. "Sign here," she said, handing over a clipboard with a ledger on it. "Just your name, the date. I’ll do the rest."
"What kind of case was it?" he asked as he filled in the blanks.
"Wrongful death." She opened a long drawer and pointed from one end to the other. "All this," she said. "The pleadings start here, then discovery, then the trial transcript. You can take it to that table over there, but it cannot leave the room. Judge’s orders."
"Which judge?"
"Judge Atlee."
"He died, you know."
Walking away, she said, "That’s not such a bad thing."
The air in the room went with her, and it took a few seconds for Ray to think again. The file was four feet thick, but he didn’t care. He had the rest of the summer.
Clete Gibson died in 1997 at the age of sixty-one. Cause of death, kidney failure. Cause of kidney failure, a drug called Ryax, manufactured by Miyer-Brack, according to the allegations of the lawsuit, and found to be true by the Honorable Reuben V Atlee, sitting as special chancellor.
Mr. Gibson had taken Ryax for eight years to battle high cholesterol. The drug was prescribed by his doctor and sold by his pharmacist, both of whom were also sued by his widow and children. After taking the drug for about five years, he began having kidney problems, which were treated by a different set of doctors. At the time, Ryax, a relatively new drug, had no known side effects. When Gibson’s kidneys quit completely, he somehow came to know a Mr. Patton French, attorney-at-law. This happened shortly before his death.
Patton French was with French & French, over in Biloxi. A firm letterhead listed six other lawyers. In addition to the manufacturer, physician, and pharmacist, the defendants also included a local drug salesman and his brokerage company out of New Orleans. Every defendant had a big firm engaged, including some heavyweights from New York. The litigation was contentious, complicated, even fierce at times, and Mr. Patton French and his little firm from Biloxi waged an impressive war against the giants on the other side.
Miyer-Brack was a Swiss pharmaceutical giant, privately owned, with interests in sixty countries, according to the deposition of its American representative. In 1998, its profits were $635 million on revenues of $9.1 billion. That one deposition took an hour to read.
For some reason, Patton French decided to file a wrongful death suit in Chancery Court, the court of equity, instead of Circuit Court, where most trials were by jury. By statute, the only jury trials in Chancery were for will contests. Ray had sat through several of those miserable affairs while clerking for the Judge.
Chancery Court had jurisdiction for two reasons. First, Gibson was dead and his estate was a Chancery matter. Second, he had a child under the age of eighteen. The legal business of minors belonged in Chancery Court.
Gibson also had three children who were not minors. The lawsuit could’ve been filed in either Circuit or Chancery, one of a hundred great quirks in Mississippi law. Ray had once asked the Judge to explain this enigma, and as usual the answer was simply, "We have the greatest court system in the country." Every old chancellor believed this.
Giving lawyers the choice of where to sue was not peculiar to any state. Forum shopping was a game played on the national map. But when a lawsuit by a widow living in rural Mississippi against a mammoth Swiss company that created a drug produced in Uruguay was filed in the Chancery Court of Hancock County, a red flag was raised. The federal courts were in place to deal with such far-flung disputes, and Miyer-Brack and its phalanx of lawyers tried gallantly to remove the case. Judge Atlee held firm, as did the federal judge. Local defendants were included, thus removal to federal court could be denied.