The King of Torts

31

They had the villa for a week, though Clay doubted he could stay away from the office that long. It was wedged into the side of a hill, overlooking the busy harbor town of Gustavia, a place bustling with traffic and tourists and all kinds of boats coming and going. Ridley had found it in a catalog of exclusive private rentals. It was a fine home — traditional Caribbean architecture, red-tiled roof, long porches and verandas. There were bedrooms and bathrooms too numerous to find, and a chef, two maids, and a gardener. They settled in quickly, and Clay began flipping through real estate guides that someone had been kind enough to leave behind.

Clay’s initial encounter with a nude beach was a huge disappointment. The first naked female he saw was a grandmother, a wrinkled old thing who, with proper advice, should’ve covered much more and exposed much less. Then her husband came strolling by, a large belly hanging low and covering his privates, a rash on his ass, and worse. Nudity was getting a bad rap. Of course, Ridley was in her element, strutting up and down the beach as heads twisted. After a couple of hours in the sand, they retired from the heat and enjoyed a two-hour lunch at a fabulous French restaurant. All the good restaurants were French, and they were everywhere on the island.

Gustavia was busy. It was hot and not the tourist season, but someone forgot to tell the tourists. They packed the sidewalks as they drifted from store to store, and they crowded the streets in their rented Jeeps and small cars. The harbor was never quiet as small fishing boats jockeyed around the yachts of the rich and famous.

Whereas Mustique was private and secluded, St. Barth was overbuilt and overbooked. But it was still a charming island. Clay loved them both. Ridley, who was showing a keen interest in island real estate, preferred St. Barth because of the shopping and the food. She liked busy towns and people. Someone had to gawk at her.

After three days, Clay removed his watch and began sleeping in a hammock on a porch. Ridley read books and watched old movies for long stretches of time. Boredom was creeping in when Jarrett Carter sailed into Gustavia harbor aboard his magnificent catamaran, The ExLitigator. Clay was sitting at a bar near the dock, drinking a soda, waiting for his father.

His crew consisted of a fortyish German woman with legs as long as Ridley’s, and a roguish old Scotsman named MacKenzie, his sailing instructor. The woman, Irmgard, was at first described as his mate, which in sailing terms meant something very vague. Clay loaded them into his Jeep and drove them to his villa, where they showered forever and had drinks while the sun disappeared into the sea. MacKenzie overdosed on bourbon and was soon snoring in a hammock.

The sailing business had been slow, much like the airplane charter business. The ExLitigator had been booked four times in six months. Its longest voyage had been from Nassau to Aruba and back, three weeks that generated $30,000 from a retired British couple. The shortest had been a jaunt to Jamaica, where they’d almost lost the boat in a storm. A sober MacKenzie had saved them. Near Cuba they had a run-in with pirates. The stories rolled forth.

Not surprisingly, Jarrett took a shine to Ridley. He was proud of his son. Irmgard seemed content to drink and smoke and watch the lights down in Gustavia.

Long after dinner, and after the women had retired for the night, Jarrett and Clay moved to another porch for another round. “Where’d you find her?” Jarrett asked, and Clay gave a quick history. They were practically living together, but neither had mentioned anything more permanent than that. Irmgard was also a temp.

On the legal front, Jarrett had a hundred questions. He was alarmed at the size of Clay’s new firm, and felt compelled to offer unsolicited advice on how to run things. Clay listened patiently. The sailboat had a computer with online access, and Jarrett knew about the Maxatil litigation and the bad press that went with it. When Clay reported that he now had twenty thousand cases, his father thought that was too many for any one firm to handle.

“You don’t understand mass torts,” Clay said.

“Sounds like mass exposure to me,” Jarrett countered. “What’s your malpractice limit?”

“Ten million.”

“That’s not enough.”

“That’s all the insurance company would sell me. Relax, Dad, I know what I’m doing.”

And Jarrett couldn’t argue with success. The money his son was printing made him long for the glory days in the courtroom. He could hear those faraway, magical words from the jury foreman, “Your Honor, we, the jurors, find for the plaintiff and award damages in the amount of ten million dollars.” He would hug the plaintiff and say something gracious to the defense counsel, and Jarrett Carter would leave another courtroom with another trophy.

It was quiet for a long time. Both men needed sleep. Jarrett stood and walked to the edge of the porch. “You ever think about that black kid?” he asked, staring into the night. “The one who started shooting and had no idea why?”

“Tequila?”

“Yeah, you told me about him in Nassau when we were buying the sailboat.”

“Yeah, I think about him occasionally.”

“Good. Money isn’t everything.” And with that, Jarrett went to bed.

The trip around the island took most of the day. The captain seemed to understand the basics of how the boat operated and how the wind affected it, but if not for MacKenzie they might have strayed into the sea and never been found. The captain worked hard at handling his ship, but he was also very distracted by Ridley, who spent most of the day roasting in the nude. Jarrett couldn’t take his eyes off her. Nor could MacKenzie, but he could maneuver a sailboat in his sleep.

Lunch was in a secluded cove on the north side of the island. Near St. Maarten, Clay took the helm while his father hit the beer. For about eight hours, Clay had been seminauseous, and playing captain did nothing to relieve his discomfort. Life on a boat was not for him. The romance of sailing the world held no appeal; he’d vomit in all the great oceans. He preferred airplanes.

Two nights on land and Jarrett was ready for the sea. They said good-bye early the next morning and his father’s catamaran motored out of Gustavia harbor, headed nowhere in particular. Clay could hear his father and MacKenzie bickering as they headed for open water.

He was never certain how the Realtor materialized on the porch of the villa. She was there when he returned, a charming Frenchwoman chatting with Ridley and having a coffee. She said she was in the neighborhood, just stopped by to check on the house, which was owned by one of their clients, a Canadian couple in the midst of a nasty divorce, and how were things?

“Couldn’t be better,” Clay said, taking a seat. “A great house.”

“Isn’t it wonderful?” the Realtor gushed. “One of our finest properties. I was just telling Ridley that it was built only four years ago by these Canadians who’ve been down twice, I think. His business turned bad. She started seeing her doctor, a real mess up there in Ottawa, and so they’ve put it on the market at a very reasonable price.”

A conspiratorial glance from Ridley. Clay asked the question left hanging in the air. “How much?”

“Only three million. Started at five, but, frankly, the market is a bit soft right now.”

After she left, Ridley attacked him in the bedroom. Morning sex was unheard of, but they had an impressive go at it. Same for the afternoon. Dinner in a fine restaurant; she couldn’t keep her hands off him. The midnight session began in the pool, went to the Jacuzzi, then to the bedroom and after an all-nighter the Realtor was back before lunch.

Clay was exhausted and really not in the mood for more property. But Ridley wanted the house much more than she had wanted anything, so far, so he bought it. The price was actually on the low end; it was a bargain, the market would tighten up, and he could always sell it for a profit.

During the paperwork, Ridley asked Clay, privately, if it might be wise to put the house in her name, for tax reasons. She knew as much about the French and American tax codes as he did about Georgian inheritance laws, if, in fact they had any. Hell no, he said to himself, but to her he said, firmly, “No, that won’t work, for tax reasons.”

She appeared to be wounded, but the pain passed quickly as he assumed ownership. Clay went to a bank in Gustavia, alone, wired the money from an offshore account. When he met with the property attorney, he did so without Ridley.

“I’d like to stay for a while,” she said as they spent another long afternoon on the porch. He was planning a departure the following morning, and he’d assumed she was leaving too. “I’d like to get this house in order,” she said. “Meet with the decorator. And just relax for a week or so.”

Why not? Clay thought. Now that I own the damned place, might as well use it.

He returned to D.C. by himself, and for the first time in several weeks enjoyed the solitude of his Georgetown home.

For several days Joel Hanna had considered a solo act — just him, all alone on one side of the table, facing a small army of lawyers and their assistants on the other side. He would present the company’s survival plan; he really needed no help in doing this since it was his brainchild.

But Babcock, the attorney for their insurance company, insisted on being present. His client was on the front line for $5 million, and if he wanted to be present, then Joel couldn’t stop him.

Together they walked into the building on Connecticut Avenue. The elevator stopped on the fourth floor and they entered the lush and impressive suite of the Law Offices of J. Clay Carter II. The logo “JCC” was broadcast to the world in tall bronze letters hung on a wall that appeared to be cherry or maybe even mahogany. The furniture in the reception room was sleek and Italian. A comely young blonde behind a glass-and-chrome desk greeted them with an efficient smile and pointed to a room just down the hall. A lawyer named Wyatt met them at the door, escorted them in, handled the introductions to and from the gang on the other side, and while Joel and Babcock were unpacking their briefcases another very shapely young lady materialized from nowhere and took their coffee orders. She served them from a silver coffee service with the JCC logo engraved on the pot and also on the fine china cups. When everyone was set and things couldn’t be readier, Wyatt barked at an assistant, “Tell Clay we’re all here.”

An awkward minute passed as Mr. JCC kept everyone waiting. Finally, he entered in a rush, jacket off, talking to a secretary over his shoulder, a very busy man. He went straight to Joel Hanna and Babcock and introduced himself as if they were all there voluntarily and about to engage in the common good. Then he hustled around to the other side and assumed the king’s throne in the middle of his team, eight feet away.

Joel Hanna couldn’t help but think, “This guy made a hundred million bucks last year.”

Babcock had the same thought, but he added to it the gossip that the kid had never tried a civil lawsuit. He’d spent five years with the crackheads in criminal court, but he’d never asked a jury for a nickel. Through all the posturing, Babcock saw signs of nervousness.

“You said you had a plan,” Mr. JCC began. “Let’s hear it.”

The survival scheme was quite simple. The company was willing to admit, for purposes of this meeting only, that it had manufactured a bad batch of Portland masonry cement, and that because of this, X number of new homes in the Baltimore area would have to be re-bricked. A payment fund was needed to compensate the homeowner, while not choking the company to death. As simple as the plan was, it took Joel half an hour to present it.

Babcock spoke on behalf of the insurance company. He admitted there was $5 million in coverage, something he rarely disclosed this early in a lawsuit. His client and the Hanna company would participate in a pool.

Joel Hanna explained that his company was short on cash, but was willing to borrow heavily to compensate the victims. “This is our mistake, and we intend to correct it,” he said more than once.

“Do you have an accurate count of the number of homes here?” JCC asked, and every one of his minions wrote this down.

“Nine hundred and twenty-two,” Joel said. “We’ve gone to the wholesalers, then to the contractors, then to the masonry subs. I think that’s an accurate number, but it could be off by five percent.”

JCC was scribbling. When he stopped, he said, “So if we assume a cost of twenty-five thousand dollars to adequately compensate each client, we’re looking at about just over twenty-three million dollars.”

“We are quite certain that it will not cost twenty thousand to fix each house,” Joel said.

JCC was handed a document by an assistant. “We have statements from four masonry subs in the Howard County area. Each of the four has been on site to see the damage. Each has submitted an estimate. The lowest is eighteen-nine, the highest is twenty-one-five. The average of the four is twenty thousand bucks.”

“I’d like to see those estimates,” Joel said.

“Maybe later. Plus, there are other damages. These homeowners are entitled to compensation for their frustration, embarrassment, loss of enjoyment, and emotional distress. One of our clients is suffering from severe headaches over this. Another lost a profitable sale on his home because the bricks were falling off.”

“We have estimates in the twelve-thousand-dollar range,” Joel said.

“We’re not going to settle these cases for twelve thousand dollars,” JCC said, and every head shook on the other side.

Fifteen thousand dollars was a fair compromise and would get new bricks on every house. But such a settlement left only nine thousand dollars for the client after JCC lopped his one-third off the top. Ten thousand dollars would get the old bricks off, the new ones on the premises, but it wouldn’t pay the brickmasons to finish the job. Ten thousand dollars would only make matters worse — the home stripped to the Sheetrock, the front yard a muddy mess, flats of new bricks in the driveway but no one to lay them.

Nine hundred twenty-two cases, at $5,000 each — $4.6 million in fees. JCC did the math quickly, amazed at how adept he’d become at stringing together zeroes. Ninety percent would be his; he had to share some with a few lawyers who were latecomers to the action. Not a bad fee. It would cover the cost of the new villa on St. Barth, where Ridley was still hiding with no interest in coming home, and after taxes there would be little left.

At $15,000 per claim, Hanna could survive. Taking the $5 million from Babcock’s client, the company could add about $2 million in cash currently on hand, funds that were earmarked for plant and equipment. A pool of $15 million was needed to cover every potential claim. The remaining $8 million could be borrowed from banks in Pittsburgh. However, this information was kept between Hanna and Babcock. This was just the first meeting, not the time to play every card.

The issue would boil down to how much Mr. JCC wanted for his efforts. He could broker a fair settlement, perhaps reduce his percentage, still make several million, protect his clients, allow a fine old company to survive, and call it a victory.

Or, he could take the hard line and everybody would suffer.