The King of Torts (21 page)

It was the wrong thing to say, as far as dinner was concerned. French forgot about his veal, which was still in the kitchen. And he forgot about the expensive wines covering his table, though he managed to consume them over the next three hours. But what mass tort lawyer could concentrate on food and wine when the
New York Times
was just hours away from exposing his next defendant and its dangerous drug?

__________

THE PHONE was ringing and it was still dark outside. The clock, when he could finally focus on it, gave the time as five forty-five. “Get up!” French growled at him. “And open the door.” By the time he unlocked it, French was pushing it open and marching past with newspapers and a cup of coffee. “Unbelievable!” he said, flinging a copy of the
Times
on Clay’s bed.

“You can’t sleep all day, son. Read this!” He was dressed in hotel garb, the complimentary terry-cloth robe and white shower shoes.

“It’s not six yet.”

“I haven’t slept past five in thirty years. There are too many lawsuits out there.”

Clay wore nothing but his boxer shorts. French gulped coffee and read the story again, peering down his flat nose through reading glasses perched on the tip.

No sign of a hangover. Clay had gotten bored with the wines, which all tasted the same to him anyway, and finished the night with bottled water. French had battled on, determined to declare a winner among the five burgundies, though he was so sidetracked with Dyloft his heart wasn’t in it.

The
Atlantic Journal of Medicine
was reporting that dylofedamint, known as Dyloft, had been linked to bladder tumors in about 6 percent of those who had taken it for a year.

“Up from five percent,” Clay said as he read.

“Isn’t that wonderful?” French said.

“Not if you’re in the six percent.”

“I’m not.”

Some doctors were already pulling the drug. Ackerman Labs offered a rather weak denial, shifting blame, as always, to greedy trial lawyers, though the company appeared to be hunkering down. No comment from the FDA. A doctor in Chicago ran on for half a column about how great the drug was, how happy his patients were with it. The good news, if it could be called that, was that the tumors did not appear to be malignant, so far anyway. As Clay read the story, he got the feeling that Max Pace had seen it a month ago.

There was only one paragraph about the class action filed in D.C. on Monday, and no mention of the young lawyer who’d filed it.

Ackerman’s stock had tumbled from $42.50 Monday morning to $32.50 at the close on Wednesday.

“Should’ve shorted the damned thing,” French mumbled. Clay bit his tongue and kept a secret, one of the few he’d held on to in the past twenty-four hours.

“We can read it again on the plane,” French said. “Let’s get out of here.”

__________

THE STOCK was at $28 by the time Clay walked into his office and tried to say hello to his weary staff. He went online to a Web site with the latest market movements and checked it every fifteen minutes, counting his gains. Burning money on one front, it was comforting to see some profits on the other.

Jonah was the first to stop by. “We were here until midnight last night,” he said. “It’s crazy.”

“It’s about to get crazier. We’re doubling the TV ads.”

“We can’t keep up now.”

“Hire some temporary paralegals.”

“We need computer people, at least two. We can’t add the data fast enough.”

“Can you find them?”

“Maybe some temps. I know one guy, maybe two, who might be able to come in at night and play catch-up.”

“Get them.”

Jonah started to leave, then turned around and closed the door behind him. “Clay, look, it’s just me and you, right?”

Clay looked around the office and saw no one else. “What is it?”

“Well, you’re a smart guy and all. But do you know what you’re doing here? I mean, you’re burning money faster than it’s ever been burned. What if something goes wrong?”

“You’re worried?”

“We’re all a little worried, okay? This firm is off to a great start. We want to stay and have fun and make money and all that. But what if you’re wrong and you go belly-up? It’s a fair question.”

Clay walked around to the edge of his desk and sat on the corner. “I’ll be very honest with you. I think I know what I’m doing, but since I’ve never done it before, I can’t be certain. It’s one huge gamble. If I win,
then we all make some serious money. If I lose, then we’re still in business. We just won’t be rich.”

“If you get the chance, tell the others, okay?”

“I will.”

Lunch was a ten-minute sandwich break in the conference room. Jonah had the latest numbers: For the first three days, the hot line had fielded seventy-one hundred calls and the Web site had averaged eight thousand inquiries per day. Information packets and contracts for legal services had been mailed as quickly as possible, though they were falling behind. Clay authorized Jonah to hire two part-time computer assistants. Paulette was given the task of finding three or four additional paralegals to work in the Sweatshop. And Miss Glick was directed to hire as many temporary clerks as necessary to handle the client correspondence.

Clay described his meeting with Patton French and explained their new legal strategy. He showed them copies of the article in the
Times
; they’d been too busy to notice.

“The race is on, folks,” he said, trying his best to motivate a weary bunch. “The sharks are coming after our clients.”

“We are the sharks,” Paulette said.

Patton French called late in the afternoon and reported that the class action had been amended to add Mississippi plaintiffs and filed in state court in Biloxi. “We got it right where we want it, pal,” he said.

“I’ll dismiss here tomorrow,” Clay said, hoping he was not giving away his lawsuit.

“You gonna tip off the press?”

“I wasn’t planning on it,” Clay said. He had no idea how one went about tipping off the press.

“Let me handle it.”

Ackerman Labs closed the day at $26.25, a paper profit of $1,625,000, if Clay bought now and covered his short sale. He decided to wait. The news of the Biloxi filing would hit in the morning, and it would do nothing but hurt the stock.

At midnight, he was sitting at his desk chatting with a gentleman in Seattle who had taken Dyloft for almost a year and was now horrified that he probably had tumors. Clay advised him to get to the doctor as soon as possible for the urinalysis. He gave him the Web site and promised to mail out an information packet first thing tomorrow. When they hung up, the man was on the verge of tears.

   CHAPTER 20   

Bad news continued to follow the miracle drug Dyloft. Two more medical studies were published, one of which argued convincingly that Ackerman Labs cut corners on its research and pulled every string it had to get the drug approved. The FDA finally ordered Dyloft off the market.

The bad news was, of course, wonderful news to the lawyers, and the frenzy heated up as more and more latecomers piled on. Patients taking Dyloft received written warnings from Ackerman Labs and from their own doctors, and these dire messages were almost always followed by ominous solicitations from mass tort lawyers. Direct mail was extremely effective. Newspaper ads were used in every big market. And hot lines were all over the television. The threat of tumors growing wild prompted virtually all Dyloft users to contact a lawyer.

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 Hernández from Miami, and two other cronies from New Orleans. In theory, the committee would handle the large and complicated trial against Ackerman Labs. In reality, the five would shuffle paperwork and cover the administrative chore of keeping fifty thousand or so clients and their lawyers somewhat organized.

A Dyloft plaintiff could always “opt out” of the class, and take on Ackerman Labs alone in a separate trial. As lawyers around the country collected the cases and put together their coalitions, the inevitable conflicts arose. Some disapproved of the Biloxi class and wanted their own. Some despised Patton French. Some wanted a trial in their jurisdictions, with the chance of a huge verdict.

But French had been through the battles many times before. He lived on his Gulfstream, jetting from coast to coast, meeting the mass tort lawyers who were collecting cases by the hundreds, and somehow holding the fragile coalition together. The settlement would be bigger in Biloxi, he promised.

He talked every day to the in-house counsel at Ackerman Labs, an embattled old warrior who had tried to retire twice but the CEO wouldn’t allow it. French’s
message was clear and simple—let’s talk settlement now, without your outside lawyers, because you know you’re not going to trial with this drug. Ackerman was beginning to listen.

In mid-August, French convened a summit of the Dyloft lawyers at his sprawling ranch near Ketchum, Idaho. He explained to Clay that his attendance was mandatory, as a member of the Plaintiffs’ Steering Committee, and, just as important, the rest of the boys were quite anxious to meet the young upstart who broke the Dyloft case. “Plus, with these guys you can’t miss a single meeting, else they’ll stab you in the back.”

“I’ll be there,” Clay said.

“I’ll send a jet,” French offered.

“No thanks. I’ll get there.”

Clay chartered a Lear 35, a handsome little jet about one-third the size of a Gulfstream 5, but since he was traveling alone it was quite adequate. He met the pilots in the private terminal at Reagan National, where he mixed and mingled with the other hotshots, all older than he, and tried desperately to act as if there was nothing special about hopping on board his own jet. Sure it was owned by a charter company, but for the next three days it was his.

Lifting off to the north, he stared down at the Potomac, then the Lincoln Memorial, and, quickly, all the landmarks of downtown. There was his office building, and in the distance, not too far away, was the Office of the Public Defender. What would Glenda and Jermaine and those he’d left behind think if they saw him now?

What would Rebecca think?

If she’d just held on for another month.

He’d had so little time to think about her.

Into the clouds and the view was gone. Washington was soon miles behind. Clay Carter was off to a secret meeting of some of the richest lawyers in America, the mass tort specialists, those who had the brains and brawn to go after the most powerful corporations.

And they wanted to meet him!

__________

HIS JET was the smallest one at the Ketchum–Sun Valley airport at Friedman, Idaho. As he taxied by Gulfstreams and Challengers he had the ridiculous thought that his jet was inadequate, that he needed a bigger one. Then he laughed at himself—there he was in the leather-lined cabin of a $3 million Lear, and he was debating whether he should get something bigger. At least he could still laugh. What would he be when the laughing stopped?

They parked next to a familiar plane, one with the tail number 000MT Zero, Zero, Zero, Mass Tort, the home away from home of Patton French himself. It dwarfed Clay’s ride, and for a second he looked up in envy at the finest luxury jet in the world.

A van was waiting, with what appeared to be an imitation cowboy behind the wheel. Fortunately, the driver was not much of a talker, and Clay enjoyed the forty-five-minute ride in silence. They twisted upward on roads that became narrower. Not surprisingly, Patton’s spread was postcard perfect and very new. The house was a lodge with enough wings and levels to host a
good-sized law firm. Another cowboy took Clay’s bag. “Mr. French is waiting on the deck out back,” he said, as if Clay had been there many times.

Switzerland was the topic when Clay found them—which secluded ski resort they preferred. He listened for a second as he approached. The other four members of the Plaintiffs’ Steering Committee were lounging in chairs, facing the mountains, smoking dark cigars and working on drinks. When they realized Clay was present, they hopped to attention as if the judge had entered the courtroom. In the first three minutes of excited conversation, he was called “brilliant,” “shrewd,” “gutsy,” and, his favorite, “a visionary.”

“You gotta tell us how you found Dyloft,” Carlos Hernández said.

“He won’t tell,” French said as he mixed some vile concoction for Clay to drink.

“Come on,” said Wes Saulsberry, Clay’s newest friend. Within just a few minutes, Clay would learn that Wes had made about half a billion on the tobacco settlement three years earlier.

“I’m sworn to silence,” Clay said.

The other lawyer from New Orleans was Damon Didier, one of the speakers at a session Clay had attended during his Circle of Barristers weekend. Didier was stone-faced and steely-eyed and Clay remembered wondering how this guy could ever connect with a jury. Didier, he found out soon enough, had made a mint when a riverboat packed with fraternity boys sunk into Lake Pontchartrain. Such misery.

They needed patches and medals, like war heroes.
This one here they gave me for that tanker explosion that killed twenty. I got this one for those boys who got burned on the off-shore drilling rig. This big one here was for the Skinny Ben campaign. This, the war against Big Tobacco. This, the battle against HMOs.

Since Clay had no war stories, he just listened. Tarvan would blow them away, but he could never tell it.

A butler in a Roy Rogers–style shirt informed Mr. French that dinner would be served in an hour. They moved downstairs to a game room with pool tables and big screens. A dozen or so white men were drinking and talking and some were holding pool cues. “The rest of the conspiracy,” Hernández whispered to Clay.

Patton introduced him to the group. The names, faces, and hometowns quickly blurred. Seattle, Houston, Topeka, Boston, and others he didn’t catch. And Effingham, Illinois. They all paid homage to this “brilliant” young litigator who’d shocked them with his daring assault on Dyloft.