Noah's Law (7 page)

‘Oh this is rich! You call a reasonable interpretation of the law
perversion
when your lawyer had the audacity to instruct
me
on the Court of Appeal definition of
best interests of the child
. . .'

I held back from breaking up the shouting match, hoping it would result in Mum pressuring Dad to change his sentence. But Nadine ran out, pinched my arm and said, ‘You selfish idiot! Now look what you've done. As usual, I have to be the peacemaker.'

‘You're the one who wants to work for the UN.'

‘Yeah, trying war criminals, not playing mediator between Mum and Dad . . . Oh for God's sake!' Nadine hollered. ‘Mum, get back inside, will you? The neighbours will be out soon and Jenny and Jenine are eating your carob-flavoured lipstick!'

‘Well, young man,' Dad said, as we backed out of the driveway moments later, ‘if you think your sentence is to be commuted because your mother happens to have no appreciation for discipline you'd better think again.'

 

The next morning John asked me to put some folders of documents into chronological order. Given that it wasn't a mammoth photocopying task, I said okay. Not that I had much choice.

John had briefly explained what the matter was about. A twenty-three-year-old guy had been working on a construction site. He'd been on the side of a building, twelve storeys up. The company hadn't put up proper scaffolding and he'd slipped and fallen, breaking his legs, damaging his spine and suffering a stack of other injuries. He'd spent a year in hospital recovering and learning to walk again. I skimmed through the zillion medical reports.
Will never be able to work again . . . Irreparable damage to legs and back . . . Will be in constant pain for the rest of his life.
I shuddered. John's task suddenly didn't seem like much to complain about after all.

I was busy sorting out all the documents in the spare office near the photocopy room when Jacinta walked past. I'd looked for her when I first got to the office but she'd been running late. She popped her head in the door and I smiled, trying to hide my embarrassment as I thought of my toddler tantrum.

‘Thanks for the other day . . . for covering for me.'

‘I don't do anything pro bono,' she said. ‘You owe me.'

‘Oh come on. A little free work keeps a lawyer honest.'

‘Well I haven't decided if you're worth it yet.'

‘Ouch. You really are lawyer material.'

She smiled.

‘That wasn't supposed to be a compliment,' I said with a laugh.

‘Taken and savoured as one. So how was court with the cow?'

‘Better than the photocopier room.'

‘Fair enough.'

‘It was pretty cool actually. Not what I expected, but it was interesting.'

‘Well, I'm filing documents at court all morning so I'll catch you after lunch.'

‘Yeah, okay. See you.'

I was still putting the documents in order when Casey walked in half an hour later.

‘Bernie's coming in for a settlement conference with the other side this afternoon. I'll need you to prepare five copies of my position paper, stapled not paperclipped, and ensure that all the documents I refer to in the paper are included as annexures and marked accordingly. The conference is at two. I want the papers ready before lunch.'

‘Okay, I'll just have to check with John how urgent this—'

‘Don't bore me with unnecessary information, Noah.' She walked out.

Oh boy. Usually people like her didn't intimidate me. My maths teacher, the one in a permanent bad mood, often made students cry; I was never fazed. But there was something about Casey. I couldn't stand her thinking that I was incapable. I refused to give her the satisfaction.

I rushed to John's office in a panic. He looked up from his desk and gave me a cheery smile.

‘Dude! How's it going? Everything okay?'

‘No. Casey needs me to do something for a conference she's having at two and she needs it finished by lunch and I tried to explain that I'm doing your stuff but—'

‘Calm down,' he said in a reassuring tone. ‘It's fine. My task isn't urgent. Can you get it done by tomorrow? Perhaps work on it after lunch?'

‘Yeah, sure.'

‘Okay then. Problem solved. Sorry, that was my fault. I should have given you a timeframe. Don't stress.'

Wow, what a nice guy. I would even overlook the ‘dude' usage.

Of course, Casey hadn't bothered to explain where she'd left the position paper or annexures so I went into her office and tried to make the subtle point that as intelligent and sharp as I was, I was not a mind-reader, so would she please tell me where I could find the stuff she needed me to photocopy? (I didn't literally put it to her like that but she got my point.) Without bothering to turn her eyes from the computer screen she pointed to a heap of documents on the floor next to her door.

I went into the dungeon and got started. It felt a little lonely without Jacinta but I got over it when I realised how much copying needed to be done. As the machine churned through the documents I scanned Casey's position paper, curious about Bernie's case.

CLAIMANT'S POSITION PAPER

Background Facts

 

1. The claimant is the spouse of the late Maureen White ('the deceased'). The deceased wasemployed by Jenkins Storage World as a sales assistant in their Chatsbury store.

2. On 2 July the deceased, thirty-nine years old, was instructed by her employer, Mr Rodney Marks, to transport the day's takings of $8430 to the company's other store in Surry Hills. While walking to her car, she was murdered. The murderer has not been apprehended and no witnesses to the crime have come forward. The deceased's purse was found beside her body. The bag of money containing the day's takings was stolen.

3. Had the deceased survived the attack, she would have had a right to an action in negligence against her employer, Jenkins Storage World, on the grounds that her employer failed to employ suitably trained security people to transport money between premises, failed to have the deceased accompanied by another staff member, failed to provide her with a distress alarm, failed to implement Work-Cover cash-in-transit guidelines, and permitted the details of the amount of money that the deceased was carrying to be known.

4. Jenkins Storage World have admitted that they failed to implement a safe system of work (see annexure 1: statement of Rodney Marks). It is clear that a case in negligence against Jenkins Storage World would have succeeded had the deceased brought an action to recover damages for negligence against her employer.

5. The claimant is entitled to recover the expenses associated with the deceased's funeral (see annexure 2: funeral receipts) and damages equal to that which the deceased would have been entitled to recover had she not died and had she brought an action in negligence against her employer, Jenkins Storage World, for the reasons set out at paragraph 3.

Claim

 

1. The claimant claims the following:

(a) Expenses associated with the deceased's funeral: $11,335.54.

(b) Loss of expectation of benefit: $595,000.00.

(c) Damages for pain and suffering.

(d) Party/Party Legal Costs: $9455.

Whatever happened to plain English? As far as I could tell, the case came down to this. A woman, Maureen, was murdered on her way to her car. I guessed it was a robbery that went wrong. Maureen's husband was suing her boss. That part was pretty confusing. From what I could understand from the position paper, he was suing because Maureen's boss was somehow to blame for her murder. Maybe there was a safer way for her to get the day's takings to the Surry Hills store.

I flicked through the folder in front of me. It included a stack of enlarged photocopies of photos in a plastic slip in the back. I took the photocopies out. The first photo was of the shopfront, with a sign reading jenkins storage world. Nothing out of the ordinary about it. The next photo was of a car park. It was pretty small. It looked like the car park was located at the back of the store. Its perimeter was fenced off with a high brick wall, and there were trees hanging over parts of the wall. I couldn't tell if there were houses or buildings next to the car park because the shot was narrow.

The next photo was of Bernie with his wife. Their arms were linked and they were smiling at the camera. She had crinkly eyes and a wide, genuine smile. I stared at the photo. Something about it caught my eye. They were standing in front of a large sign:
FARNHAM STREET SHOPPING MALL
. To the left of them was a butcher and to the right was part of another sign: woolw. I presumed it was a Woolworths sign. The shopping mall kind of reminded me of the one near my mum's house. Mum lived off Farnham Street and we'd been up to the mall heaps of times. There was a butcher next door to the Woolworths. I flipped through the file, looking for Bernie's personal details. I found a sheet of paper stuck to the inside of the file with his full name and address. Sure enough, he lived in Mum's suburb. It kind of creeped me out. Somehow the whole situation seemed more personal now. Maybe I'd passed by this woman in the shops or in the car park. And now she was dead.

I flipped over to the next photo and I was suddenly confronted with a close-up image of Maureen's dead body on the ground. She was lying face down in an awkward, twisted position. My eyes fixed on her bloodied head and my stomach lurched.

No wonder Bernie was so messed up. I put the photos away, wondering how Bernie must have felt seeing his wife's head smashed up.

As I finished arranging the position paper and annexures into five piles, I silently prayed that Bernie got the money he deserved to allow him to move on with his life.

I wondered whether I should show Amit the pictures. I knew it would be breaking some confidentiality rules. But it's not like I would be publishing the photos in the paper. I would just show them to Amit and then I'd bring them back.

I put an extra copy of the position paper and annexures into my bag. As grossed out as I was by the photo, I still wanted Amit to have a look.

 

Well it wasn't
Law & Order
, and it wasn't a criminal law case, but there was a death involved and as slack as it sounds that kind of case sure beat spilt milkshakes in a shopping centre or falling on your arse in a cinema.

Anyway, I'd always been interested in becoming a criminal lawyer. It was the only kind of law that appealed to me. My parents' divorce had completely turned me off family law. My dad specialised in commercial litigation, basically representing people who sued over contracts, fought over intellectual property, copyright and patents, that kind of stuff. It could get interesting. Like the time he represented the big movie people in a major DVD piracy case. I helped him choose some of the worst pirated DVDs to show at the trial. You know the kind: heads bobbing in the cinema, the guy holding the dodgy camera who has the sneezing fit, popcorn being thrown in front of the camera. (Obviously, I didn't tell Dad about the stash of DVDs Amit and I bought at the markets. We kept them hidden at Amit's house while the case was running.)

There was no way I planned to follow Dad's exact same footsteps. Immigration law? I'd probably spend more time working on boring business visa applications than trying to get people who have escaped torture into the country. Environmental law? Well, sure, I believed in recycling and shorter showers, but I just couldn't get excited over greenhouse gas emissions. So what was left? Insurance litigation? Mum, the tree-hugging leftie, would never speak to me again. Property law? Snore.

So criminal law was a natural, obvious choice. I could also say this: having committed acts which may, in some states, have constituted crimes per se (one of my dad's favourite phrases), I was in a perfect position to understand the mind of your average criminal. If I added knowing the law to the equation I'd be one of Australia's best criminal lawyers and make regular appearances on the six o'clock news.