The Boys from Biloxi: A Legal Thriller (18 page)

When Dr. Pennington hesitated and looked at Webb for help, Jesse walked to the corner of his desk and patted a stack of papers at least eighteen inches thick. He said, “Come on, Dr. Pennington. I have your records right here. When was the last time you testified on behalf of a policy holder and not against one? When was the last time you tried to help the victim of a storm? When was the last time you offered an opinion against an insurance company?”

Dr. Pennington seemed to mumble as he searched for words. Before he could speak, Jesse cut him off with “That’s what I figured. No more questions, Your Honor.”

The jury was given the three cases at ten minutes after five. A bailiff led them out and into their deliberation room while another one brought in coffee and doughnuts.

Twenty minutes later they were back. Before most could finish a doughnut, and before the lawyers and spectators could finish their visits to the restrooms, a bailiff informed Oliphant that verdicts were ready.

When everyone was in place, he read the notes from the foreman. The jury found in favor of all three plaintiffs and awarded $11,300 to Thomas Luna; $8,900 to Oscar Lansky; and $13,800 to Paul Nikovich. In addition, the jury awarded seven dollars a day as living expenses, per the language of the policy, for the 198 days since the damage. And, for good measure, the jury tacked on interest at the annual rate of 5 percent for the entire claim, beginning with August 17, the day Camille blew through.

In short, the jurors gave the three plaintiffs every penny Jesse asked for, and there was no doubt they would have given more if so allowed.

In chambers, Judge Oliphant took off his robe and invited the
lawyers to have a seat. The two-day trial had been exhausting. All jury trials were stressful, but the packed courtroom and looming docket only added to the tension.

The judge said, “Nice work, fellas. I felt confident we could do it in two days. Any ideas on how to streamline the next round?”

Jesse snorted and looked at Simmons Webb. “Sure, tell your client to pay the claims.”

Webb smiled and replied, “Well, Jesse, as you know, the lawyer cannot always tell the client what to do, especially when the client has plenty of money and no fears.”

“So how do we frighten them?”

“It’s been my experience that these companies do what they want without regard to fear.”

Judge Oliphant said, “I’m sure that somewhere in the bowels of ARU there’s a team of actuaries who’ve crunched the numbers and told the big guys upstairs that it’ll be cheaper to deny the claims and pay the legal fees. Right, Mr. Webb?”

“Judge, I cannot discuss the decision-making process of my client. Even if I knew. And, believe me, I don’t want to know. I’m just doing my job and getting paid.”

“And you’re doing a fine job,” Jesse said, but only to be polite. He continued to be less than impressed with Webb’s courtroom skills.

The judge asked Jesse, “And you have the next three ready to go?”

“Teed up, Judge.”

“Okay, we’ll start at eight in the morning.”

With a friendly judge cracking the whip, Jesse’s assembly-line style of litigation hit full stride. In the first two weeks of March, he tried eleven straight cases against ARU and won them all. It became a grueling ordeal, and when it was over everyone needed a break. Webb and his gang hustled back to Jackson hoping to never see Biloxi again. Judge Oliphant moved on to other pressing business. Jesse returned to his office to tend to the details of a few other non-Camille clients, but it was virtually impossible. The more trials he won, the more ink he got in the
Gulf Coast Register,
and the more people knocked on his door.

The verdicts were satisfying on professional and moral levels, but burdensome financially. Jesse had not managed to squeeze a dime out of ARU or any of the other big insurers. Some of the smaller carriers were spooked and started settling claims, and a few fees dribbled in. He had almost a thousand claims against nine different companies, and all of the fees were on a contingency. Instead of the usual one-third lawyers preferred, he agreed to 20 percent. However, when the checks arrived he could not bring himself to take money from clients who had lost so much. He usually negotiated his position downward and settled for 10 percent.

Later that month, Jesse, his firm, and his clients received the dispiriting notice from Simmons Webb that ARU was appealing the verdicts to the Mississippi Supreme Court, where appeals routinely took two years to resolve. It was frustrating news and Jesse called Webb in Jackson to complain. Again, Webb, who was
showing more and more sympathy, explained that he was only doing what his client instructed him to do.

Jesse then called Judge Oliphant, who had just learned of the appeals. Off the record, they cussed ARU in particular and the insurance industry in general.

In late March, His Honor saw an opening in his docket and notified the parties that he was scheduling three more trials, beginning on Monday, the thirtieth. Webb moaned about the unfairness of it all. Judge Oliphant suggested he tap into some of the other talent around the office, or stop complaining. No one felt sorry for the largest law firm in the state. Webb and his team showed up, took the same ass-whippings as in the first eleven trials, and crawled back to Jackson, tails between their legs.

After a two-week break, it was time for another round. Judge Oliphant had expressed concern that they might be reaching a point where they would be unable to find qualified jurors in Harrison County. There were simply too many conflicts, too many strong feelings. He decided to move the next trials forty miles up the road to the town of Wiggins, the seat of Stone County, one of three in his district. Perhaps they could find more neutral jurors there.

It wasn’t likely. Camille was still a Category 3 when it crossed the county line and did $20 million worth of damage in and around Wiggins.

On April 16, Judge Oliphant patiently worked through the selection process, and, after eight long hours, found twelve he could trust. Not that it mattered. The good folks of Stone County were evidently just as ticked off as their neighbors to the south, and they showed no mercy on the insurers. Seven cases went to trial over ten days and the plaintiffs won them all.

Webb, thoroughly defeated, informed Jesse that his latest batch of nice little verdicts would also be appealed.

Wiggins was halfway to Hattiesburg, where Keith Rudy was sailing through his last semester at Southern Miss. Instead of going to class and playing with the girls by the pool, he was in the
courtroom in Wiggins taking notes, watching jurors, and absorbing every aspect of the trial. He had been accepted to law school at Ole Miss, and would jump-start his studies there by enrolling in summer school. His plans were to join his father’s firm in less than three years.

After twenty-one courtroom fights over what could only be considered “small claims,” a few truths were becoming self-evident. First, Jesse Rudy was not backing away and would try a thousand cases if necessary. Second, he would defend his verdicts on appeal to the final gavel. Third, though he was grinding down the defense lawyers and getting some publicity, his strategy was not working. ARU seemed unfazed—its bottom line was well sandbagged up there in Chicago, while his clients were still living with leaky tarps and black mold. Their frustration was growing. His was at a breaking point.

For months, Jesse had been badgering Judge Oliphant, both in proper filings and off-the-record discussions, to allow him to pursue a claim of punitive damages. The strategy of the big insurers had been laid bare in open court: deny all legitimate claims, ignore the policy holders and bully them into submission, then hide behind the best lawyers money could buy. The strategy reeked of bad faith and was grounds for punitive damages. Give Jesse a shot or two at ARU’s executives and things might change.

Judge Oliphant was a traditional jurist with conservative views on damages. He had never allowed punitives and was repulsed by the idea of allowing lawyers to dig into a company’s assets to extract more than what had been lost. Nor did he believe that punitives would ever deter future bad conduct. But he was sickened by the actions of the insurance companies and had great sympathy for their policy holders who were being mistreated. He finally acquiesced and gave Jesse the green light.

Simmons Webb was shocked, and threatened to file an interlocutory appeal with the state supreme court. Punitive damages were unheard-of in Mississippi.

Judge Oliphant convinced him that would be a mistake.

The case was another one Jesse had filed against ARU and it involved damages more serious than most. The home was uninhabitable and the contractor estimated its repairs at $16,400. Jesse wasted no time in drawing blood. The claim’s first adjuster was on the stand, and Jesse walked him through a series of enlarged photos of the damage to the home. The young man had evidently been lucky enough to avoid courtrooms, but his lack of experience did not serve him well. He initially adopted the strategy of sparring with his examiner, and Jesse fed him enough rope to hang himself. In photo after photo, the adjuster identified damaged walls, floors, and doors as being flooded with the storm surge, then Jesse asked him to explain the water damage when it had been proven that the surge never quite made it to the house. It became apparent the adjuster would say anything his boss wanted to hear.

His boss, the district manager, was next and was visibly uncomfortable from the moment he swore to tell the truth. ARU had sent three denial letters to Jesse’s client, and he asked the district manager to read all three to the jury. In the third letter, the claim was being denied because of “obvious water damage.” Jesse took that phrase and beat him over the head with it until Judge Oliphant asked him to stop. It was clear that the jury loved the annihilation.

An ARU vice president, one who apparently drew the short straw, took the stand to defend the honor of his company. In a blistering cross-examination, one which Simmons Webb tried to stop with repeated interruptions, Jesse finally drilled down deep enough to find the truth. When Camille hit, ARU had 3,874 homes insured in Harrison, Hancock, and Jackson counties. Almost 80 percent of the homeowners, or 3,070 to be exact, had filed claims to date.

“And of that number, sir, how many claims have been settled by your company?”

“Oh, I don’t know. I’d have to check the records.”

“You were told to bring the records.”

“Well, I’m not sure. I’ll check with counsel.”

Judge Oliphant, who had long since abandoned his role as an impartial arbiter, snarled, “Sir, I’m looking at the subpoena. You were instructed to bring all records related to claims filed since the storm.”

“Yes sir, but you see—”

“I’ll hold you in contempt.”

Simmons Webb stood but appeared to be tongue-tied. Jesse quickly decided to help matters by practically yelling, “It’s okay, Your Honor, I have the records.”

He waved a thin manila file, legal size. The courtroom became deathly still and Webb fell into his chair. With perfect dramatic flair, Jesse approached the witness and said, “Your Honor, I have in this file copies of all of the legitimate claims that have been paid and settled by ARU.”

He turned, faced the jury, and opened the file. It was empty. Nothing fell out.

He angrily pointed at the vice president and said, “Not a single one. Not a single claim has been paid by your crooked company.”

Webb managed to bolt upward again in protest. “Objection, Your Honor! That language is offensive!”

Judge Oliphant held up both hands and Jesse waited to be reprimanded. Everyone watched the judge, who began scratching his head as if struggling to decide if the word “crooked” should be struck from the record. Finally, he said, “Mr. Rudy, the word ‘crooked’ is inappropriate. Objection sustained.”

Webb shook his head in frustration and said, “Your Honor, I move to have it struck from the record.” Exactly what Jesse wanted.

“Yes, okay, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I have
admonished Mr. Rudy, and I ask you to continue as if the word ‘crooked’ had not been uttered.” At that moment, and for hours to come, the dominant word in the jurors’ thoughts and discussions was, and would be, of course, “crooked.”

They awarded the plaintiff $16,400 in actual damages, plus the daily expenses, plus interest from the day after the storm. And, they awarded $50,000 in punitive damages, a record in the state courts of Mississippi.

The verdict made the front page of the
Register,
and it reverberated through the law offices and courthouses along the Coast. It rattled the insurance executives far away in their nice suites. It cracked their stone wall of denials and sent their strategies spinning in different directions.

In the first week of May, Jesse repeated his performance in a crowded courtroom in the Hancock County Courthouse in Bay St. Louis. With a wide variety of clients, he chose one with a policy issued by Coast States Casualty, the fourth-largest property insurer on the Coast and the one he had come to despise the most. Its lawyers, also from a big firm in Jackson, were overwhelmed from the opening gavel. Its executives, frog-marched in from New Orleans by subpoena, were far outside their element and no match for Jesse’s grenades. They strenuously avoided courtrooms. Jesse was thriving in them.

An angry jury slapped the company with $55,000 in punitive damages.

The following week, again in Hancock County, Jesse put on his case in the usual rapid-fire manner he had perfected, then lay in wait to ambush the corporate mouthpieces sent down to protect the treasured assets of Old Potomac Casualty. They tried to defend their actions by hiding behind the field reports, all of which clearly proved the damages in question were caused by water, not wind. One executive, startled by the ferocity of the attack by plaintiff’s counsel, became so flustered he referred to the storm as Hurricane Betsy, another legendary storm from 1965.

The jury awarded every penny Jesse asked for, then added $47,000 in punitive for good measure.

Like the others, all verdicts were appealed to the Mississippi Supreme Court.

Keith graduated from the University of Southern Mississippi in May with a degree in political science. He was twenty-two, still single, not really looking for prospects, and eager to start law school at Ole Miss in June. He passed on a trip to the Bahamas with friends and went straight to his father’s law office, which had become his usual weekend hangout. He had become fast friends with Gage and Gene Pettigrew, and the long hours brought on by Jesse’s brutal trial schedule were not without some fun. Late in the evening, after Jesse had finally gone home, the boys locked the doors and brought out the beer.

During one session, Keith had the brilliant idea of publishing a monthly client newsletter with updates on all aspects of the Camille litigation. Reports of trials, the latest verdicts, reprints from newspapers, interviews with policy holders, recommendations for good contractors, and so on. Of course, Jesse would have something to say in each edition. He was the most popular lawyer on the Coast and had the insurance companies on the run. People wanted to read about him. The mailing list would include all clients, of which there were now over 1,200, but also other lawyers, paralegals, clerks, even judges. And the most brilliant tactic would be the inclusion of
all
policy holders with claims.