Richard Greener: The Knowland Retribution

Many made the point that safe food was necessary to national security. Nick was amazed by the few who anxiously cried that the hand of Satan had made its way from the fires of hell to the supermarkets of the Southeast. But those voices came and went in a couple of days. The public needed to know that their supermarkets were fine. They needed to know the restaurants were safe. McDonald’s was clean. You could eat there. Enormous amounts of money were spent on TV ads and public relations pleading with Americans to continue buying and eating ground beef as well as all other food.

Within several days, intellectuals, athletes and entertainers, artists and physicians were talking about the virtues of dining out, and cooking in. Movie stars ate burgers flipped live on Good Morning America. A former American President filmed a public service announcement grilling steaks in his kitchen, his wife looking on approvingly, daintily taking a bite.

Eventually, those sickened recovered. After the summer, with holidays on the horizon, the cable news networks, the talk show producers, the magazine and newspaper editors turned their attention to other, newer matters. And only the survivors of the dead cared very much. Them and their lawyers… especially those few who were personally involved.

Nicholas Stevenson ran the wrongful death lawsuit. He listed Leonard Martin and Carter Lawrence as plaintiffs. Nick felt that years of handling deals worth hundreds of millions of dollars-and harrowing weeks imbibing facts through his pores, and the eager support of Atlanta’s leading liability attorneys-might offset his inexperience as a plaintiff’s attorney. That, and the facts of the case, which arrayed themselves like Xerxes’ Persian army at his back. Not knowing which of the six offending plants was responsible, he filed against each of them, and, if they had one, their parent company as well. Five of the six responded with an answer of complete denial. Their filings were not accompanied by even a phone call to Nicholas Stevenson.

It was surprising when Knowland amp; Sons and its owner, Second Houston Holding, retained a Boston law firm. A young associate called Nick, and after delivering the mandatory denials-given the lie by the call itself-he made an offer of settlement. It wasn’t as if his client had done anything wrong, the young man told Nick. It’s just that the nuisance of it all, coupled with the deep regret that any misfortune had befallen anyone, motivated Knowland and Second Houston to offer fifty thousand dollars to be split any way they like by Leonard Martin and Carter Lawrence.

The offer was a foolish and miserly mistake. But that was fine with Nick. “Young man,” he said, meaning full well the contempt intended, “go back and tell the fella you work for that fifty thousand dollars won’t pay the deposit on the expert testimony we’ll be introducing.” Stevenson’s studied southern accent and polished ease worked well with folks from up there. Northerners, he’d long ago discovered, were often thrown by the gentle self-assertion of the civilized southern white man-and the older he happened to be, the stronger the spell he was able to cast. The next day the same associate called back asking for a person-to-person meeting. “I’ve got some time tomorrow afternoon at three,” Nick said. “C’mon down.” Why, Nick wondered, would five of the six meat companies file court papers asserting zero liability, while one, Knowland amp; Sons, hires a bigshot law firm in Boston and immediately tries to settle? Although authorities continued to maintain that they could not trace the exact origin of the tainted beef, was it possible that Knowland amp; Sons itself knew it was responsible? It sure seemed that way to Nick Stevenson.

On behalf of the other worthies sent by Boston’s Porter, Scudd, Porter-a full partner and two senior associates-junior partner Harkin Smith, a plump, self-possessed, forty-year-old Boston native, expressed his personal sorrow. He showed special sensitivity in framing PSP’s awareness that Leonard Martin was Mr. Stevenson’s partner and friend, as well as his client. Smith implied that the offer would be significantly larger for that; he all but said that it might be seen, although certainly never named, as a lawyer-to-lawyer bonus. He expressed a professional apology if Nick had been insulted by their assumption that he was a plaintiff’s attorney accumulating E. coli cases, looking eagerly if not greedily for settlements. Until that little speech, Nick was unaware of such assumption. Nevertheless, he nodded his appreciation. They were certainly pleased that Leonard Martin and Carter Lawrence were Nick’s only clients. Again, Mr. Smith rehashed the horror of it all, and the soul-wrenching pain they faced together, as brothers at the bar. All this in Nicholas Stevenson’s comfortable fifteenth floor office conference room, overlooking the junction of I-285 (East-West) and Georgia 400 (North-South), with seven lawyers and twelve more staff sitting statue-still at their desks outside, their minds alive with prayers and curses and tears and recollections.

Then Porter, Scudd, Porter presented its offer of $1.2 million dollars-along with the usual clause requiring silence on anything having to do with the case. The female senior associate, a frail-looking, long-nosed Ms. Wittlesy, handed Nicholas Stevenson a magnificent leather folder enclosing two cashier’s checks. One was for Leonard Martin, the other for Carter Lawrence. That, and a fully drawn-up agreement ready for both to sign.

None of the folks from Porter, Scudd, Porter began to imagine the anger behind their opponent’s gentle smile. He spoke ever-so-slowly, quietly and confidently, in a deftly exaggerated drawl.

“My clients have lost everything.” He said the last word again, “everything,” with a sigh. “Mr. Martin’s wife, a woman who had been by his side, his soul mate since they attended college together. His only child. And his little grandsons too. And Mr. Carter Lawrence has seen his former wife, a beautiful young woman with whom he was in the midst of reconciliation, ripped from him, together with his two sons-sweet little boys hardly old enough to know what life’s all about. Two boys, I might add, who have napped on the couch right behind you there, on which your young Ms. Wittlesy took her ease a few moments ago, before we began.” Ms. Wittlesy stole a furtive glance at the couch. “I know you will all agree that no young man on God’s green earth should be made to suffer as Mr. Carter Lawrence has.”

Nicholas Stevenson moved his head slowly from side to side. He breathed deeply, quite nearly sighing again. “Mr. Leonard Martin’s entire existence has now been called into question, if not destroyed. As you say, I am his friend and his partner. From that unhappy vantage I have looked into a soul as charred and blackened with grief as the fires of hell could themselves arrange. And now I must remind you that it is only your client, your client alone, who stands before the world as the author of this unspeakable tragedy.”

He paused again, allowing his turn at cornpone theatrics to have its effect-looking for an eye or two to roll.

“And I must also tell you in total candor that it’s gonna take a lot more money than you or the little pricks you work for have even thought about to begin to dissipate Leonard Martin’s sadness and put Carter Lawrence on the road to blessed recovery.”

“You know, $1.2 million dollars is a large amount of money, Mr. Stevenson.” The Boston lawyer, to Nick’s practiced ear, spoke uneasily. Nick watched his eyes, thinking that his gently flickering pupils signaled discomfort. “We’re not talking chump change here,” he said.

Nicholas Stevenson leaned back in his swivel armchair, clasping his hands behind his head. “Actually, $1.2 million dollars is less than the advance on an HBO movie,” he said. “It’s far, far less than what could be in the works from someone like Steven Spielberg or that fella Oliver Stone, about whom I do have my doubts in the ordinary context of things. I urge you to remember that Mr. Leonard Martin, and Mr. Carter Lawrence too, have suffered a greater loss than most any other survivor of this. Do you know what? I will tell you what. This does all sound like a movie. In the interest of a speedy and appropriate solution, we have kept the whole horrid business off the television, away from the press. Lord, everybody wants to talk. We’ve got newspapers from all over the United States, Europe, Japan, and all points east and west on our neck.