More Courtroom Chaos

The greatest non-cinematic pratfall I've ever witnessed, and well-deserved to boot…

Since I used to get paid large sums of money to argue about things, you could call me a professional asshole. I'm good with that.

Litigation is often a less-than-noble profession and, when I finally came to grips with that, I retired. It took me thirty-five years to read the memo, so don't think I'm some saint…

I Got THE Case

For the most part, I was on the side of right, truth and justice when I sued Metropolitan Life and New York Life for fraud. Telling two huge insurance companies that they owe your clients over $100,000,000 gets them very excitable, and not in a good way.

This was back in ྕ, so that's about $400,000,000 today. Yeah, it got their attention. I was only 26, and this was my first major case, so I had no idea what I was getting into.

My learning curve resembled showing up for your driver's license exam only to be told you'll be piloting Elon's phallic rocket ship to Mars in order to save mankind. Since the partners took it on contingency, the firm's financial future was in play and that added an extra layer of stress for me. Fun times.

This was a high-casualty case. Two defendants, one witness and yours truly all died during the proceedings. I got a do-over, they didn't. But that's another story or twelve, and I digress, as usual…

Lead counsel for Met Life had the same name as the partner in charge on our side, so I'll refer to him as Tom S. Like my Tom, Tom S was a funny fucker and told jokes before depositions. I liked him, and that helps when you have to go head-to-head. It keeps tempers from flaring and the arguments from getting too personal.

Unfortunately, before the fatalities started, we had this bit of fun that led to my meeting the most unpleasant lawyer it's ever been my misfortune to engage with.

Houston, We Have a Problem…

The two Toms and I were up in Tennessee taking depositions when Tom S started hemorrhaging from his nose. I shit you not, blood went everywhere. My Tom was a battle-tested former Green Beret, and he immediately went into medic mode, slapping napkins over his nose, applying ice, and getting his feet elevated while we waited for paramedics to arrive. It was that bad.

That put a cap on testimony for the foreseeable future and we flew back to Houston not knowing what the hell was wrong with him. Turned out he had sinus cancer and the tumor had perforated some important blood vessel. I told you, fun times.

When they brought in his replacement, Reece, the fun times stopped abruptly. Reece was a walking caricature of a bad lawyer. He was stupid, loud, overly aggressive and generally unpleasant. Oh, and he was highly unethical.

If I hadn't achieved such a Zen-like state here in my later years, the shit he pulled thirty-plus years ago would still make my blood boil. But karma got him when we finally went to court, and it was delicious to watch.

Mind the Gap

We had some great evidence. Agent B, the main bad guy, spent twenty-five years working for New York Life. They had a four-inch-thick complaint file on him, and his employment record was no better.

In addition to letters from literal widows and orphans he'd fucked, the head office had sent missives to branch saying —

"Agent B doesn't know the difference between the truth and a lie. He's going to get this company in big trouble someday."

Yes, that's an actual quote from one smoking gun I found lying around. But they kept him on, and Met Life hired him away because he sold a shitload of insurance.

Our main evidence against Met Life was audiotapes made by our main client down in Edinburg. Don was an ex-cop, smart as hell, and he'd made over fifty recordings of Agent B spouting his bullshit and naming Met Life in the process. They were damning, and Reece had been trying to get them thrown out as evidence since we let him know they existed.

In addition to acting like one, Reece looked like an insufferable asshole. Day one of trial, he showed up with his hair slicked back, like NBA Coach Pat Riley, wearing a shiny blue sharkskin suit, tasseled loafers, two gold pinky rings, and a Phi Beta Kappa tie chain.

This was in South Texas, where boots are considered formal wear. The jury seemed immediately put off by him and it only got worse when he spoke harshly to one of his paralegals, a young Hispanic woman.

The jury was predominantly Hispanic, as you'd expect in Edinburgh, Texas, where freeway signs say, "Next exit Mexico." So, you can imagine how well that behavior went over with the pool.

What he was thinking is beyond me, but I was pleased at how effectively he was pissing them off. After a couple months of trial, their anger at him turned to amusement when he made a massive misstep, quite literally.

When Don finally took the stand, Reece couldn't lay a glove on him, and it was driving him batshit. Then, after one pointed question, I saw Reece perk up.

He thought he'd finally caught Don in a lie about the tapes. He rushed over to counsel table, grabbed a giant binder from his paralegal and was reading through it as he approached Don.

Like you've seen on TV, the witness box was surrounded by a wooden railing and raised up one step so the jury could see better. Reece forgot about that in his excitement, caught his foot, tripped up the step, rebounded off the railing and went backwards into the opposite railing fronting the jury box.

As he pinballed around, Reece barely managed to avoid flipping over into the jury's laps. On his final bounce, he landed face first, one loafer off, with papers flying everywhere about six feet in front of where I was sitting.

I took it all in for a moment, and the shock trauma kept me from laughing at first. After that, it was an act of John Wick-level sheer will to keep my reaction to a wry smile and chuckle.

The jury failed and they were howling. Homer, our judge, did no better. Unable to contain himself, he called for an immediate break, and fled the bench. But he forgot to close the door and we could hear his booming laugh ricocheting off the marble hallway and back into the courtroom.

Anyone who wasn't laughing by then, started and couldn't stop. Including me. True pandemonium reigned until the bailiff got his breath back and quieted everyone down. Luckily for Reece, it was almost the end of the day, and we called it quits early.

I think Homer gave that order from the back room claiming some emergency. He was afraid to come out for fear of laughing again, I think. Regardless, court was done that day and so was Reece.

It couldn't have happened to a nicer guy. After that, every time he got up to speak, someone would snicker. I swear, it wasn't me…

The Epilogue

We had all the makings for a record-setting verdict when one of my clients freaked out over yet another trial delay, accused Homer of corruption and called in the Texas Rangers to investigate. That investigation ended up targeting me, unfortunately, but I did manage to dodge indictment. I told you, nothing I do is normal.

After much bullshit, Homer ordered a mistrial and flushed eight months of my life down the drain. But I must say I learned a lot, so it wasn't a total waste.

New York Life blinked and settled for eight figures before the decimal point in the interim and that made all the partners quite joyous. So they weren't too upset when we lost against Met Life in Round 2.

Met Life had wisely replaced Reece by then and we had a new, very unfriendly judge who'd been hand-picked by Homer, not our biggest fan. With lots of our evidence excluded, the case was less than compelling, and the jury poured us out.

Maybe that's what I got for laughing at Reece. Who knows? Litigation is a total crapshoot on a good day and karma works both ways…

If you're just dying to know about my "fun with a runaway grand jury" then you can enjoy this —

Otherwise, there's more fun in store so just…

Stay tuned here, there's always more…oh, I rhymed ;)