The Greatest Course That Never Was

by J. Michael Veron

  Because we were the first to request a deposition, it was agreed that we would take Dr. Moore’s deposition first. He arrived wearing his white lab coat. “The doctor’s security blanket,” Francis whispered in my ear.

  As we were introduced, I noticed that Stephen Moore rejected his brother’s extended hand, preferring to maintain a grave expression. Tension showed in his every movement. This guy is wound tight, I thought to myself. It was a good sign.

  The deposition began rather uneventfully. Stephen Moore woodenly answered my questions about his background and work history and showed little emotion. He arched his back immediately, however, when I asked if he had ever been sued for malpractice.

  Sensing his client’s difficulty with the question, Stuart Bordelon voiced an objection.

  “On what ground?” I asked.

  “It’s irrelevant.”

  “It may or may not be. Are you instructing him not to answer?”

  Bordelon knew that such an instruction risked sanctions if a judge later determined that the refusal to answer was unwarranted. He looked at his client, obviously hoping to find in his expression something that would inspire him. Stephen Moore only looked confused.

  Bordelon backed down. I repeated the question to Dr. Moore. Reluctantly, he admitted that he had, in fact, been the subject of medical malpractice claims. Of course, I already knew that from Frankie Johnson, but I wanted to make the good doctor aware that we knew more about him than perhaps he wanted us to know.

  With insistent questions, I forced Dr. Moore to divulge all of the details of the three claims that had been made against him, including the amounts of the settlements that had been reached with his malpractice insurers. He was clearly unhappy with the discussion.

  Having set him back on his heels, I then showed our physician opponent a copy of the trust document. As I went through pertinent provisions, I read them into the record and asked if he understood what they meant. He said he did.

  I asked him if he agreed that the trustee was not supposed to profit personally from the use of any trust assets. Speaking in a hesitant voice, he said he understood that. I then asked him if he knew that “self-dealing” was a legal term that described a trustee’s prohibited dealing with trust assets for personal gain. Still talking slowly, he said that he knew that, too. I next asked him if he agreed with me that this trust did not permit him to make a personal profit from dealing with trust property and that it breached the trust to do so.

  These questions were making Dr. Moore more and more uncomfortable. He began looking over at his lawyer, his eyes pleading for assistance. Bordelon knew better than to coach the witness; the local judges in Atlanta were quick to sanction lawyers for influencing sworn testimony.

  The silence became increasingly awkward. Finally, Bordelon looked at his client and said quietly, “Answer if you can.”

  After what seemed like another long delay, Dr. Moore said with considerably less confidence than he had showed 20 minutes earlier, “I don’t know how to answer that question.”

  I looked at him evenly and said, “Is it your testimony that you don’t know whether making a personal profit from dealing in trust property breaches this trust?”

  Stephen Moore shifted in his chair. He stared hard at a legal pad that had been put in front of him in case he wanted to make notes, as if he was looking for answers on its blank pages. Finally, he said, uncertainly, “No, no, I understand that.”

  “Understand what?” I demanded.

  He cleared this throat. “Well…I guess I understand that I’m supposed to keep the trust’s business and my business separate.” He paused before adding, “Does that answer your question?”

  “No, it does not,” I said firmly. I sensed an opening, and I wasn’t about to give up so easily or let him off the hook. One of the first things Emile Guidry taught me about taking depositions was to get an answer to every question, no matter how many times I had to repeat it. Leaning forward, I said evenly, “What I asked is whether you understood that a trustee who makes a personal profit from dealing with trust property breaches this trust. That’s the question you haven’t answered.”

  The beleaguered doctor didn’t even bother to look at his lawyer this time because he knew no help was forthcoming. Instead, he stalled for time by taking a sip of water from a nearby glass that had been provided to him at the beginning of the deposition.

  I could almost hear his frantic thoughts as he searched for a way to avoid answering the question. Dr. Moore knew that, if he answered yes, he was admitting that forming a corporation to receive money from the trust, regardless of the purpose, was wrong. And if he answered no, he was admitting that he didn’t know what his most fundamental legal duties were.

  In either event, he would be admitting that he was unfit to continue as trustee, and it was obvious that he knew it. Emile Guidry referred to this as putting a witness “in a box.”

  While I waited for his answer, I pulled out copies of the articles of incorporation for Dr. Moore’s “handicapped golf access” company, including the initial report listing Dr. Moore as the incorporator. As if to prepare him for my next question, I pushed a copy across the table to the witness.

  I watched Dr. Moore’s eyes dart nervously across the pages I had placed before him. Unconsciously, his fingers traced the outlines of the seal from the Secretary of State’s office certifying the document. Soon his shoulders began to sag, and his head dropped forward. The swagger he had shown when he first entered the room was now completely gone.

  After a few moments, he looked at his lawyer and then at me before asking in a small and almost pathetic voice, “May I speak with my attorney before answering any more questions?”

  I felt too sorry for him to refuse his request. Besides, there was nothing he could do at this point to get off the hook, and a witness’s request to confer privately with his lawyer in the middle of a deposition under these circumstances amounted to a confession (and read like one in the transcript).

  Bordelon and his client stood up and left the room. If body language meant anything, they were clearly back on their heels. Nonetheless, I expected that they would return shortly and that Dr. Moore would then provide well-rehearsed glib answers to my questions. Since the transcript would show that these answers came after an off-the-record conference with his lawyer, they wouldn’t help Dr. Moore’s cause much at all.

  A few minutes passed, but no one returned. A few minutes turned into nearly a half hour. The court reporter became fidgety, and so did Francis Moore. We had left Moonlight back at the office waiting for us, and I began to imagine him pacing the halls as he drove himself—and everyone around him—crazy.

  I finally excused myself to check on our two missing opponents. They were nowhere to be found. The receptionist indicated that they had had a loud and heated discussion in one of the other offices, whereupon Dr. Moore had stalked out with Bordelon following closely behind. She seemed reluctant to say more.

  Leaving a deposition before it concluded wasn’t just poor form; it was against the law unless whoever left had a damned good reason to do so. Disappearing without telling anyone only made it worse, especially in the eyes of the court.

  I couldn’t imagine Bordelon would do something so stupid, but I couldn’t help but be secretly delighted that he had. Not too many judges would let that kind of behavior go unpunished. It might even constitute grounds for a default judgment against the defendant doctor.

  I was just about to go back into the conference room and explain this bizarre situation to Francis Moore when the elevator doors outside the reception area opened. An obviously embarrassed Stuart Bordelon came walking out of the elevator and said, “Can we talk for just a minute?”

  We went into an empty office. He closed the door behind us, turned to me, and said, “I’ll get directly to the point. My client no longer wishes to contest the suit. He will cancel the sale.”

  He then turned as if to leave. But I knew we had them on the run and that
there would never be a better time to press our advantage. I couldn’t afford to indulge in self-congratulations just yet. Canceling the sale was only half the loaf; if Dr. Moore stayed on as trustee, he would still have control of the property and might decide to try the same thing later. I didn’t want to fight this battle again anytime soon.

  Shaking my head, I said, “That’s not enough.”

  Bordelon spun back around. “What do you mean, it’s not enough? It’s what you said you wanted all along.” He was becoming angry. “What are you trying to pull?”

  I remained unemotional. “We want him out as trustee. Don’t you see, that’s the only way we can avoid being right back in another lawsuit if Dr. Moore tries this again.”

  Bordelon abruptly changed his tone into a kind of soft whine. “C’mon, Charley, you’ve got what you want.”

  I shook my head. “If we just drop this now, we won’t have accomplished anything. This has been difficult for my client, too, but he doesn’t want to come this far without seeing it through. If Dr. Moore won’t agree to resign as trustee, I’ll have to move for sanctions and ask that he be ordered to answer my questions.”

  I let that sink in before adding, “And remind him that he still hasn’t produced the contract between the trust and his company or the income tax returns we subpoenaed.”

  He looked out of the only window in the office for what seemed like a long time. Then he took a deep breath and said, “Okay. He’ll resign if you insist.”

  I still wasn’t done. “And will he sign a document appointing his brother as successor trustee?”

  Bordelon gave me an ugly look. He obviously wasn’t used to being on the losing side of a lawsuit, and he didn’t like it. “Yeah, yeah. He’ll sign it.”

  I went back into the conference room and informed a confused Francis Moore that he was now the trustee for the Bragg’s Point Charitable Trust. He still seemed incredulous. “You mean, he’s out, and I’m in? Just like that?”

  I nodded and laughed, partly at the absurdity of the day’s events and partly from the delicious thrill of winning that drives every lawyer who fancies a career in litigation.

  In an uncharacteristic display of emotion, he put his arm around me and said, “Young man, if this is any indication, you’ve got quite a career ahead of you.”

  Chapter 36

  AS WE SORTED it all out, Dr. Moore’s bizarre behavior and hasty departure began to make sense. One of my law professors had warned me that, for all their brilliance in their chosen field of endeavor, many physicians are notoriously bad business people—as, he added, were most lawyers.

  Dr. Stephen Moore typified that observation. His greedy little scheme, as simple as it was, did more than expose him to civil liability. If carried off, it would have violated a significant number of state and federal laws.

  We speculated that Stuart Bordelon had given his client this unhappy news, probably well in advance of the deposition, but that Dr. Moore had stubbornly chosen to ignore the message and instead blame the messenger. When he found himself confronted again in his deposition with the reality of what he had done, however, he chose to bolt rather than to admit the error of his ways.

  That left his lawyer to clean up the mess. Small wonder Bordelon was so agitated. I couldn’t blame him.

  My opposing counsel did have the presence of mind to require that the settlement agreement be confidential. His intent, of course, was to spare his client any further embarrassment, not to mention additional legal problems with authorities who might become interested in the seedier aspects of what the good doctor had attempted to do.

  We were only too happy to oblige; our side agreed that we weren’t quite ready to reveal the story of Bragg’s Point to the media.

  I probably shouldn’t have worried. After the initial wave of calls, media interest had fallen off in the weeks that followed. Emile Guidry told me I should have expected it. He said the only two times the media paid much attention to lawsuits was when they were filed and when they went to trial. Nothing else was sensational enough to compete with the other news of the day.

  Back in the office, I got more credit for all of this than I deserved. Paul Watkins and Emile Guidry sent out memos extolling my “victory” to the other members in the firm, and several partners took me to lunch so that I could give them a firsthand account of my epic struggle with the forces of evil. I have to admit, I liked my first taste of battle, especially the part about winning.

  Francis Moore was apparently impressed, too. He called less than a week later to tell me that he was retaining our firm to handle his business and that he wanted me personally involved in anything he sent over. The partners in the firm were impressed. As Emile Guidry told me, “We don’t expect first-year associates to be rainmakers, Charley. That’s quite a feather in your cap.”

  My new client also let me know that he wanted to get moving on Bragg’s Point. He asked me to prepare whatever documents were necessary to donate the property to the USGA, and he suggested that we meet to put together a presentation for the Executive Committee to make the Bragg’s Point Golf Links the permanent site for the U.S. Open. He was collecting materials, he said, from the Northern California Golf Association and other regional and state groups that owned their own golf courses and would send a packet to me in the next few days.

  Toward the end of the conversation, my new client offered a strange comment. He said that there was something about Bragg’s Point that neither Moonlight nor I knew. I asked him what it was, but he said he wanted to tell us in person. He said we would talk about it when we met the following week.

  In the meantime, Moonlight was clearly overjoyed at what had happened and particularly at the prospect of Bragg’s Point becoming USGA property. He said it was what he had hoped for when he originally contacted me. As evidence of his pleasure at what I had done, he finally permitted me to enter his inner sanctum and review his Bragg’s Point memorabilia.

  Once I stepped inside, I quickly understood why Moonlight was reluctant to have visitors. The place was a virtual museum of golf history. Each wall seemed to be a chapter of the pictorial history of Jones’s golf haven. It was all very neatly arranged—so neatly, in fact, that I was surprised. I hadn’t figured Moonlight to be much of a housekeeper or to have an eye for such things, but everything in his modest home was surprisingly clean and orderly. He had obviously devoted considerable time and attention to the presentation of his memorabilia. It signified that he really treasured this stuff for the memories it represented.

  At the same time, anyone who saw this incredible historical display wasn’t likely to keep quiet about it for very long. As word inevitably spread, Moonlight’s home would gain a lot of unwanted attention—not only from well-meaning golf historians and fans, but also from less desirable elements who might try to relieve him of his prized possessions. It had happened before.

  So Moonlight had wisely kept his treasure trove to himself. Until now, when he was finally satisfied that it could be passed on to Francis Moore and me.

  I was stunned by the collection.

  First, there were the photographs—almost all in black and white, of course. Virtually all of golf’s greats were pictured: Jones, Hogan, Nelson, Snead, even Walter Hagen. Some were taken in and around the clubhouse; others out on the course. I recognized one of Francis Ouimet on the 18th green. Some were posed and apparently taken by an experienced photographer, while others were snapshots obviously taken by an amateur (perhaps some of the caddies themselves) with an inexpensive personal camera.

  “Where’d you get these?” I asked him.

  Moonlight just shrugged. “They were in boxes that were given to me by some a’ the guys…Eddie Eumont, mainly. I think Clarence Henderson, Henry Bradford, an’ Slats Reinauer gave me some, too.” Sensing my slight disappointment at his imprecise account, he said, “Ya’ gotta remember, I got all a’ this stuff in bits an’ pieces over the years. I don’t know who decided that I should be the one to keep it all, but some
how I got appointed. Somebody cleans out a garage, they say ‘give the stuff to Moonlight.’ It starts addin’ up.”

  “Well, it’s great stuff,” I told him.

  On one wall, he had mounted perhaps a dozen or more old scorecards from the course. I walked over to a couple of them and read the signatures. What I saw nearly took my breath away. Pointing to them, I said, “Are these the real McCoy?”

  He grunted at me and said sarcastically, “What d’ya think, I forged ’em?”

  I felt a little sheepish. “No, of course not. But you’ve got cards signed by every great golf champion of that time. This stuff is priceless.” I started reading through the scorecards like a kid finding a cache of priceless baseball trading cards. “Look, here’s one signed by Lord Byron and Ben Hogan.” Seeing another, I said excitedly, “And here’s one signed by The Haig and Bobby Jones!”

  Moonlight just laughed. As excited as I was to see the signatures of these historic golf figures on old scorecards, I had forgotten that he had actually known these guys.

  I looked at one card and whistled. “Look, here’s one where Ralph Guldahl shot 67.”

  Moonlight nodded. “Yeah, Mr. Guldahl could play. Ya’ know, he won the U.S. Open two years in a row an’ then the Masters the year after that. Back then, he was as good as Mr. Hogan, Mr. Nelson, Mr. Sarazen, or Mr. Snead. I carried for him twice at the Point. Nice fella.”

  Moonlight’s collection also included napkins and coasters with the distinctive “B P” crest on them. He had even hung up a couple of old flags with “B P” in block letters and the number of the hole printed on both sides.

  Down a hall were still more old photographs. These appeared to have been done professionally. They featured scenes of the clubhouse and course and had apparently been taken during the heyday of the place. Even in black and white, the elegance of the small clubhouse shone through, as did the majestic beauty of the property.