“I see. About a year before the lawsuit started, the companies were worth about thirty million dollars. You took away thirty million dollars from Bob when you removed that codicil and left him a half million. Is that correct?”
“I can do anything I want with my will, you son of a bitch. You know a man can change his will.”
“My question is, did you tell Bob that you replaced the codicil leaving him the companies with a new one that leaves him a half million?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“It’s none of his business what I do with my will.”
“Now, is the half-million codicil still in effect?”
“No. I destroyed that when he started this lawsuit. He’s an ungrateful bastard.”
“So now Bob gets nothing. The man worked the best years of his life based upon your promise. You were like a father to him. He lost his father when he was two. He was a half orphan and you took advantage of him. He believed in you based upon the underwriting deals you made with him, splitting four million dollars on a handshake. He even became a Jew based upon your schtuping—I’m sorry, for the jurors who are not Jews, based upon your pushing and coaxing—and now he gets nothing. Is that what you’re about, David? Ruining a human life to enrich yourself and then give the money to Israel?”
“Objection, argumentative!” Defense counsel sounded sick and halfhearted that time.
“Sustained,” said Sandbone, feeling sick to his stomach.
“No, I’ll answer this,” David shouted. “This is all a bunch of fucking bullshit. A man can change his will any time he wants to. That’s the law. You’re just trying to smear me and the State of Israel. You’re all just a bunch of anti-Semites. I don’t need to sit here and listen to this shit. And you!” David, his face beet red, pointed his finger at Sol. “You should get out of here and hang yourself. You are a fucking disgrace to your tribe, to Israel, to everything that is Jewish. You represent this filth, this gentile who pretends to be a Jew. You disgust me. I did nothing wrong. You have no right whatsoever to question what I did with my will, none whatsoever! I have no reason to even be here. Fuck all of you!”
That last outburst resulted in the courtroom being cleared. Judge Sandbone impaneled the jury while he considered the defense’s motion to dismiss the case based upon the Statute of Wills, a codified law adopted into the Uniform Commercial Code as adopted by some thirty-six states. Simply stated, the law provided that the last will and testament was binding upon a deceased’s estate, absent a writing presented to the contrary. Based upon the fact that David had not provided Bob with a copy of the codicil when they were in the bank vault, the defense motion argued that Bob could not rely upon the mere showing of it.
After the courtroom cleared, Bob and Sol were standing side-by-side in the men’s room before two large five-foot-tall porcelain urinals. Sol was first to speak. “We’re going to get our asses thrown out of here. The judge hates our guts. He’s going to buy their dismissal argument.”
“After all that? After the way David mouthed off? After you showed his intent was to keep his promise to Marvin?”
“None of that matters. The judge won’t stick his neck out. He won’t buck the statute, regardless of the testimony. He’ll dismiss.”
“Judith told me she heard from the fund’s financial officer that the judge was bribed.”
“You can’t believe what a woman who worked for you says. Can you prove it?’
“Not yet. She said she’d give me the proof when she was ready to.”
“Okay, I’ll talk to her. We’ll deal with it later.”
When court reconvened, Judge Sandbone stated that, based on the evidence presented, Bob was an employee of a subsidiary company of a holding company and that the holding company and its owner were not responsible for the acts of an officer of a subsidiary company, even though the persons of the subsidiary and the holding company were the same. Therefore, the case turned on the Statute of Wills, the contract claims fell, and the fraud and unjust enrichment claims also fell. The case was dismissed.
Sol and Bob left the courtroom. Sol put his hand upon Bob’s shoulder and said, “I want you to know that the Jewish people are not at all like David. He’s a no-good filthy cocksucker who gives all of us Jews a bad name. Most Jews are good, honest people you can trust. This is a tragedy, what happened in your case and your life, and in the ruling we got here today. I will be appealing this. In fact, I have a hunch I’ll be filing appeals for the next ten years, but I will stay with you all the way on this. The law is simple. It’s designed to say you can’t just go around screwing people. That’s all we need.”
THE SUPREMES
The case was appealed five times based upon arguments of law as to who was responsible for putting David and Bob together in a bank vault. Was it David, or was it one of the companies? Was Bob really working for David to enrich him and Israel, or was he working only for the companies, just to build the companies and not inherit them? Were the claims really just quantum meruit claims brought in another form by a disgruntled employee? Did the Statute of Wills actually apply here? Did Judge Sandbone err in his ruling to dismiss the case based upon his finding that, by not possessing a writing, Bob had not met the Statute? Could the statute be governing here when it was clearly shown in the evidence that the defendant had no intent to leave the companies to the plaintiff? Back and forth went the appeals, from appeals court to trial court. Legal precedents affecting all states that adopted the Statute of Wills as definitive were being decided.
At a second trial, ordered on remand from appeals court where the case was next tried against the companies, that case was also dismissed. David testified that the companies he owned had nothing to do with his personal decisions, and he was not acting as an officer or director of either company when he showed Bob the codicil. After eight years of wrangling in the appeals courts, the cases came down to one man, David, sitting in the witness chair saying in the first case that the companies made the deal with Bob, thus it was a simple quantum meruit case. But when the companies were tried in the second case, the party responsible for being in the bank vault was David personally—but he had the right to change his will. Sol argued this was a lot of nonsensical Kabuki theater. It was analogous to watching a clown pointing in opposite directions with both index fingers, shouting, “He did it!”
Meanwhile David was leading the life of luxury, trotting off to vacation spots all over the world and having full use of the companies and their cash flows, which Bob had grown by his own labors. David continued expanding his growing drug distribution business, poisoning the youth of Colorado and other states, and victimizing others with his loan shark business. Being a sleazy fraud was paying off very well for him.
In a tortured mind, still confused about the true nature of his relationship with David, Bob sometimes allowed himself to believe that his would-be dad was showing him through cruel example that many of the things he’d taught him were actually easily born out. Public officials could all be bought off, and that apparently included judges on the Colorado District Court level. Lawyers could be paid to do illegal things for you, such as bribing witnesses and psychologists to give false testimony. Illegal aliens were readily available if one just asked around a bit, and they could be employed to damage property or even commit murders.
David’s personality always fascinated Bob. Like any Faustian, Bob was entranced by this bizarre, evil persona. And like many others who succumbed to fraud, he actually empathized with the character who did him a great wrong. Despite wrongful behaviors which Bob observed David doing while working together, he deluded himself into believing that somehow he was personally exempt from being on the receiving end of any of David’s behaviors. Sol needed several sessions with Bob during which he told his client that he was just another patsy, just like everybody else who worked with David. Sol eventually got Bob to accept that the only father he ever had or would ever have was his dead one. His compassion for Bob wen
t beyond the duties of the lawyer to his client. Like Arlene, the school nurse in Milltown, Sol’s deep well of humanity likely saved Bob from living his life in undeserved purgatory.
Just when the case appeared to be reaching a final judicial interpretation of the Statute of Wills as related to a defense for fraud, a terrible thing happened to Bob’s attorney. Bob got the news a week before the case was scheduled to be heard in the state supreme court—Sol had died of a massive heart attack in the middle of the night. Bob needed to obtain new counsel, and that whole process took another three months. Eventually, an attorney with a twenty-percent success rate agreed to represent him, subject to reduced compensation due to his outstanding legal bills owed to Sol’s estate. The new lawyer’s name was Benjamin Slipperman. His colleagues called him ‘Slipup.’ He was possibly the least imposing personal presence ever seen in a courtroom.
Standing a mere five feet tall and weighing over three hundred pounds, Ben carried with him a breast pocket full of cheap cigars and a string of three handkerchiefs, tied together in knots and hanging from his back pocket, dangling halfway to the ground. It was a bizarre sight to see and hear this living marshmallow of a man. One’s first impression of Ben was that he was likely a child with a perpetual runny nose, who might still live with his mother. Only a mother could make a grown man carry three knotted handkerchiefs dangling from his back pocket that way. But wait! Ben still did live with his mother. He was fifty years old and had always lived with her. He sometimes laughed about his situation, saying that his mother, a New York Jewess, was highly selective about the women in his life and she hadn’t found one as good as herself yet.
When Ben was before a judge, he coughed and wheezed a lot due to his chronic bronchitis. Undeterred by the prospect of an early death, he smoked at least three cigars daily. When he spoke, he annoyed every judge who ever endured his orations. His chronic postnasal drip caused a constant stream of snot to flow from his nostrils, and his sentences were interrupted in mid-phrase by the vacuum cleaner-like sound of Ben trying to snort up the snot stream from his dripping palate roof. These snorts were disgustingly followed by a forcible gulp as he swallowed his snot pile. That maneuver caused his Adam’s apple to bulge noticeably, his face reddening. Some judges would place their hands over their eyes while this repulsive procedure was carried out; others would look off to the side. Jurors snickered or put their heads down into their reading while Ben cleared his nasal passages. In winter months, this interruption could take place every two or three minutes.
Ben, his colleagues said, was his own best reason for losing so many cases. For all he was lacking physically, he was capable mentally. He was not exceptional, far short of brilliant, but capable. His corpulence, his snot problems, and a frequent unlit cigar in his mouth were accented by a pair of glasses with lenses as thick as Coke bottle bottoms. He was the human rendition of a mole, but this was one mole that knew how to sniff out money.
As Ben researched cases far into the evenings, he came across an appeals court ruling from Wisconsin with facts involving a shiksa case, where a woman was denied recovery from an estate even though she had a napkin with a vague written promise of money after death for her lifelong services. He called the plaintiff’s counsel.
After discussion and strategizing, the two lawyers petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to hear Bob’s case, represented by Ben, on a writ of certiorari. It was a daring legal maneuver, especially since no federal court had ever ruled on this issue. It was outside the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, yet it did involve a Federal Statute that was adopted as law in thirty-seven states. It likely only had a one chance in a million of being heard, but Ben figured it was worth the shot. He had nothing to lose. And even if he lost the writ, the move would buy him more time to prepare for his appeals in Colorado. Time went by, first one month, then three months, then six months. Ben told Bob that the justices must’ve been scratching their heads over this one. The joined cases had national interest because the Statute of Wills was now defining and governing law in thirty-seven of the fifty states.
One day in late November, just before Thanksgiving, a courier opened the door to Ben’s office. Behind a pile of files and paper was a smoking cigar with the dome of a bald head facing down on a massive oak desk.
“Mr. Slipperman, counsel for Bob Burke?” The courier was Army sergeant material the way he barked out a name.
“Yes,” replied a sheepish voice, with its attached head not looking up.
“I bear a writ order from the United States Supreme Court, sir. I’ll need your signature.”
Ben hastily opened the packet, and there it was, just like that! The one-in-a-million shot was granted. Ben Slipperman, the mamma’s boy with the runny nose, the fat kid all the other lawyers laughed at, was getting his shot at making legal history! His petition for writ was granted. The case that never had a chance to succeed from day one was going to be heard by the United States Supreme Court. Ben’s cigar dropped to the floor. He stood to shake the courier’s hand.
“Thank you, son,” said the stunned and humbled attorney. Ben’s faith in the judicial system was renewed after all his career losses and derisions. He was infused with the same idealism he once had when he was a kid entering law school.
On the day of Supreme Court oral arguments, Bob met Ben before the justices took their chairs. Ben showed Bob around the Supreme Court facilities. They were positively luxurious. Large soft leather chairs, a dining room, beautiful offices, thick carpeting, commanding views—the justices had it all.
Ben commented, “These guys know how to live. I have to believe it would be impossible to bribe any of them. Maybe that’s why there are nine of them. If you try for a bribe, you first don’t know which ones or how many will hear your case, and if you do try to bribe one, you could get the wrong one and end up in the slammer. It’d be too risky, even for David. I don’t believe these guys buy slime for sale.”
“Then you believe my first judge was bribed?”
“Not saying. Can’t say what I can’t prove,” said Ben, but he had a smile that resembled a cat’s that had just snagged a canary.
Bob took his seat in the back of the courtroom, joining Barbara. She pointed to David seated in the front row, slouched in his chair as was his normal signal of contempt for all judges and the entire legal process.
During arguments, the justices, all nine, were present. They wanted to understand why the Statute of Wills did not bar a claim to recovery since David had not given Bob a copy of the codicil when they were in the bank vault. David’s attorney droned on about case precedent. There were no cases ever, anywhere in America’s history or in the history of English Common Law, that permitted recovery of any claims of any kind whatsoever without the plaintiff establishing that he had in possession a copy of a writing to make a will, an actual will, or a codicil to an existing will. The law was unambiguous and clear.
Bob’s counsel was trying to show that what David did was unconscionable conduct when the chief justice asked the fated question. It was a dagger that was touching at the very heart of Bob’s case, and the entire room could feel the chief justice was poised to thrust his dagger into Ben’s argument and destroy Bob’s case.
“Your client had no writing. You obtained a copy of the writing through your discovery, but your client never had possession of a writing given to him by the defendant. There are numerous cases throughout judicial history where plaintiffs claim that they did thus and such based upon a will promise, but they never prevailed. I think some in some culture even call it the ‘shiksa game,’ but it goes on without any successful challenge. For over four hundred years, the law is clear.”
The chief justice was almost shouting. He was visibly agitated. It was obvious he was angry at what David did, but he could see no way to open the door locked closed by the statute. Recovery odds for the plaintiff were zero.
He continued after a brief pause. “It’s lamentable what happened to your client, Counsel, but that is not a matt
er of law. Now the English common law has even been chiseled into stone. We now have before this court the Statute of Wills. The law is abundantly clear, Counsel. You have no writing! How can you expect this court to render a decision other than one that is consistent with the statute?”
A long hush descended over the courtroom. Ben took off his glasses and set down his briefing book upon his lectern. He stepped away and stood directly before Chief Justice Renlow, who was poised upon the forward half of his chair staring fiercely at Ben. A certain charge of electricity flew between the two men. The small fat man tilted his head far back to look up at the chief justice seated high above him.
Chief Justice Renlow wanted so much to not have this case before him, yet he could see the injustice being done. He was clearly frustrated that he couldn’t quite point his finger in the direction of a path to relief. All routes were blocked by the statute. He could see how a man’s life and career got screwed. That wasn’t supposed to happen in America. The chief justice knew that. That basic rooted belief that you can’t use the law to screw people was his sustaining force for his entire life; he was almost insane with the conundrum posed by this case, and told his fellow justices so. They’d agreed to grant the writ by a six-to-three majority.
The most conservative justices wanted nothing to do with the case. Their position was to let the state legislatures deal with the issue, but they were outvoted. The idea of just letting people get screwed by the Statute of Wills defense until some legislatures decided to do something was a terrible injustice to those who were out there, the next ones to be screwed by this misuse of the law. A majority of the justices just couldn’t stand the status quo. Now they had to figure out what was wrong with the law of the land that there could be such a shield for wrongdoing.
The chief justice was terribly frustrated. The idea of ruling to deny remand and upholding this sham misuse of the law to shield a fraud sickened him. He was all ears, waiting and wanting to be unburdened, but very skeptical. There before him was a man who was so short he could barely be seen from the bench.
When The Butterflies Come Page 39