“Teed up, Judge.”
“Okay, we’ll start at eight in the morning.”
Chapter 20
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.