He angrily pointed at the vice president and said, “Not a single one. Not a single claim has been paid by your crooked company.”
Webb managed to bolt upward again in protest. “Objection, Your Honor! That language is offensive!”
Judge Oliphant held up both hands and Jesse waited to be reprimanded. Everyone watched the judge, who began scratching his head as if struggling to decide if the word “crooked” should be struck from the record. Finally, he said, “Mr. Rudy, the word ‘crooked’ is inappropriate. Objection sustained.”
Webb shook his head in frustration and said, “Your Honor, I move to have it struck from the record.” Exactly what Jesse wanted.
“Yes, okay, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I have admonished Mr. Rudy, and I ask you to continue as if the word ‘crooked’ had not been uttered.” At that moment, and for hours to come, the dominant word in the jurors’ thoughts and discussions was, and would be, of course, “crooked.”
They awarded the plaintiff $16,400 in actual damages, plus the daily expenses, plus interest from the day after the storm. And, they awarded $50,000 in punitive damages, a record in the state courts of Mississippi.
The verdict made the front page of the Register, and it reverberated through the law offices and courthouses along the Coast. It rattled the insurance executives far away in their nice suites. It cracked their stone wall of denials and sent their strategies spinning in different directions.
In the first week of May, Jesse repeated his performance in a crowded courtroom in the Hancock County Courthouse in Bay St. Louis. With a wide variety of clients, he chose one with a policy issued by Coast States Casualty, the fourth-largest property insurer on the Coast and the one he had come to despise the most. Its lawyers, also from a big firm in Jackson, were overwhelmed from the opening gavel. Its executives, frog-marched in from New Orleans by subpoena, were far outside their element and no match for Jesse’s grenades. They strenuously avoided courtrooms. Jesse was thriving in them.
An angry jury slapped the company with $55,000 in punitive damages.
The following week, again in Hancock County, Jesse put on his case in the usual rapid-fire manner he had perfected, then lay in wait to ambush the corporate mouthpieces sent down to protect the treasured assets of Old Potomac Casualty. They tried to defend their actions by hiding behind the field reports, all of which clearly proved the damages in question were caused by water, not wind. One executive, startled by the ferocity of the attack by plaintiff’s counsel, became so flustered he referred to the storm as Hurricane Betsy, another legendary storm from 1965.
The jury awarded every penny Jesse asked for, then added $47,000 in punitive for good measure.
Like the others, all verdicts were appealed to the Mississippi Supreme Court.
* * *
Keith graduated from the University of Southern Mississippi in May with a degree in political science. He was twenty-two, still single, not really looking for prospects, and eager to start law school at Ole Miss in June. He passed on a trip to the Bahamas with friends and went straight to his father’s law office, which had become his usual weekend hangout. He had become fast friends with Gage and Gene Pettigrew, and the long hours brought on by Jesse’s brutal trial schedule were not without some fun. Late in the evening, after Jesse had finally gone home, the boys locked the doors and brought out the beer.
During one session, Keith had the brilliant idea of publishing a monthly client newsletter with updates on all aspects of the Camille litigation. Reports of trials, the latest verdicts, reprints from newspapers, interviews with policy holders, recommendations for good contractors, and so on. Of course, Jesse would have something to say in each edition. He was the most popular lawyer on the Coast and had the insurance companies on the run. People wanted to read about him. The mailing list would include all clients, of which there were now over 1,200, but also other lawyers, paralegals, clerks, even judges. And the most brilliant tactic would be the inclusion of all policy holders with claims.