Read Online The Appeal by John Grisham - Free Book Online Page A

would be better.
    It was 7:00 a.m. The market opened at 9:30. Krane’s stock closed at $52.50 the day before, up $1.25 because the jury was taking forever and appeared to be hung. The morning’s experts were predicting panic selling, but their damage estimates were all over the board.
    He took a call from his communications director and explained that he would not talk to any reporters, journalists, analysts, whatever they called themselves and regardless of how many were calling or camped out in the lobby. Just stick to the company line—“We are planning a vigorous appeal and expect to prevail.” Do not deviate one word.
    At 7:15, Bobby Ratzlaff arrived with Felix Bard, the chief financial officer. Neither had slept more than two hours, and both were amazed that their boss had found the time to go partying. They unpacked their thick files,made the obligatory terse greetings, then huddled around the conference table. They would be there for the next twelve hours. There was much to discuss, but the real reason for the meeting was that Mr. Trudeau wanted some company in his bunker when the market opened and all hell broke loose.
    Ratzlaff went first. A truckload of post-trial motions would be filed, nothing would change, and the case would move on to the Mississippi Supreme Court. “The court has a history of being plaintiff-friendly, but that’s changing. We have reviewed the rulings in big tort cases over the past two years, and the court usually splits 5 to 4 in favor of the plaintiff, but not always.”
    “How long before the final appeal is over?” Carl asked.
    “Eighteen to twenty-four months.”
    Ratzlaff moved on. A hundred and forty lawsuits were on file against Krane because of the Bowmore mess, about a third of them being death cases. According to an exhaustive and ongoing study by Ratzlaff, his staff, and their lawyers in New York, Atlanta, and Mississippi, there were probably another three hundred to four hundred cases with “legitimate” potential, meaning that they involved either death, probable death, or moderate to severe illness. There could be thousands of cases in which the claimants suffered minor ailments such as skin rashes, lesions, and nagging coughs, but for the time being, these were classified as frivolous.
    Because of the difficulty and cost of proving liability,and linking it with an illness, most of the cases on file had not been pushed aggressively. This, of course, was about to change. “I’m sure the plaintiff’s lawyers down there are quite hungover this morning,” Ratzlaff said, but Carl did not crack a smile. He never did. He was always reading, never looking at the person with the floor, and missed nothing.
    “How many cases do the Paytons have?” he asked.
    “Around thirty. We’re not sure, because they have not actually filed suit in all of them. There’s a lot of waiting here.”
    “One article said that the
Baker
case almost bankrupted them.”
    “True. They hocked everything.”
    “Bank loans?”
    “Yes, that’s the rumor.”
    “Do we know which banks?”
    “I’m not sure if we know that.”
    “Find out. I want the loan numbers, terms, everything.”
    “Got it.”
    There were no good options, Ratzlaff said, working from his outline. The dam has cracked, the flood is coming. The lawyers will attack with a vengeance, and defense costs would quadruple to $100 million a year, easily. The nearest case could be ready for trial in eight months, same courtroom, same judge. Another big verdict, and, well, who knows.
    Carl glanced at his watch and mumbled something about making a call. He left the table again, pacedaround the office, then stopped at the windows looking south. The Trump Building caught his attention. Its address was 40 Wall Street, very near the New York Stock Exchange, where before long the common shares of Krane Chemical would be the talk of the day as investors jumped ship and speculators gawked at the roadkill. How cruel, how ironic, that he,