Now at this point in time some of you are saying, "sure a whale can talk, but no attorney would be stupid enough to steal money from an estate while on drugs and plan to pay it back from a litigation case." Well, surprise, that's actually from a true story. The county administrator for a certain southern city did just that. Actually stole money from widows and orphans! I won't mention any names, but you all have the internet and it was a pretty public story. In that real life situation, the litigation did not work out and the administrator went to jail for a while.
What happens in this story? You are now more than half way through, and if you are willing to wait, you'll find out. Some of you certainly are not patient enough to wait and see what happens.
What would happen if an attorney really filed a Habeous Corpus type pleading on behalf of a Dolphin? I doubt it would be able to survive the clerk's office. However, I don't know if it's ever been done, so just maybe it would play out like this...
Chapter 8
“A newspaper man came into my office this morning.” Judge Ira Stern was dressed in a white shirt with a red tie which had been loosed. He wore khaki pants that would be hidden by the long robe which he had hung on the inside of the door to his office. The door was closed so that he and Hyatt had privacy.
“Oh? Have you done anything newsworthy lately?”
It was more than a week after his meeting with the fish. Hyatt had spent most of the time in the library looking through cases on incompetents and drafting perhaps the cleanest set of legal pleadings he had ever made in his life. He had been afraid to use Guy's secretary so he had to type and edit everything himself. When Guy had asked him what he was working on, he had vaguely referred to a big new case and asked for privacy. He had, however, taken enough out of the estate account to pay his rent and for the filing fee in the case, even though it had caused his stomach to tie up in knots when he did it. He could not use electronic banking but he was scrupulous in putting what it was for and even made note of the date of the agreement. He also made sure he kept track of all his hours, more than 50 so far. He was barely conscious through part of it because he had taken so many pain killers. They not only deadened the pain in his leg, but also the guilt he felt. He had to also refresh himself on how to electronically file the papers, he would not trust himself to ask even this of the secretary.
“I think you know why he was here and why I asked you to come by.”
“I thought maybe you missed talking with me.”
“Dammit Hyatt! Don’t toy with me. Do you have any idea what this fucking petition means? Clearly you have completely lost your mind. Did that explosion give you a concussion?”
“That’s not fair,” Hyatt said quietly.
“Oh, alright,” Ira said more quietly. “That wasn’t fair. You’re a war hero, I forget. But for God’s sake man, what were you thinking?”
Hyatt couldn’t tell him what he was thinking.
The idea of going to the press before it even became public had been Brian’s idea and Hyatt had heartily agreed. The only chance he had was to get so much notoriety that no one would dare dismiss the case without a hearing. Of course, if the press ridiculed him instead of supporting him, if the public did so, the case would be dismissed and the investigations would start.
The last thing he did before filing the pleadings was to call Elizabeth who had the wrongful death case for Richard Champee. If she had said there was any hope for a near term settlement, he would have put this off, but no such luck. She wondered if she could even keep the case in court with the Federal judge questioning her every move, treating her as if the death of her client as the result of a drug pushed by a large pharmaceutical company was an imposition. The case had been filed in state court to a more receptive audience, but the law allowed the defendant, an out of state corporation, to remove the case and they had done so almost immediately and assailed her with briefs and motions from the hundreds of similar cases they had already fought. Hyatt had no other option, except maybe to confess his crime and take his punishment, something Laura had suggested might work when she left the morning after he met with the whale.
“I called you here to ask you to dismiss the motion. I never saw you as a bleeding heart liberal. Hell, I even like you although I’m rethinking it. You file a single one page motion and I’ll grant it. You don’t even have to file an order. I’ll even file it for you. The whole thing will go away quietly.”
“I can’t do that,” Hyatt said. He had known this meeting would come. He was glad it was just him and Ira. He had known Ira in lawschool. It was easier with it just being the two of them.
“And why the hell not?”
“Because my client is being imprisoned against his will.”
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