The fifth of seven chapters that will run all week.
It didn’t take long, once inside Franklin Danbury’s office with the door closed, for Rusty Hammer to break down into tears. For a guy who presented himself as a tough old redneck, Rusty was really as big hearted and emotional as anyone. He just kept it hidden. Or tried to.
Danbury shoved a box of Kleenex across the desk as discreetly as he could and gave Rusty a moment.
“I didn’t even want to hire the little shit,” Rusty said when he had almost regained his composure. “I just did it as a courtesy to his old man. I should have known better. I did know better, damn it. Now the same guy I tried to help out because he was a good customer is suing me, trying to take everything I’ve ever worked for. ‘No good deed goes unpunished, huh?”
Danbury just let him get it out of his system.
Rusty had gone to the funeral of the boy, of course. He seemed to take it harder than the kid’s own father did. They shook hands and exchanged condolences, acknowledging the tragedy of the accident that had taken place. There had certainly been no indication that Buck Bollinger held Rusty responsible for his son’s death at the funeral. While tragic, the boy could have just as easily wrapped the expensive BMW his father bought him around a tree off Highway 10. It was the boy’s own actions that had caused Maverick Bollinger’s death.
“And who the hell names their kid Maverick?” Rusty said, trying to work through the whole thing. “I s’pose the same kind of man who buys a 17 year-old kid a damned racing BMW.”
Rusty brought the papers with him he’d received regarding the wrongful death lawsuit. Danbury looked over them. There were questionable claims that could be easily defended, disputed, or denied in court. “But the bottom line is still that a young man died and his death took place at your business. That is a complicated issue. Grieving parents are not something any jury wants to see, despite whatever facts may be presented,” he noted.
With Rusty in a calmer state, Danbury probed further. It didn’t take him long to discover that Rusty had taken out umbrella policies on both the business and himself, a move his wife had convinced him to make years ago, despite the expense.
“This changes things.” Danbury sat back in his chair, putting the fountain pen down on the yellow legal pad. “Your insurance company will be the one defending the suit. I am happy to take a second chair position as your personal lawyer. However, they will be the ones guiding you through the process. To a large degree, they are the ones being sued and have the liability, at least up to the amount of the policy you took out.”
Rusty hadn’t even thought of someone else being involved, someone he’d never even met before. It made the situation even worse. But there was relief that the financial burden was not completely on him. In due course he met Jaxon Terrell, the attorney who’d been assigned to the case by Texas Ranch & Business Insurance, whom he’d purchased the policies through.
Terrell was bright enough. He’d come down from the Amarillo office and was staying at the Cattle Baron Hotel. “Seems like he could have got a room at the Naughty Pine Motel and saved some expense, if you ask me,” he mentioned to Danbury after the first time they all met. Terrell was a couple years younger than Danbury, who was young, himself. “Seems like all of a sudden everyone I deal with is a kid. When did we get old?” Rusty asked his wife when he told her about the meeting.
Both Terrell and Danbury were surprised by the records Rusty kept. He seemed like the type of guy who would bring in a box of notes written on the backs of brown paper sacks and envelopes. Instead, he had ledgers with meticulous handwritten entries that included dates, amounts, and details. They looked like records a CPA would have kept rather than someone who finished high school in the half of his class that made the top half possible. Danbury was impressed. Terrell, not as much.
Amongst the ledgers were details regarding safety meetings for all the equipment used by the Rusty Hammer Hardware Store. Of course forklift training was included in that. Everything was up to date and appeared to be complete. In interviews with employees, the attorneys learned that Rusty was meticulous with keeping the keys to the forklift locked up. It was well known that no one was to touch the cabinet containing the keys, and of course not to ever remove them if they had not been up to date on their training and certification.
“Rusty was always scared to death of OSHA showing up unannounced. Or for that matter, Mayor Goodman sending the Health Inspector over and writing him up for some random damn violation of an unclean coffee pot where there was free coffee all day long next to the nail bins,” Ernest said. Ernest had worked for Rusty for years. “You know Rusty hates the mayor. Wouldn’t put anything past him.”
There were written statements from other employees noting that Maverick Bollinger had been written up a couple times, early in his employment, for safety violations. Once for not wearing proper eye protection, once for not wearing the proper back belt when unloading heavy bags of cottonseed meal. The kid’s signature was on each one of the violations. Earnest said, “The kid was given verbal reprimands three or four times for parking that damn BMW right up front instead of around the side of the building, where employees are supposed to park. You know that car sat out there for weeks after the kid died. It was a sad reminder to all of us we had to look at it every day till his dad sent a flatbed wrecker to pick it up.”
Rusty was proud of the fact that he had done everything he possibly could to prevent an accident from happening. Danbury told him he was impressed. Said that he’d never seen such thoroughness. Terrell didn’t really comment.
“The hell of it is, Rusty really took a liking the kid. Saw something in him most folks didn’t,” Ernest said. “And Maverick had grown to really like Rusty. The kid respected Rusty and came to appreciate the effort Rusty was making with him. That’s the whole reason he got the keys to the forklift and went to the storage building. He wanted to surprise Rusty and show him what he’d learned. Of course he had no idea what could happen.”
The day the trial was to begin, Rusty was an emotional mess. His wife insisted she drive them to the courthouse. Not having the will to argue, Rusty climbed into the passenger seat of the 2004 Suburban 1500 in their driveway. The Sport Red SUV featured included a locking rear differential, 17″ five-spoke wheels, a rear liftgate, a sunroof, a receiver hitch, running boards, fog lights, roof rails, heated front seats, driver seat memory, a third-row bench, adjustable pedals, a CD/cassette stereo, rear-seat entertainment, cruise control, and automatic climate control with separate rear-seat controls. It had been a gift from Rusty to his wife 20 years earlier for their 15th wedding anniversary and to celebrate the most profitable year for the hardware store.
Twice since then Rusty had told her they could go down to Cactus CHEV-Olds and trade it in on a new one. Both times they made the decision together to forgo a new vehicle and instead give Christmas bonuses to all the employees of the store. Twenty years old and right at 100,000 miles, the Suburban showed some normal wear, but Rusty was as meticulous with the Chevy as he was with his business records and they saw no reason to trade it. The employees appreciated the fact that Rusty and his wife always took care of them at Christmas.
In the courthouse parking lot, Danbury and Terrell were waiting for the Suburban to pull in and park. Once Mrs. Hammer put the Chevy in PARK and turned off the ignition, the two attorneys got in the back seat and closed the doors. Time was limited and Terrell got right to the point.
“We’re meeting with Bollinger’s attorney. I’m going to offer $1,000,000 to settle out of court. I’ve been authorized to go as high as $2,500,000. I suspect it will fall somewhere in the middle of those two figures.” There was little emotion in Terrell’s voice. Danbury’s face didn’t register any emotion either, but that was only through concerted effort. Rusty, however, was devastated.
“Why?” Rusty asked. “I did nothing wrong. The records. The statements. The witnesses. I was not responsible for that boy’s death!”
“It’s not about records or statements or witnesses. It’s not even really about responsibility, right or wrong. It’s about dollars and cents. Based on what it has already cost, and what it is projected to cost in the future, it will have less of a financial impact on Texas Ranch & Business Insurance to settle for up to $2,500,000 than to move ahead with the process.” Terrell was clinical in his description, devoid of the nuances that define blame or guilt, reputation or morality.
Rusty thought about the room Terrell had been staying in at The Cattle Baron, and the meals expensed at the restaurant in the hotel. He glanced at the 2023 Cadillac Escalade-V ESV that Terrell drove parked beside his own 20 year-old 2004 Suburban . Rusty thought about the price of justice. “It isn’t your reputation,” he said.
“No, it isn’t.” Terrell had been in this same situation before. “And you have a winnable case. But you also have a case that could be lost. Blown up color photographs of a crushed 17 year old boy carry more weight with 12 random citizens of Fort Stockton than do impeccable business records. It’s not about proving that you did all you could to prevent such a horrible thing from happening. It’s not about proving Maverick Bollinger was an irresponsible kid. It’s about cutting losses and playing odds. Going to trial could cost TR&BI millions over the long haul. It could cost you everything you have.”
The look on Danbury’s face confirmed the reality Rusty had been presented.
That night, Rusty and his wife sat at the kitchen table in their modest ranch style home in RoadRunner Estates. She had a cup of coffee in front off her. Rusty was nursing three fingers of scotch from the bottle that normally only came down from the top of the refrigerator for holidays.
“Everything’s got a price,” he said. “Don’t matter if it’s a Weedeater, a bag of cottonseed meal, a 17 year-old kid’s life, or a reputation you’ve taken your whole life to build. It’s all got a price.”
3 responses to “SUITS & VERDICTS, Verdict Number 2”
Common sense should cause the jury to believe it was DEI that caused the accident.
More likely caused by the previous administration.
On two separate occasions my insurance company insisted on settling absolutely outrageous claims concerning incidents for which we were not responsible.
One involved an undocumented laborer driving his girlfriend’s husband’s F-350. He couldn’t complete a right turn and backed up through the intersection into my fender, then claimed Back Injury from the impact as if my stopped Suburban rear-ended him.
Another happened while we were away on an old tractor but our daughter had stopped behind three other cars at a stop sign. A teen on the opposite side of the street exited the right side, ran around the back and straight across the residential street – straight into the left front fender of our 1988 BMW 528e. The kid bruised his forehead as he slid across the hood, scratching the paint with the buckles of his backpack. Our daughter was between horrified, devastated, and outraged. My insurer, profiting from my business since 1963, insisted that the pedestrian is Always the victim.
On both cases I vehemently refused to cave in, not wanting any “at fault” on my record. Negotiations proceeded as anticipated and in both cases I refused to cave, despite my Umbrella policy being more than adequate.
My insistence, my threat of countersuit for damage to my reputation, and my threat to my own insurer all combined to have all suits dropped. The companies want the quickest way out regardless of our lasting impacts, and I guess I’m just ornery enough to get on my hind legs and say “pi$$ Off”. My insurer’s lawyer did all he could to twist my arm, but opposing counsel was incredulous, asking how I could be allowed to do that. Bottom line – neither opposing teams really wanted to go to trial in the first place – expecting quick and easy settlements. Only lawyer in town starving until second lawyer moves in – then both reside in Morning Wood Estates.
Or the price of eggs and gas . . . and democracy . . .