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Book Review of The King of Torts Copyright © 2008 by Ron Love

Synopsis In the novel The King of Torts, Clay Carter is a lawyer at the Office of the Public Defender (OPD) in Washington, D.C. He accepts the case of a young man who has killed another person for no apparent reason. Max Pace approaches Carter and offers him legal work representing the large corporation that made a drug used by the murderer and others that lead them all to commit murders. Pace offers Carter $10 million to work on a covert settlement with the families of victims. Clay resigns from the OPD, starts his new law firm, and settles the cases. Pace gives Carter more mass tort cases. Carter earns millions and becomes The King of Torts. By practicing law amplified by hubris and excessive greed, Carter's life spirals down toward an empty abyss as he loses everything, including his artificial crown as The King of Torts. Tort Defined A tort is a civil wrong, other than breach of contract, for which a remedy may be obtained, usually in the form of damages, including a breach of duty that the law imposes on persons who stand in a particular relation to one another (Black's Law Dictionary, 2004, p. 1526). Main Characters John Grisham wrote The King of Torts in 2003. Locales in the book include Washington, D.C., New York City, the Bahamas, Pennsylvania, Mississippi, Arizona, and other locations in the United States. The main characters revolve around the protagonist, Clay Carter, a young public defense lawyer who is disillusioned and ripe for avarice. His girlfriend, Rebecca Van Horn, is a greedy fox from a social caste far above Carter. Max Pace, the virtual Prince of Darkness, represents corporations in their quest to make mass torts and class action lawsuits disappear in quiet settlements that cover injuries caused by their products. Ridley, an empty-headed fashion model, becomes Carter's girlfriend after Van Horn dumps him. Clay's father, Jarrett Carter, is a disbarred lawyer soaked in alcohol and running a fishing boat in the Bahamas. Patton French, a star personal injury lawyer floating on his earned millions, is Clay's mentor and role model. Rounding out this cast of characters is Dale Mooneyham, an experienced torts lawyer from Arizona who hates the current class of mass tort lawyers that chase settlement money without scruples. Grisham's Thesis Grisham seems to hate the practice of law. He deftly describes the foibles of wayward lawyers as he simultaneously pounds a textual jackhammer on the way law is practiced. Grisham portrays class-action lawyers as shady hustlers on the prowl for clients. Through his fictional approach to revealing legal tricknology practiced by lawyers, Grisham preaches that lawyers manipulate the judicial system in collusion with corporate thieves to make unlimited money and leave unlimited suffering in their wake.

Book Review of The King of Torts

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Fiction vs. Reality Mass litigation lawyers are your best friend if you receive a fat settlement check from corporate America. In contrast, mass litigation lawyers are your worst enemy if you must write the fat check. Grisham fails to distinguish between the bad and good lawyers that slog through a mangled litigation process of taking money away from one party to give to another party to remedy a breach of duty. The book's righteous Arizona lawyer, Dale Mooneyham, tells Clay Carter that mass torts are a scam, a consumer rip-off, a lottery driven by greed that will harm all of society. Roots of the alleged scam surround three fictional drugs that control Carter's chase for money: (1) Tarvan, a drug designed to cure drug addiction that also causes psychotic behavior and the desire to kill; (2) Dyloft, an arthritis drug that causes bladder tumors; and (3) Maxatil, a female hormone that eventually causes breast cancer and other diseases. These fictional drugs damage the human body in ways similar to real drugs. The real class of serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SRIs), designed as antidepressants with familiar names like Prozac, Zoloft, and Paxil, have documented cases of suicidal and homicidal urges. Hundreds of product liability lawsuits have been filed against the drug companies for damages. Another dangerous real drug was Vioxx, an anti-arthritis drug that caused heart attacks. Many lawsuits have been filed, litigated, and settled over Vioxx's deadly effects. In real quantifiable damages, a Nevada jury awarded $134.5 million in 2007 to three women who developed breast cancer following their use of Prempro and Premarin, which are real drugs used in hormone replacement therapy (Associated Press, 2007). Grisham's thesis of all evil and no good in mass tort litigation fails to entertain even though the reader suspends disbelief while turning the pages of The King of Torts. In fiction or in real life, mass tort litigation is not a rip-off if you are the person affected by defective products. Granted, Grisham's book is fiction, but it insults the reader's intelligence by claiming that only narcissistic lawyers collude with dirty corporations to rack up mass tort actions. In this book, life imitates art instead of the other way around. Mooneyham speaks as Grisham's alter ego against wicked lawyers, but mass tort litigation is not a rip-off if you are the person injured by bad products, or if you are the lawyer spending thousands of dollars and working hundreds of hours trying to right a wrong that should have been right before your involvement in the particular case under litigation. Both fictional and real, every person in the legal game has one goal: to get paid. Their efforts, good and bad, are based on standards for the legal profession, expectations of clients, and precedents in the legal system.

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Stare Decisis Stare decisis is the doctrine of precedent, under which a court must follow earlier judicial decisions when the same points arise again in litigation (Black's Law Dictionary, 2004, p. 1443). In short, stare decisis means let the decision stand. Precedent-setting cases, in fiction and real life, mimic Grisham's flagrant use of exorbitant fees, lavish lifestyles, and perks associated with winning mass tort lawsuits. Grisham's work is nothing more than a fictional exercise that displays raw human nature in nonhuman characters. Clay Carter's temptations and his subsequent submission to the Prince of Darkness, Max Pace, reflect how the precedent of greed juxtaposes the precedent of law. Greed has incentives born from human nature. Precedent cases offer incentives to every case that follows in its tracks. Stare decisis is the result of man-made laws based on natural law's immutable drive to ensure human survival at any cost. The mix of natural greed, man-made law, and natural law produces negative and positive effects. On the negative side, Carter's fictional greed mirrors any competent lawyer's natural predisposition to want to win big within the rules of law. Carter's immersion in greed lacks essential elements of common sense also held by real competent lawyers. Stare decisis can set up lawyers in fine position for the big kill in court when they slay corporate giants. Some lawyers probably would not risk their licenses by delving into the dark side of precedents, where the legal system is saturated with enormous tempting risks in spite of clear existing precedents. Although Carter's reasons for selling his soul are not rigorously covered in the book, one could ask a pertinent question: Knowing stare decisis exists for deciding cases coupled with huge monetary awards, why does Carter risk his life, career, and wealth for more money than he could ever spend in his lifetime? Carter is a fool, and that alone is why. There is no need to determine if binding precedents or persuasive precedents blind him. Natural greed based on precedents carved from the doctrine of stare decisis causes Carter to sell his soul to the Prince of Darkness. On the positive side, following precedents can make judicial decisions somewhat predictable. If a damaged person has a reasonable expectation of recovering millions of dollars for the pain, suffering, and injuries caused by corporate chicanery, stare decisis itself is the true King of Torts, not Clay Carter. In civil law cases, the doctrine of jurisprudence constante is similar to stare decisis, and both influence the court's final decisions; however, one exception separates the two doctrines. Jurisprudence constante does not command strict adherence to a legal principle applied on one occasion in the past (Black's Law Dictionary, 2004, p. 872). Regardless of which doctrine applies, Clay Carter and Max Pace are driven by known incentives to help themselves and their clients gain windfall wealth while sacrificing the least. As life drives fiction, so can fiction drive life. The extremes of human nature rule in The King of Torts.

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Conclusion The King of Torts offers the protagonist Clay Carter's unreal advancement from fledgling public defender to Master of the Universe. The plot is a thinly disguised rant against mass tort lawyers and the legal system in general. The book lacks balance for sharp readers. True, the book is fictional entertainment, but redeeming qualities in bad characters were minimal while their incessant drives to acquire money and material things were maximal. Clay Carter is a one-dimensional fool. Max Pace, the Prince of Darkness who entices the King of Torts, does not care about anything (except money) or anyone, so one could speculate if he is the wisest or sorriest of the whole bunch. Dale Mooneyham is a decent understated throwback to Clarence Darrow. If Grisham had focused more on Mooneyham schooling foolish Carter, this novel would deliver a more plausible balance. References Associated Press. (October 12, 2007). Jury awards $134.5 million in Wyeth hormone drug case. The New York Times. Retrieved November 30, 2008 from the World Wide Web: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/12/business/12wyeth.html?fta=y. Garner, B. A. (Ed.). (2004). Black's Law Dictionary (8th ed.). St. Paul, MN: Thomson West. Grisham, J. (2003). The King of Torts. New York: Random House.