The Appeal by John Grisham

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Categories	Thrillers & Suspense
Author	John Grisham
Publisher	Anchor; Reprint edition (November 18, 2008)
Language	English
Paperback	496 pages
Item Weight	12.8 ounces
Dimensions	5.25 x 1.01 x 8.02 inches

I. Book introduction

The Appeal is a 2008 novel by John Grisham, his 21st book and his first fictional legal thriller since The Broker was published in 2005. It was published by Doubleday and released in hardcover in the United States on January 29, 2008. A paperback edition was released by Delta Publishing on November 18, 2008.

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER • “Fascinating … filled with deadly accurate characterizations by an author who knows both the law and politics from the inside.”—Los Angeles Times

In a crowded courtroom in Mississippi, a jury returns a shocking verdict against a chemical company accused of dumping toxic waste into a small town’s water supply, causing the worst “cancer cluster” in history. The company appeals to the Mississippi Supreme Court, whose nine justices will one day either approve the verdict or reverse it.

Who are the nine? How will they vote? Can one be replaced before the case is ultimately decided?

The chemical company is owned by a Wall Street predator named Carl Trudeau, and Mr. Trudeau is convinced the Court is not friendly enough. With judicial elections looming, he decides to try to purchase himself a seat on the Court. The cost is a few million dollars, a drop in the bucket for a billionaire like Mr. Trudeau. Through an intricate web of conspiracy and deceit, his political operatives recruit a young, unsuspecting candidate. They finance him, manipulate him, market him, and mold him into a potential Supreme Court justice. Their Supreme Court justice.

The Appeal is a powerful, timely, and shocking story of political and legal intrigue, a story that will leave readers unable to think about our electoral process or judicial system in quite the same way ever again.

Plot

Mississippi attorneys Wes and Mary Grace Payton have battled New York City-based Krane Chemical in an effort to seek justice for Jeannette Baker, whose husband and son died from carcinogenic pollutants the company knowingly and negligently allowed to seep into their town’s water supply. When the jury awards Baker $3 million in wrongful death damages and $38 million in punitive damages, billionaire stockholder Carl Trudeau vows to do whatever is necessary to overturn their decision and save the company’s stocks.

Since Mississippi Supreme Court justices are elected rather than appointed, Trudeau plots with Barry Rinehart of Troy-Hogan, a shady Boca Raton firm that deals only in judicial elections, to select a candidate who can replace the liberal Sheila McCarthy. Their anointed candidate is Ron Fisk, a lawyer with no political experience or ambitions. He is naïve enough to be impressed by the attention shown him by his backers, and does not question his source of funding or his campaign team’s underhanded tactics. Rinehart also uses Clete Coley, a clownish third party candidate, to draw support away from McCarthy and then cede it to Fisk when he eventually withdraws from the race.

Fisk defeats McCarthy and immediately votes against upholding several large settlements in cases brought before the court on appeal, and the Paytons expect he will do the same when their case comes up for review. What they do not anticipate is Fisk unexpectedly being forced to rethink his stance when his son is critically and injured by a defective product and left permanently impaired by a medical error. The issue of corporate responsibility affects him and his family on a personal level. However, even though Fisk is aware that he has been used and tricked, he ultimately reverts the verdict against Krane, as he acknowledges also that changing positions due to his personal tragedy would be an act more compromising of his judicial integrity. Fisk also refuses to take legal action for what happened to his son due to fears of appearing hypocritical, but confirms a less-important verdict concerning medical neglect, implying his judicial philosophy may yet change over time. Meanwhile, with stocks plummeting after the original verdict and now seeing a resurgence, Trudeau has increased his wealth and grasp of the company substantially by buying shares at a sub-par value.

Editorial Reviews

• “Building a remarkable degree of suspense…Grisham delivers his savviest book in years. His extended vacation from hard–hitting fiction is over.”—Janet Maslin, The New York Times
• “A novel that could become its own era–defining classic. John Grisham holds up that same mirror to our age as Tom Wolfe’s Bonfire of the Vanities.”—The Boston Globe
• “Chilling and timeless.”—The Washington Post
• “An intricately detailed, involving story…the ending may surprise you.”—People
• “Stirring popular fiction that doubles as an important public–service announcement.”—Entertainment Weekly
• “Packs a wallop…The timing, in the midst of all the presidential primaries, makes it all the more compelling.”–USA Today
• “Fascinating…filled with deadly accurate characterizations by and author who knows both the law and politics from the inside.”–Los Angeles Times
• “A clever story and thoughtful plot…Grisham confronts in stark relief the dangers of electing judges in an era of big–money politics.”—Seattle Times–Post Intelligencer

About John Grisham

John Grisham (born February 8, 1955 in Jonesboro, Arkansas) is an American novelist, lawyer and former member of the 7th district of the Mississippi House of Representatives, known for his popular legal thrillers. According to the American Academy of Achievement, Grisham has written 28 consecutive number-one fiction bestsellers, and his books have sold 300 million copies worldwide. Along with Tom Clancy and J. K. Rowling, Grisham is one of only three authors to have sold two million copies on a first printing.

Grisham graduated from Mississippi State University and earned a Juris Doctor from the University of Mississippi School of Law in 1981. He practised criminal law for about a decade and served in the Mississippi House of Representatives from 1983 to 1990.

Grisham’s first novel, A Time to Kill, was published in June 1989, four years after he began writing it. Grisham’s first bestseller, The Firm, sold more than seven million copies. The book was adapted into a 1993 feature film of the same name, starring Tom Cruise, and a 2012 TV series which continues the story ten years after the events of the film and novel. Seven of his other novels have also been adapted into films:

• The Chamber,
• The Client,
• A Painted House,
• The Pelican Brief,
• The Rainmaker,
• The Runaway Jury, and Skipping Christmas.

Grisham is a two-time winner of the Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction and was honored with the Library of Congress Creative Achievement Award for Fiction.

When he’s not writing, Grisham serves on the board of directors of the Innocence Project and of Centurion Ministries, two national organizations dedicated to exonerating those who have been wrongfully convicted. Much of his fiction explores deep-seated problems in our criminal justice system.

John Girsham lives on a farm in central Virginia.

II. Reviewer: The Appeal

Here is a summary of the book Review “The Appeal by John Grisham”. Helps you have the most overview of the book without searching through time. Please access “BookQuote.Net” regularly or save it to keep track and update the latest information.

1. H.LEHMANN reviews for The Appeal

“The Appeal” A Realistic Look At The Politicalization Of The Law

I work as a plaintiffs’ trial lawyer, having worked in that capacity for well more than three decades. I’ve directly handled or closely supervised more than 1600 civil matters, and have had good outcomes on all but a tiny few, partly because of having a “no asshole rule,” about the clients our office will accept. In the past, I’ve been disappointed and offended by some of John Grisham’s books, as he has often characterized tawdry and wrongful conduct by lawyers, including the plaintiffs bar, as though such conduct were common, when, in my experience, the opposite is true. No system is perfect, but few that I’ve known from my generation of lawyers chose the law with money as a primary motive, and those that focused on that have not tended towards competency or guts. Consistent with his apparent belief in redemption, Grisham has redeemed himself from the uninformed callousness shown in some other works. This tale of the human spirit, and of evil, is an accurate portrait of very real problems faced by our society, issues and problems that the general public barely even imagines. The Supreme Court election which is central to this story is reminiscent of what happened in California, in 1986, when the then-governor, Mr. Dukemajian, working with ideas from a major Republican PR firm, and as orchestrated by a campaign professional from San Francisco, at a cost of many millions, convinced the people to refuse re-election to three purportedly “liberal,” Supreme Court Justices, Bird, Reynoso, and Grodin, based on their alleged hostility to the death penalty. In fact, the support for the process came from the insurance industry, which sought, with ultimate success (through Judges with insurance backgrounds) to undue several cases which had been to the benefit of insurance consumers, notably Royal Globe vs. Butte (construing Insurance Code 790.03 (h) in a way that forced fair settlements), Paul vs. State Farm and Davis vs. State Farm, cases which were de-certified for publication (erasing them from the law by fiat of the Chief Justice), where those published appellate decisions had found a fiduciary level of relationship between the carrier and the insured. These humane cases had cost the insurance industry, by insisting on fairness, and through politics, these cases were undone. The Chief Justice of the California Supreme Court resigned his position, I believe for personal reasons, about six months after an official determination that, no, strictly speaking, he had not violated ethical standards by taking all expenses paid trips from major insurance companies at the same time he was making decisions which happened to be on their behalf. My familiarity with this comes from deep practice experience in the affected areas, including involvement with two of the major cases which were de-certified by this process. The law was politicized, and still has not reached the impartiality that was present when I was originally in practice, though there have been, in fairness, genuine strides away from the dark. This story, in fiction, illustrates what is at stake when greedy preoccupation with material gain is allowed to have its way with law. Also, the legal analysis and issue handling shows a level of practical depth seldom seen in fiction. For these reasons, I have just purchased an additional copy of this book for our long time exchange student from Germany, as she is entering law school next year, and I do not know of a better tale to warn of the dangers which society faces when the high calling of honorable legal practice is subjugated to the goals of those who hold money as a life goal. This is an important and worthwhile book.

2. MR.AUGUST reviews for The Appeal

I was waiting for the new Grisham book and I am not disappointed. I looked forward to every chapter as he weaved a tale of injustice, greed and politics. Unfortunately, we have had virtual experience of corruption during this administration. But if I wonderered for the last seven years, why doesn’t someone do something or why can’t someone do anything,this novel gave me some answers.

Two honest defense attorneys mortgage everything they have to help a victim of a national chemical company who is responsible for dumping waste into the water and thus causing cancer and death of a woman’s husband and son. Two young lives snuffed out. There are other real victims in this small town who, unfortunately, can only sit back and wonder why their government does not protect them. A jury convicts the company, Krane, and thus starts the appeal process. Carl Trudeau, head of the company, will go to any extreme to buy a reversal of the trial’s outcome and he does.

The Mississippi Supreme Court is the target. They are not appointed but elected in this state so Mr. Trudeau hires an expert who can buy a campaign and a seat on the Court. Ron Fisk is their right wing conservative choice and Sheila McCarthy is the incumbent. I wonderered if Mr. Grisham chose the name McCarthy (Eugene McCarthy?) even though she was not a pure liberal but instead she did her job and interpreted the law and the usage of the laws.

Well, the money folk, used every right wing radical they could muster up to send money and set up scenarios to make Judge McCarthy seem like a flaming liberal. No trial lawyer can withstand the power of this campaign. Mr. Fisk does question the ethics at times but he does not have enough integrity to give up his possible judgeship. He never had experience at a trial or published any famous cases. Sound like Roberts? Anyway, as things turn out, I kept switching the Attorney General Office and the present US Supreme Court for the cast of characters.

Not one of the pro-business, pro-insurance company judges seemed to have experienced any horror in their lives; they had no sorrow. But somethings do happen to the favored and they change. We can recall Nancy Reagan’s interest in stem cell resarch only when it could have helped her afflicted husband. Rush Limbaugh thought all drug users and pushers should go to prison – except for him, of course.

Mr. Fisk experiences every parent’s worst nightmare but we still do not have a happy ending. He does not want to “change” his stance; he continues to defend the bad guys and it is for his own end. So this story seems very timely to me: this administration supports big oil via a
dastardly war and big money wins with the excuse that these appointed and elected officials are religious men.

Mr. Grisham fleshed out his characters, particularly Carl Trudeau who needs more billions and the defense team who appear to be the real righteous and defenders of our Constitution.

3. ROB reviews for The Appeal

For once this is not a courtroom thriller, there are courtrooms but not many.

This book is more about the pursuit of power, greed and corruption. The greed and corruption of the judiciary. The greed and corruption of politicians. And at the top of the heap, the greed and corruption of big business. Underpinning all this greed and corruption lies the most potent aphrodisiac known to mankind MONEY.

In the immortal words of MR. Gekko “greed is good”. No matter how much you have you always need more.

A chemical company has been dumping chemical waste, for years. In the small community where the dumping has occurred people are dying in unprecedented numbers of cancer. One woman, now a widow, brings a lawsuit against the company for the death of her husband and her little boy. She wins her case and is awarded the incredible amount of $40,000,000. This sounds great for the widow and the community but the company is going to appeal.

The length the company goes to to win their appeal is astonishing. The people that they trample on, the lives they ruin are of no consideration whatsoever. Winning the appeal is all that matters.

I found this book compulsive and disturbing. This book is a work of fiction but I have no doubt that the bribery and corruption as portrayed in the book is real and happens more than we think.

Entertaining and thought provoking. I give it a 4 star recommendation

4. MICHELLE reviews for The Appeal

Alright…well, I admit that I read a few one and two star reviews before posting mine because I wanted to read what the nay-sayers had to say about the book. I was pretty sure I knew what they wouldn’t like, and I was pretty sure I would disagree. I was right. I understand others’ chagrin with Grisham’s choice of ending, but I thought it was refreshing. It’s about time someone bucked the system and didn’t give us a patented ending, all tied up with a pretty bow.

So here is the deal. Mississippi just happens to be one of many states that elects it judiciary, including the members who sit on the supreme court of the state. Now you may think this is a good thing – leave it in the hands of the voter to decide who should make judicial rulings. But it is NOT! Judges, you see, should be free from the shackles of political biases so that they can make fair rulings without any pressure – decisions based on the merits of a case and the correct application of the law. The story explores what might happen if a supreme court judge just happened to be elected by a group hired by a man with money – billions of dollars, to be exact – and an agenda for winning a particular case.

I do not want to spoil the ending, and perhaps it is true that Grisham is making a political statement. Okay, so it’s pretty obvious. Even if he is, so be it. He still tells a fast paced and satisfying story of the type that I had once come to expect from Grisham. And while the book deals with torts and mass tort litigation, unlike The King of Torts, the book has some meat on its bones.

Instead of decrying mass tort litigation involving large corporations (product manufacturers, pharmaceutical companies and the like), Grisham delves into the one on one cases where such companies should be held liable for polluting the water and creating dangerous products in cases involving just one plaintiff. Tort litigation is the seedy underbelly of the law. Still, there are several law suits out there – think Erin Brockovich – that deserve attention in our courts. Huge conglomerates should be held responsible when they skirt the law and poison the water, create dangerous drugs, or manufacture products that are unsafe.

Of course, you want the bad guy to get his due here. Maybe he does and maybe he doesn’t. But Grisham leaves the reader feeling uncomfortable and perhaps a little guilty for playing into the game of big political campaign spending…naively believing everything one hears on t.v. about a candidate and his or her record based on a thirty-second commercial that takes sound bites completely out of the context in which they were meant to be be heard. He even makes one a bit uncomfortable with the idea the a judiciary is elected and that a judge would feel beholden to those who paid for his or her election. And in the end, I liked that he gave me something to think about.

It reminded me of The Client and The Rainmaker, and that is a good thing.

5. JOHNNY reviews for The Appeal

The Appeal wouldn’t make a successful film. At times, it appears to accede to the Hollywood formula, but then, it retreats to Grisham’s forte’–realism. Oh, I know Grisham’s work isn’t as gritty as the descriptions of the world of meat-packing in Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle, the vivid characterizations of a couple fighting in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Beautiful and the Damned, or the depiction of blatant sexism in Sinclair Lewis’ The Job (or even in Ann Vickers, his thinly veiled roman a clef based on his relationship with Socialist activist Dorothy Thompson). I simply find that, whenever he stays away from his tendency toward sentimentalism, Grisham can conjure up images of the South of not so long ago with a vividness reminiscent of Faulkner and blend those images with stark, insightful looks at the humanity we see everywhere.

I could feel the heat and humidity as I read these pages (though perhaps it was because I was exercising as I read) and practically itched all over from his frightening depiction of the pollution in the region. I think Grisham’s most realistic characters have been Troy Phelan, the billionaire who commits suicide in The Testament, and the young, conservative Christian lawyer tapped to run for Supreme Court Judge in Mississippi in this novel. With both characters–though they are in distinctively different novels–we get the sense that they are acting with the integrity of their convictions, even though we may not agree with their convictions or how they arrived at them.

And, even though I don’t consider The Appeal to be one of Grisham’s more sentimentalist efforts, I would be dishonest to imply that there weren’t times when tears came to my eyes as I considered the plight of many of the characters and certain “no win” situations.

If you are any kind of political junkie (the “Karl Rove” character running the campaign for the judge’s race is uncannily true-to-life), this is a “must read.” It says as much about political campaigns as it does about jurisprudence. If you’ve ever invested years of your life and portions of your possessions (or all of them) in what others tell you is throwing your life away on a hopeless cause, this is a “must read.”

Frankly, I think this may be the best book I’ve ever read by this author. It may well be his masterpiece, even though I don’t think it will be his most successful by any means.

6. SISSEL M.ØSTDAHL reviews for The Appeal

It never fails to amuse me every time John Grisham presents a new book, the amount of readers kewing up to inform the world what a bad writer Grisham is. Even giving the bestselling author some good advice about “how to do it”!

I have read and enjoyed all Grisham’s books. Favourites are “A Time to Kill”, “The Testament”, “The Street Lawyer” and “The Innocent Man”. These books are based on very strong human characters/stories and I think Grisham is at his best when showing a social conscience and digging deep into the human mind.

This is where I think “The Appeal” is somewhat lacking. The main characters, attorneys Mary Grace and Wes Payton, are duly presented and pop in and out as the story develops. But never long enough for the reader to properly relate to them.

The book is about money, power, greed, vanity, ambition, more money, more greed, more vanity and so on… It’s about the world of the super rich where everything and everyone can be bought, contra the hopelessness of the poorest of the poor. It’s about an unjust legal system, about politics and corruption.

The story is delivered in great detail. New characters, companies, organizations and rumours are introduced constantly. At times, feeling almost like rambling and getting a tiny bit tedious. Until we are back on track and the main issue, the liability case against Krane Chemicals in the small Mississipi town of Bowmore and the need of a less liberal supreme court judge.

However, in spite of the many (too many?) technical explanations and listings of chemical/medical/legal facts, Grisham manages to hold the reader’s attention. The cynicism sometimes verging on cockiness when pinpointing the “clowns” and their moneymaking stunts, calls for refreshing laughs in the middle of the overall plotting and misery. And in the final chapters, the reader is literally kept on edge.

Many reviewers don’t like the ending. However, lawyer/judge Ron Fisk, good guy turned bad, is simply too good to be true for the part he is so thoroughly selected to play. Which I see as the whole point.

“The Appeal” is a cynic book. The story is ugly and shocking, and I believe meant to disturb rather than entertain. But even if certainly not his best book, Grisham has once again proven himself as one of the most interesting writers of our time.

7. GARY reviews for The Appeal

Excellent…tells you everything wrong in politics today…because as long as Private donations are allowed to go toward campaigns and bribes paid to those elected to vote the way a Corporate company wants them to vote, corruption will be rampant,and our democracy will not be a true democracy anymore.

The right wing mentality will continue to destroy the principles of the United States Constitution,and take away our true freedoms…….quite the book…if you can handle the truth

8. SULLY reviews for The Appeal

The right to a fair hearing before an impartial judge, untainted by money or special interests, is at the heart of the nation’s justice system and the rule of law.” NY Times, June 8, 2009

I’m currently re-reading Grisham’s The Appeal. I first read it in 2012, or two years before I entered law school in 2014. Back then, I didn’t quite understand how the judicial system works, i.e., when and how to file an appeal, and what happens if you receive an unfavorable verdict. I’m already half-way done, and I must say, this is one of Grisham’s complex novels, as it involves dirty politics and how political candidates ambush the judiciary.

Timely, I should say, that I thought about re-reading this when the news about the passing of Associate Justice of US Supreme Court, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, took over the media 3 days ago. I’ll tell you why, Grisham cited the Caperton v. Massey case as his inspiration in writing this book. The Massey case secured a 5 to 4 ruling by US Supreme Court, where majority opinion ruled that, “[n]ot every campaign contribution by a litigant or attorney creates a probability of bias that requires a judge’s recusal, but this is an exceptional case,” wrote Justice Anthony Kennedy in the majority opinion, which was joined by Justices John Paul Stevens, David Souter, Stephen Breyer, and of course, Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

In The Appeal, a large mining company lost a case for damages, etc. Since Mississippi SC justices are elected rather than appointed, the mining company planned to manipulate the justice system in order to overturn the unfavorable decision of the lower court.

I must admit, I agree with my friends in Goodreads that the ending is really appalling. Some of the readers expressed their disappointment by saying that, “John Grishman wants to picture what could be happening in real life but I rather have a good feeling after spending money and time reading a book” or “[T]he Appeal has THE WORST ending, of any book, ever.” Still, The Appeal is told in good-old Grisham style. If you are a fan of his work, you’ll really enjoy the book despite its highly-criticized ending. This is me saying, read this with an open mind, Grisham is trying to make us see something.

9. MONA reviews for The Appeal

It didn’t take me long to finish this book. As usual, I like John Grisham’s style of writing; crisp, fast-flowing and gripping. I also get to know a lot of new words that I have never heard of before. I get to know a lot of jargon from the law world.

I gave it 4 stars because of what John is trying to reveal in this book. He certainly lifts the lid on corporate obscene greed and insatiable appetite for moving up the ‘Forbes’ list, even if that meant treading over the misery of others. It delves into how corrupt people can become. People we may hold in high regard for what they seem to be or how they portray themselves in the world of politics and money.

I was amazed at the lengths the rich and greedy will go to to achieve their goals. It just is pure evil.

What amazed me even more is that all this in fact is done in our day and age.

If I was giving the rating for how the book ended, I’d give it a zero. I didn’t like the end. It’s not what and how I expected it to be.

I don’t want to spoil it for others, but I’d be curious to know if someone had read it and felt the same way.

10. DELE HAYNES reviews for The Appeal

The Appeal By John Grisham (Fiction) I chose this book for the narrator, actor Michael Beck. Beck narrates Grisham’s books that take place in Mississippi.I love listening him, he gets extra flavor to Grisham’s books. However, when I got into the book, I felt as if I’d made a bad choice with today’s current political climate.

In a small Mississippi town, a jury returned a shocking verdict against a chemical company accused of dumping toxic waste into the county water supply causing the worst “cancer cluster” in history. The jury handed down the decision that awarded 41 million dollars to woman who had lost her husband and young son to cancer. The company appeals the verdict to the Mississippi Supreme Court where 9 justices will approve the verdict or reverse it.

This is were all the “fun” begins. Carl Trudeau, the factory owner, goes into overdrive to avoid playing a penny of the money. He hires a behind the scene man to manipulate the election of a justice on the Supreme Court in Mississippi. One that will be more inclined to rule in the company’s favor.

Even though this election is a very small one compared to a national election, Grisham showed how the process is easily manipulated. An election can be swayed by lots of money and many half truths. The electorate has come to believe the sound bites that are fed to them instead of investigating the truth for themselves. (sound familiar?)

The Appeal is told in fine Grisham style. If you are a fan of his work, you’ll enjoy the book. Go into it with an open mind, he is trying to teach a lesson here.

III. The Appeal Quotes

The best book quotes from The Appeal by John Grisham

“Stepping into a major trial is like plunging with a weighted belt into a dark and weedy pond. You manage to scramble up for air, but the rest of the world doesn’t matter. And you always think you’re drowning.”

“Barbara Mellinger, the savvy and battle-weary executive director of the MTA and its chief lobbyist.”

“Jared Kurtin, the architect of the defense. Mr. Kurtin was lounging peacefully on a rented leather sofa in his temporary office on Front Street in downtown Hattiesburg, three blocks from the courthouse.”

“How could homosexuals possibly srew up the sanctity of marriage any worse than heterosexuals?”

“The mother of a trophy wife is not automatically a trophy mother-in-law.”

“Poverty is a great equalizer”

“The Senator did not know who owned the jet, nor had he ever met Mr. Trudeau, which in most cultures would seem odd since Rudd had taken so much money from the man. But in Washington, money arrives through a myriad of strange and nebulous conduits. Often those taking it have only a vague idea of where it’s coming from; often they have no clue. In most democracies, the transference of so much cash would be considered outright corruption, but in Washington the corruption has been legalized. Senator Rudd didn’t know and didn’t care that he was owned by other people.”

“In the bottom right-hand corner was a decent-sized color photo of Mr. and Mrs. Carl Trudeau posing with their new acquisition. Brianna, ever photogenic, as she damned well be, emanated glamour. Carl looked rich, thin, and young, he thought, and Imelda was as baffling in print as she was in person. Was she really a work of art? Or was she just a hodgepodge of bronze and cement thrown together by some confused soul working hard to appear tortured?”

“She was forty-one years old, and she was tired. But the fatigue would pass. The old dreams of full-time motherhood and a cushy retirement were forever forgotten.”

“Miss Inez was the backup piano player for the church, and though she played with heavy hands and great enthusiasm, she usually missed about half the notes. And since she was practically deaf, she had no idea how bad she sounded. Recollections of her performances lightened the mood. It would be easy to bash Krane Chemical and its multitude of sins, but Pastor Ott never mentioned the company. She was dead and nothing could change that. Everybody knew who killed her. After a one-hour service, the pallbearers lifted her wooden casket onto Mr. Earl Mangram’s authentic buckboard, the only one left in the county. Mr. Mangram had been an early victim of Krane, burial number three in Denny Ott’s career, and he specifically requested that his casket be hauled away from the church and to the cemetery on his grandfather’s buckboard with his ancient mare, Blaze, under tack. The short procession had been such a hit that it became an instant tradition at Pine Grove. When Miss Inez’s casket was placed on the carriage, Pastor Ott, standing next”

“his goal was $500,000. For the individuals—$5,000 maximum gift—Rinehart had a list of a thousand corporate executives and senior managers of companies in industries that attracted litigation from trial lawyers. Chief among these were insurance companies, and he would collect a million dollars from his contacts there. Carl Trudeau had given him the names of two hundred executives of companies controlled by the Trudeau”

“His gall in holding the rally directly under the noses of the supreme court was humorous, even admirable.”

Excerpted from The Appeal by John Grisham

Chapter 1 – The Appeal

The jury was ready.

After forty–two hours of deliberations that followed seventy–one days of trial that included 530 hours of testimony from four dozen witnesses, and after a lifetime of sitting silently as the lawyers haggled and the judge lectured and the spectators watched like hawks for telltale signs, the jury was ready. Locked away in the jury room, secluded and secure, ten of them proudly signed their names to the verdict while the other two pouted in their corners, detached and miserable in their dissension. There were hugs and smiles and no small measure of self-congratulation because they had survived this little war and could now march proudly back into the arena with a decision they had rescued through sheer determination and the dogged pursuit of compromise. Their ordeal was over; their civic duty complete. They had served above and beyond. They were ready.

The foreman knocked on the door and rustled Uncle Joe from his slumbers. Uncle Joe, the ancient bailiff, had guarded them while he also arranged their meals, heard their complaints, and quietly slipped their messages to the judge. In his younger years, back when his hearing was better, Uncle Joe was rumored to also eavesdrop on his juries through a flimsy pine door he and he alone had selected and installed. But his listening days were over, and, as he had confided to no one but his wife, after the ordeal of this particular trial he might just hang up his old pistol once and for all. The strain of controlling justice was wearing him down.

He smiled and said, “That’s great. I’ll get the judge,” as if the judge were somewhere in the bowels of the courthouse just waiting for a call from Uncle Joe. Instead, by custom, he found a clerk and passed along the wonderful news. It was truly exciting. The old courthouse had never seen a trial so large and so long. To end it with no decision at all would have been a shame.

The clerk tapped lightly on the judge’s door, then took a step inside and proudly announced, “We have a verdict,” as if she had personally labored through the negotiations and now was presenting the result as a gift.

The judge closed his eyes and let loose a deep, satisfying sigh. He smiled a happy, nervous smile of enormous relief, almost disbelief, and finally said, “Round up the lawyers.”

After almost five days of deliberations, Judge Harrison had resigned himself to the likelihood of a hung jury, his worst nightmare. After four years of bare–knuckle litigation and four months of a hotly contested trial, the prospect of a draw made him ill. He couldn’t begin to imagine the prospect of doing it all again.

He stuck his feet into his old penny loafers, jumped from the chair grinning like a little boy, and reached for his robe. It was finally over, the longest trial of his extremely colorful career.

The clerk’s first call went to the firm of Payton & Payton, a local husband–and–wife team now operating out of an abandoned dime store in a lesser part of town. A paralegal picked up the phone, listened for a few seconds, hung up, then shouted, “The jury has a verdict!” His voice echoed through the cavernous maze of small, temporary workrooms and jolted his colleagues.

He shouted it again as he ran to The Pit, where the rest of the firm was frantically gathering. Wes Payton was already there, and when his wife, Mary Grace, rushed in, their eyes met in a split second of unbridled fear and bewilderment. Two paralegals, two secretaries, and a bookkeeper gathered at the long, cluttered worktable, where they suddenly froze and gawked at one another, all waiting for someone else to speak.

Could it really be over? After they had waited for an eternity, could it end so suddenly? So abruptly? With just a phone call?

“How about a moment of silent prayer,” Wes said, and they held hands in a tight circle and prayed as they had never prayed before. All manner of petitions were lifted up to God Almighty, but the common plea was for victory. Please, dear Lord, after all this time and effort and money and fear and doubt, please, oh please, grant us a divine victory. And deliver us from humiliation, ruin, bankruptcy, and a host of other evils that a bad verdict will bring.

The clerk’s second call was to the cell phone of Jared Kurtin, the architect of the defense. Mr. Kurtin was lounging peacefully on a rented leather sofa in his temporary office on Front Street in downtown Hattiesburg, three blocks from the courthouse. He was reading a biography and watching the hours pass at $750 per. He listened calmly, slapped the phone shut, and said, “Let’s go. The jury is ready.” His dark–suited soldiers snapped to attention and lined up to escort him down the street in the direction of another crushing victory. They marched away without comment, without prayer.

Other calls went to other lawyers, then to the reporters, and within minutes the word was on the street and spreading rapidly.

Somewhere near the top of a tall building in lower Manhattan, a panic-stricken young man barged into a serious meeting and whispered the urgent news to Mr. Carl Trudeau, who immediately lost interest in the issues on the table, stood abruptly, and said, “Looks like the jury has reached a verdict.” He marched out of the room and down the hall to a vast corner suite, where he removed his jacket, loosened his tie, walked to a window, and gazed through the early darkness at the Hudson River in the distance. He waited, and as usual asked himself how, exactly, so much of his empire could rest upon the combined wisdom of twelve average people in backwater Mississippi.

For a man who knew so much, that answer was still elusive.

People were hurrying into the courthouse from all directions when the Paytons parked on the street behind it. They stayed in the car for a moment, still holding hands. For four months they had tried not to touch each other anywhere near the courthouse. Someone was always watching. Maybe a juror or a reporter. It was important to be as professional as possible. The novelty of a married legal team surprised people, and the
Paytons tried to treat each other as attorneys and not as spouses.

And, during the trial, there had been precious little touching away from the courthouse or anywhere else.

“What are you thinking?” Wes asked without looking at his wife. His heart was racing and his forehead was wet. He still gripped the wheel with his left hand, and he kept telling himself to relax.

Relax. What a joke.

“I have never been so afraid,” Mary Grace said.

“Neither have I.”

A long pause as they breathed deeply and watched a television van almost slaughter a pedestrian.

“Can we survive a loss?” she said. “That’s the question.”

“We have to survive; we have no choice. But we’re not going to lose.”

“Attaboy. Let’s go.”

They joined the rest of their little firm and entered the courthouse together. Waiting in her usual spot on the first floor by the soft drink machines was their client, the plaintiff, Jeannette Baker, and when she saw her lawyers, she immediately began to cry. Wes took one arm, Mary Grace the other, and they escorted Jeannette up the stairs to the main courtroom on the second floor. They could’ve carried her. She weighed less than a hundred pounds and had aged five years during the trial. She was depressed, at times delusional, and though not anorexic, she simply didn’t eat. At thirty–four, she had already buried a child and a husband and was now at the end of a horrible trial she secretly wished she had never pursued.

The courtroom was in a state of high alert, as if bombs were coming and the sirens were wailing. Dozens of people milled about, or looked for seats, or chatted nervously with their eyes darting around. When Jared Kurtin and the defense army entered from a side door, everyone gawked as if he might know something they didn’t. Day after day for the past four months he had proven that he could see around corners, but at that moment his face revealed nothing. He huddled gravely with his subordinates.

Across the room, just a few feet away, the Paytons and Jeannette settled into their chairs at the plaintiff ’s table. Same chairs, same positions, same deliberate strategy to impress upon the jurors that this poor widow and her two lonely lawyers were taking on a giant corporation with unlimited resources. Wes Payton glanced at Jared Kurtin, their eyes met, and each offered a polite nod. The miracle of the trial was that the two men were still able to treat each other with a modest dose of civility, even converse when absolutely necessary. It had become a matter of pride. Regardless of how nasty the situation, and there had been so many nasty ones, each was determined to rise above the gutter and offer a hand.

Mary Grace did not look over, and if she had, she would not have nodded or smiled. And it was a good thing that she did not carry a handgun in her purse, or half of the dark suits on the other side wouldn’t be there. She arranged a clean legal pad on the table before her, wrote the date, then her name, then could not think of anything else to log in. In seventy–one days of trial she had filled sixty–six legal pads, all the same size and color and now filed in perfect order in a secondhand metal cabinet in The Pit. She handed a tissue to Jeannette. Though she counted virtually everything, Mary Grace had not kept a running tally on the number of tissue boxes Jeannette had used during the trial. Several dozen at least.

The woman cried almost nonstop, and while Mary Grace was profoundly sympathetic, she was also tired of all the damned crying. She was tired of everything—the exhaustion, the stress, the sleepless nights, the scrutiny, the time away from her children, their run–down apartment, the mountain of unpaid bills, the neglected clients, the cold Chinese food at midnight, the challenge of doing her face and hair every morning so she could be somewhat attractive in front of the jury. It was expected of her.

Stepping into a major trial is like plunging with a weighted belt into a dark and weedy pond. You manage to scramble up for air, but the rest of the world doesn’t matter. And you always think you’re drowning.

A few rows behind the Paytons, at the end of a bench that was quickly becoming crowded, the Paytons’ banker chewed his nails while trying to appear calm. His name was Tom Huff, or Huffy to everyone who knew him. Huffy had dropped in from time to time to watch the trial and offer a silent prayer of his own. The Paytons owed Huffy’s bank $400,000, and the only collateral was a tract of farmland in Cary County owned by Mary Grace’s father. On a good day it might fetch $100,000, leaving, obviously, a substantial chunk of unsecured debt. If the Paytons lost the case, then Huffy’s once promising career as a banker would be over. The bank president had long since stopped yelling at him. Now all the threats were by e-mail.

What had begun innocently enough with a simple $90,000 second mortgage loan against their lovely suburban home had progressed into a gaping hellhole of red ink and foolish spending. Foolish at least in Huffy’s opinion. But the nice home was gone, as was the nice downtown office, and the imported cars, and everything else. The Paytons were risking it all, and Huffy had to admire them. A big verdict, and he was a genius. The wrong verdict, and he’d stand in line behind them at the bankruptcy court.

The moneymen on the other side of the courtroom were not chewing their nails and were not particularly worried about bankruptcy, though it had been discussed. Krane Chemical had plenty of cash and profits and assets, but it also had hundreds of potential plaintiffs waiting like vultures to hear what the world was about to hear. A crazy verdict, and the lawsuits would fly.

But they were a confident bunch at that moment. Jared Kurtin was the best defense lawyer money could buy. The company’s stock had dipped only slightly. Mr. Trudeau, up in New York, seemed to be satisfied.

They couldn’t wait to get home.

Thank God the markets had closed for the day.

Uncle Joe yelled, “Keep your seats,” and Judge Harrison entered through the door behind his bench. He had long since cut out the silly routine of requiring everyone to stand just so he could assume his throne.

“Good afternoon,” he said quickly. It was almost 5:00 p.m. “I have been informed by the jury that a verdict has been reached.” He was looking around, making sure the players were present. “I expect decorum at all times. No outbursts. No one leaves until I dismiss the jury. Any questions? Any additional frivolous motions from the defense?”

Jared Kurtin never flinched. He did not acknowledge the judge in any way, but just kept doodling on his legal pad as if he were painting a masterpiece. If Krane Chemical lost, it would appeal with a vengeance, and the cornerstone of its appeal would be the obvious bias of the Honorable Thomas Alsobrook Harrison IV, a former trial lawyer with a proven dislike for all big corporations in general and, now, Krane Chemical
in particular.

“Mr. Bailiff, bring in the jury.”

The door next to the jury box opened, and somewhere a giant unseen vacuum sucked every ounce of air from the courtroom. Hearts froze. Bodies stiffened. Eyes found objects to fixate on. The only sound was that of the jurors’ feet shuffling across well–worn carpet.

Jared Kurtin continued his methodical scribbling. His routine was to never look at the faces of the jurors when they returned with a verdict. After a hundred trials he knew they were impossible to read. And why bother? Their decision would be announced in a matter of seconds anyway. His team had strict instructions to ignore the jurors and show no reaction whatsoever to the verdict.

Of course Jared Kurtin wasn’t facing financial and professional ruin. Wes Payton certainly was, and he could not keep his eyes from the eyes of the jurors as they settled into their seats. The dairy operator looked away, a bad sign. The schoolteacher stared right through Wes, another bad sign. As the foreman handed an envelope to the clerk, the minister’s wife glanced at Wes with a look of pity, but then she had been offering the same sad face since the opening statements.

Mary Grace caught the sign, and she wasn’t even looking for it. As she handed another tissue to Jeannette Baker, who was practically sobbing now, Mary Grace stole a look at juror number six, the one closest to her, Dr. Leona Rocha, a retired English professor at the university. Dr. Rocha, behind red-framed reading glasses, gave the quickest, prettiest, most sensational wink Mary Grace would ever receive.

“Have you reached a verdict?” Judge Harrison was asking.

“Yes, Your Honor, we have,” the foreman said.

“Is it unanimous?”

“No, sir, it is not.”

“Do at least nine of you agree on the verdict?”

“Yes, sir. The vote is 10 to 2.”

“That’s all that matters.”

Mary Grace scribbled a note about the wink, but in the fury of the moment she could not read her own handwriting. Try to appear calm, she kept telling herself.

Judge Harrison took the envelope from the clerk, removed a sheet of paper, and began reviewing the verdict—heavy wrinkles burrowing into his forehead, eyes frowning as he pinched the bridge of his nose. After an eternity he said, “It appears to be in order.” Not one single twitch or grin or widening of the eyes, nothing to indicate what was written on the sheet of paper.

He looked down and nodded at his court reporter and cleared his throat, thoroughly relishing the moment. Then the wrinkles softened around his eyes, the jaw muscles loosened, the shoulders sagged a bit, and, to Wes anyway, there was suddenly hope that the jury had scorched the defendant.

In a slow, loud voice, Judge Harrison read: “Question number one: ‘Do you find, by a preponderance of the evidence, that the groundwater at issue was contaminated by Krane Chemical Corporation?’ ” After a treacherous pause that lasted no more than five seconds, he continued, “The answer is ‘Yes.’ ”

One side of the courtroom managed to breathe while the other side began to turn blue.

“Question number two: ‘Do you find, by a preponderance of the evidence, that the contamination was the proximate cause of the death or deaths of (a) Chad Baker and/or (b) Pete Baker?’ Answer: ‘Yes, for both.’ ”

Mary Grace managed to pluck tissues from a box and hand them over with her left hand while writing furiously with her right. Wes managed to steal a glance at juror number four, who happened to be glancing at him with a humorous grin that seemed to say, “Now for the good part.”

“Question number three: ‘For Chad Baker, what amount of money do you award to his mother, Jeannette Baker, as damages for his wrongful death?’ Answer: ‘Five hundred thousand dollars.’ ”

Dead children aren’t worth much, because they earn nothing, but Chad’s impressive award rang like an alarm because it gave a quick preview of what was to come. Wes stared at the clock above the judge and thanked God that bankruptcy had been averted.

“Question number four: ‘For Pete Baker, what amount of money do you award to his widow, Jeannette Baker, as damages for his wrongful death?’ Answer: ‘Two and a half million dollars.’ ”

There was a rustle from the money boys in the front row behind Jared Kurtin. Krane could certainly handle a $3 million hit, but it was the ripple effect that suddenly terrified them. For his part, Mr. Kurtin had yet to flinch.

Not yet.

Jeannette Baker began to slide out of her chair. She was caught by both of her lawyers, who pulled her up, wrapped arms around her frail shoulders, and whispered to her. She was sobbing, out of control.

There were six questions on the list that the lawyers had hammered out, and if the jury answered yes to number five, then the whole world would go crazy. Judge Harrison was at that point, reading it slowly, clearing his throat, studying the answer. Then he revealed his mean streak. He did so with a smile. He glanced up a few inches, just above the sheet of paper he was holding, just over the cheap reading glasses perched on his nose, and he looked directly at Wes Payton. The grin was tight, conspiratorial, yet filled with gleeful satisfaction.

“Question number five: ‘Do you find, by a preponderance of the evidence, that the actions of Krane Chemical Corporation were either intentional or so grossly negligent as to justify the imposition of punitive damages?’ Answer: ‘Yes.’ ”

Mary Grace stopped writing and looked over the bobbing head of her client to her husband, whose gaze was frozen upon her. They had won, and that alone was an exhilarating, almost indescribable rush of euphoria. But how large was their victory? At that crucial split second, both knew it was indeed a landslide.

“Question number six: ‘What is the amount of punitive damages?’ Answer: ‘Thirty-eight million dollars.’ ”

There were gasps and coughs and soft whistles as the shock waves rattled around the courtroom. Jared Kurtin and his gang were busy writing everything down and trying to appear unfazed by the bomb blast. The honchos from Krane in the front row were trying to recover and breathe normally. Most glared at the jurors and thought vile thoughts that ran along the lines of ignorant people, backwater stupidity, and so on.

Mr. and Mrs. Payton were again both reaching for their client, who was overcome by the sheer weight of the verdict and trying pitifully to sit up. Wes whispered reassurances to Jeannette while repeating to himself the numbers he had just heard. Somehow, he managed to keep his face serious and avoid a goofy smile.

Huffy the banker stopped crunching his nails. In less than thirty seconds he had gone from a disgraced, bankrupt former bank vice president to a rising star with designs on a bigger salary and office. He even felt smarter. Oh, what a marvelous entrance into the bank’s boardroom he would choreograph first thing in the morning. The judge was going on about formalities and thanking the jurors, but Huffy didn’t care. He had heard all he needed to hear.

The jurors stood and filed out as Uncle Joe held the door and nodded with approval. He would later tell his wife that he had predicted such a verdict, though she had no memory of it. He claimed he hadn’t missed a verdict in the many decades he had worked as a bailiff. When the jurors were gone, Jared Kurtin stood and, with perfect composure, rattled off the usual post-verdict inquiries, which Judge Harrison took with great compassion now that the blood was on the floor. Mary Grace had no response. Mary Grace didn’t care. She had what she wanted.

Wes was thinking about the $41 million and fighting his emotions. The firm would survive, as would their marriage, their reputations, everything.

When Judge Harrison finally announced, “We are adjourned,” a mob raced from the courtroom. Everyone grabbed a cell phone.

….

Note: Above are quotes and excerpts from the book “The Appeal by John Grisham”. If you find it interesting and useful, don’t forget to buy paper books to support the Author and Publisher!

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