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The Tate verdict brought excitement to the area and was a source of endless gossip and speculation. According to a story in the Roanoke paper, Strayhorn Coal was promising a vigorous appeal. Its lawyers had little to say, but others were not so timid. A vice president of the company called the verdict “shocking.” A mouthpiece for some economic development group worried that “such a huge verdict” might harm the state’s reputation as a place favorable to business. One of the jurors (unnamed) was quoted and said there had been a lot of tears in the jury room. Lisa Tate was unavailable for comment, but her lawyer was not.
Samantha watched and listened and had late-night drinks with Donovan and Jeff. Diet soda for her, Dickel for them. Strayhorn might have been posturing when it promised an appeal, but Donovan said the company really wanted to settle. With two dead kids at issue, the company knew it would be difficult to ever win. The punitive damages would be automatically reduced from a million to $350,000, so roughly a quarter of the verdict was already gone. The company offered $1.5 million to settle on the Tuesday after the verdict, and Lisa Tate wanted to take it. Donovan let it slip that he was getting 40 percent, so he could smell a nice payday.
On Wednesday, he, Jeff, and Samantha met with Buddy and Mavis Ryzer to discuss the potential lawsuit against Lonerock Coal and Casper Slate. The Ryzers were devastated to learn that the law firm had known for years that Buddy was suffering from black lung, yet hid the evidence. Buddy angrily said, “Sue the bastards for everything,” and never, during the two-hour meeting, backed down. The couple left Donovan’s office mad and determined to fight until it was over. That night, again over drinks, Donovan confided to Samantha and Jeff that he had mentioned the lawsuit to two of his closest trial lawyer buddies, two guys in different firms in West Virginia. Neither had an interest in spending the next five years brawling with Casper Slate, regardless of how egregious its behavior.
A week later, Donovan flew to Charleston, West Virginia, to file the Hammer Valley contamination case. Outside the federal courthouse, facing a gang of reporters and with four other lawyers beside him, he laid out their case against Krull Mining. “Russian owned,” of course. He claimed the company had been polluting the groundwater for fifteen years; that it knew what was happening and covered it up; and that Krull Mining had known for at least the last ten years that its chemicals were causing one of the highest rates of cancer in America. Donovan confidently said, “We’ll prove it all, and we have the documents to back it up.” He was lead counsel and his group represented over forty families in Hammer Valley.
Like most trial lawyers, Donovan loved the attention. Samantha suspected he rushed the Hammer Valley filing because he was still in the spotlight from the Tate verdict. She tried to back away and ignore the Gray brothers for a few days, but they were persistent. Jeff wanted to have dinner. Donovan needed her advice, he said, because both of them represented Buddy Ryzer. She was aware of his growing frustration with his trial lawyer friends, none of whom were showing any enthusiasm for tackling Casper Slate. Donovan said more than once he would go solo, if necessary. “More of the fee for me,” he said. He became obsessed with the case and talked to Marshall Kofer every day. To their surprise, Marshall came through with the money. A litigation fund was offering a line of cash of up to $2 million for 30 percent of the recovery.
Donovan was again pressing Samantha to work in his office. The Hammer Valley case and the Ryzer case would soon be all-consuming, and he needed help. She felt strongly that he needed an entire staff of associates, not just a part-time intern. When he verbally settled the Tate case for $1.7 million, he offered her a full-time position with a generous salary. She declined, again. She reminded him that (a) she was still wary of litigation and not looking for a job; (b) she was just passing through, sort of on loan until the dust settled up in New York and she could figure out the next phase of her life, a phase that would have nothing to do with Brady, Virginia; and (c) she had made a commitment to the legal clinic and actually had real clients who needed her. What she didn’t explain was that she was afraid of him and his cowboy style of lawyering. She was convinced that he, or someone working on his behalf, had stolen valuable documents from Krull Mining and that this would inevitably be exposed. He was not afraid to break rules and laws and wouldn’t hesitate to violate court orders. He was driven by hatred and a burning desire for revenge, and, at least in her opinion, was headed for serious trouble. She could hardly admit to herself that she felt vulnerable around him. An affair could flare without much effort, and that would be a dreadful mistake. What she needed was less time with Donovan Gray, not more.
She wasn’t sure how to handle Jeff. He was young, single, sexy; thus a rarity in those parts. He was also hot on her trail, and she knew that dinner, wherever one might find a nice dinner, would lead to something else. After three weeks in Brady, she rather liked that idea.
On November 12, Donovan, with no co-counsel in sight, marched into the federal courthouse in Lexington, Kentucky, home to an eight-hundred-member law firm officially known as Casper, Slate & Hughes, and sued the bastards. He also sued Lonerock Coal, a Nevada corporation. Buddy and Mavis were with him, and, of course, he had alerted the press. They chatted with some reporters. One asked why the lawsuit had been filed in Lexington, and Donovan explained that he wanted to expose Casper Slate to its hometown folks. He was aiming for the scene of the crime, and so on. The press had a grand time with the story, and Donovan collected press clippings.
Two weeks earlier, he had filed the Hammer Valley lawsuit against Krull Mining in Charleston and received regional coverage.
Two weeks before that, he had won the Tate case with a spectacular verdict and got his name in a few newspapers.
On November 24, three days before Thanksgiving, they found him dead.