Gray Mountain: A Novel(62)

As Samantha entered the empty lobby of the building, she was practically strip-searched by a couple of bored guards of some nameless variety. A directory by the elevators led her to a file room on the second floor. A clerk, obviously federally tenured and protected, eventually asked what she wanted. She was looking for a black lung file, she explained as politely as possible. Of course her paperwork was not in order. The clerk frowned and acted as though a crime had been committed. He produced some blank forms and rattled off instructions about how one must properly access such a file; it required two signatures from the claimant. She left with nothing but frustration.

At nine the following morning, Samantha again met Buddy at the Conoco station in Madison. He was excited to see his lawyer for the third day in a row, and introduced her to Weasel, the guy who owned the store. “All the way from New York,” Buddy said proudly, as if his case was so important heavyweight legal talent had to be imported. When the paperwork was complete and perfect, she said good-bye and drove back to the courthouse in Beckley. The armed warriors who had so bravely guarded the front lobby on Wednesday were evidently off fishing on Thursday. There was no one to fondle and grope her. The metal detector was unplugged. Clever terrorists monitoring Beckley had only to wait until Thursdays to thwart Homeland Security and blow up the building.

The same clerk examined her forms and searched vainly for a reason to reject them, but he found nothing to nitpick. She followed him to a massive room lined with metal file cabinets filled with thousands of old cases. He punched buttons on a screen; machines hummed as shelves moved. He opened the drawer and extracted four large expandable files. “You can use one of those tables,” he said, pointing, as if he owned them. Samantha thanked him, unloaded her briefcase, made her nest, and kicked off her shoes.


Mattie, too, was shoeless late Thursday afternoon when Samantha returned to the office. Everyone else was gone and the front door was locked. They went to the conference room so they could watch the traffic on Main Street as they talked. Throughout her thirty-year career as a lawyer, and especially the last twenty-six years at the clinic, Mattie had repeatedly butted heads with the boys (always men—never women) at Casper Slate. Their brand of aggressive advocacy often went even further, into the realm of unethical conduct, perhaps even criminal behavior. About a decade earlier, she had taken the extreme measure of filing an ethics complaint against the firm with the Virginia bar association. Two Castrate lawyers were reprimanded, nothing serious, and when it was all over it had not been worth the trouble. In retaliation, the firm targeted her whenever possible and backstabbed even more fiercely when defending one of her black lung cases. Her clients suffered, and she regretted challenging the firm head-on. She was quite aware of Dr. Foy and Dr. Aberdeen, two renowned and eminently qualified researchers who’d been purchased by the coal companies years ago. The hospitals where they worked received millions in research grants from the coal industry.

As jaded as Mattie was toward the law firm, she was still surprised at Samantha’s discovery. She read the copy of Dr. Foy’s report to the pathologist in Beckley. Oddly enough, neither Foy nor Aberdeen was mentioned in the Ryzer hearing. Foy’s medical report was not submitted; rather, the lawyers at Casper Slate used another slew of doctors, none of whom mentioned the findings of Dr. Foy. Had they been told of these findings? “Highly unlikely,” was Mattie’s prediction. “These lawyers are known for concealing evidence that’s not helpful to the coal company. It’s safe to assume that both doctors saw the lung tissue and arrived at the same conclusion: that Buddy had complicated black lung disease. So the lawyers buried it and found more experts.”

“How can you just bury evidence?” Samantha asked, a question she’d been repeating to herself for many hours.

“It’s easy for these guys. Keep in mind this happens before an administrative law judge, not a real federal judge. It’s a hearing, not a trial. In a real trial there are strict rules regarding discovery and full disclosure; not so in a black lung hearing. The rules are far more relaxed, and these guys have spent decades tweaking and manipulating the rules. In about half the cases, the miner, like Buddy, has no lawyer, so it’s really not a fair fight.”

“I get that, but tell me how the lawyers for Lonerock Coal could know for a fact that Buddy had the disease as early as 1997, then cover it up by finding the other doctors who testified, under oath, that he was not suffering from black lung.”

“Because they’re crooks.”

“And we can’t do anything about it? Sounds like fraud and conspiracy to me. Why can’t they be sued? If they did it to Buddy Ryzer, you can bet they’ve done it to a thousand others.”

“I thought you didn’t like litigation.”

“I’m coming around. This is not right, Mattie.”

Mattie smiled and enjoyed her indignation. We’ve all been there, she thought. “It would be a massive effort to take on a law firm as powerful as Casper Slate.”

“Yes, I know that, and I know nothing about litigation. But fraud is fraud, and in this case it would be easy to prove. Doesn’t proving fraud pave the way to punitive damages?”

“Perhaps, but no law firm around here will sue Casper Slate directly. It would cost a fortune, take years, and if you got a big verdict you couldn’t keep it. Remember, Samantha, they elect their Supreme Court over in West Virginia, and you know who makes the biggest campaign contributions.”