THE FALL OF THE
HOUSE OF ZEUS
CLE Credit: 1.0
Wednesday, June 19, 2013
10:40 a.m. - 11:40 a.m.
Grand Ballroom
Galt House Hotel
Louisville, Kentucky
1
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2
TABLE OF CONTENTS
The Presenter ........................................................................................................ i
The Fall from the House of Zeus:
The Rise and Ruin of America's Most Powerful Trial Lawyer ................................ 1
Background ................................................................................................ 2
Legal Career .............................................................................................. 5
The Fall ...................................................................................................... 7
Reactions to the Case ................................................................................ 9
Critical Reception of the Book .................................................................. 11
Ethical Questions and Lessons ................................................................ 12
3
4
THE PRESENTERS
Professor Curtis Wilkie
Overby Center for Southern Journalism and Politics
University of Mississippi
555 Grove Loop, Suite 247
University, Mississippi 38677
(662) 915-1707
CURTIS WILKIE is the inaugural Fellow of the Overby Center for Southern
Journalism and Politics and holds the Kelly G. Cook Chair in Journalism. He
received his B.A. from the University of Mississippi. Professor Wilkie served as
reporter and editor on the staff of the Clarksdale Press Register (1963-69) in the
Mississippi Delta at a time when the civil rights movement was at its height. He
received a Congressional Fellowship from the American Political Science
Association and worked on Capitol Hill (1969-71) as a legislative aide in the
offices of Sen. Walter F. Mondale (D-Minn.) and Rep. John Brademas (D-Ind,).
He also served as reporter and editor on the staff of the News-Journal papers in
Wilmington, Delaware (1971-74).
Professor Wilkie joined the staff of the Boston Globe in 1975 and served as a
national and foreign correspondent for that paper until retirement at the end of
the 2000 presidential campaign. He also served as chief of the Globe's
Washington bureau. In 1984, Professor Wilkie established the Globe’s Middle
East Bureau and the Southern Bureau in 1993.
He has written numerous articles for national magazines such as The Nation,
The New Republic, Newsweek, Playboy, George, Washington Journalism
Review, and many articles for the Boston Globe Magazine. Professor Wilkie is
the co-author, with the late Jim McDougal, of Arkansas Mischief: Birth of a
National Scandal; author of Dixie: A Personal Odyssey Through Events That
Shaped the Modern South; and co-author, with six others, of City Adrift: New
Orleans Before and After Katrina.
He was a journalism professor in residence at Louisiana State University (2003)
and has served as visiting professor of journalism at the University of Mississippi
since 2002. Professor Wilkie was given the Special Award for Excellence in
Non-Fiction Writing by the Fellowship of Southern Writers (2005).
i
ii
THE FALL FROM THE HOUSE OF ZEUS:
THE RISE AND RUIN OF AMERICA'S MOST POWERFUL TRIAL LAWYER
Curtis Wilkie
Compiled by Ella Dunbar
Journalist Curtis Wilkie's book, The Fall from the House of Zeus: The Rise and
Ruin of America's Most Powerful Trial Lawyer, published in 2010, tells of the
meteoric rise and equally dramatic fall of one of America's most prominent mass
tort attorneys. Richard "Dickie" Scruggs, known for engineering huge asbestos
settlements before taking on Big Tobacco and then tackling insurance companies
after Hurricane Katrina, was brought down by a $50,000 bribe, mere pittance to a
man worth millions.1 Throughout his career, his successes brought him both
praise and criticism. "Along the way, he was hailed as a champion of the little
guy. He was also derided as a scoundrel who would stoop as low as necessary
to get his way – and fatten his bank account."2 The dual identities of the
controversy's key player made for years of an "amorphous conspiracy" with a lot
of gray area and few straight answers.3 Wilkie knew that this was a "remarkable
story of personal treachery, clandestine political skullduggery, enormous
professional hatred within the legal community, a zealous prosecution – all with
ramifications that extended to the highest levels in Washington" and set out to
illuminate the story.4 In The Fall from the House of Zeus, Wilkie, who became
friends with Scruggs in college, tells the story of the man behind the widely
publicized story.5
1
"Who's Afraid of Dickie Scruggs?", Newsweek Magazine (December 5,
http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/1999/12/05/who-s-afraid-of-dickie-scruggs.html;
Staff, "How a $50,000 Bribe Led to Scruggs' Downfall," NPR (June 28,
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=92000139; Richard Faussat, Jenny
and Henry Weinstein, "Bribery Case Brings down Legal Legend" (March 15,
http://articles.latimes.com/2008/mar/15/nation/na-scruggs15.
1999),
NPR
2008),
Jarvie
2008),
2
Richard Faussat, Jenny Jarvie and Henry Weinstein, "Bribery Case Brings down Legal Legend,"
L.A. Times (March 15, 2008), http://articles.latimes.com/2008/mar/15/nation/na-scruggs15.
3
Turnrow Books, The Fall of the House of Zeus (December
http://turnrowbooks.typepad.com/turnrow/2010/12/the-fall-of-the-house-of-zeus.html
1,
2010).
4
Curtis Wilkie, The Fall of the House of Zeus: The Rise and Ruin of America's Most Powerful
Trial Lawyer 3 (2010).
5
NPR Staff, "An Attorney's Fall: From Billionaire to Inmate," NPR (December 22, 2010)
http://www.npr.org/2010/12/22/132081455/an-attorneys-fall-from-billionaire-to-inmate.
1
Background
Richard "Dickie" Scruggs was born in 1946 near Pascagoula on the Mississippi
Gulf Coast. Dickie was raised by a single mother after his father left when he
was five.6 Much of his success comes from the competitive drive he inherited
from his mother, who not only raised him by herself, but did so while working as a
secretary at the local Ingalls shipyard.7 Despite his humble upbringing, he
achieved success as a lawyer later in life, garnering him a reputation as the "King
of Torts."8 The book's title, The Fall from the House of Zeus, derives from
Scrugg's collegiate fraternity nickname.9 When asked to comment on the
portrayal of Scruggs as Zeus, author Wilkie explained:
without being too pretentious, he lives up to a lot of the elements
that are found in Greek tragedy, You have a hero who rises to the
heights and is destroyed by his own fatal flaw, in this case, whether
it was Scruggs' poor judgment in associates or his hatred of his
rivals and determination to win, I don't know. Whatever it was, it
brought him down.10
According to Wilkie, "Scruggs seemed driven by a lust to become a winner, a
characteristic often developed in childhood by smart but poor boys."11 That lust
drove Scruggs to become a lawyer and ultimately to make millions through mass
tort litigation.12 He became a "man of consequence in Mississippi" after hitting "a
big lick – as lawyers like to call any sizable fees won in damage suits."13
Scruggs reached career heights most lawyers only dream of, taking on mass tort
6
Peter J. Boyer, "How the Mississippi Lawyer Who Brought down Big Tobacco Overstepped"
New Yorker (May 19, 2008); Dan Goodgame, "Richard 'Dickie' Scruggs" Time Magazine (July 9,
2000) http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,49449,00.html.
7
Wilkie, at 18 (2010).
8
Terry Carter, "Long Live the King of Torts?", ABA Journal Magazine (Apr 1, 2008)
http://www.abajournal.com/magazine/article/long_live_the_king_of_torts/.
9
Ben C. Toledano, "The Nature and Quality of Justice," The Washington Times (November 3,
2010) http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/nov/3/the-nature-and-quality-of-justice/?page
=all.
10
Bo Emerson, "Dickie Scruggs, Master Litigator, Falls from Grace" The Atlanta JournalConstitution (November 10, 2010) http://www.accessatlanta.com/news/entertainment/celebritynews/dickie-scruggs-master-litigator-falls-from-grace/nQ8p9/.
11
Wilkie, at 7 (2010).
12
Who's Afraid of Dickie Scruggs?", Newsweek Magazine (December 5,
http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/1999/12/05/who-s-afraid-of-dickie-scruggs.html;
Staff, "How a $50,000 Bribe Led to Scruggs' Downfall," NPR (June 28,
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=92000139.
13
Wilkie, at 7 (2010).
2
1999),
NPR
2008),
asbestos claims before tackling big tobacco in a $246 billion settlement with
forty-six states that earned him the title "Robin Hood of cigarettes."14 He referred
to taking on tobacco as "just a challenge that cried out for somebody to do it" and
his involvement as stemming from "professional inspiration to try to do something
that had never been done before."15
Although Scruggs made millions from the tobacco settlements, he instead went
back to work. "By 1992, Scruggs stood out as a paradigm in his profession, a
plaintiff's lawyer representing the powerless masses, whether they were humble
shipyard workers in Pascagoula or ailing consumers bringing products liability
complaints. Scruggs and his colleagues . . . thought of themselves as the new
guardians of the American public, stepping into the vacuum created by a lack of
government regulation."16 Scruggs was happy to serve in this role and was
quoted as saying,
It is not often in life that you have a chance to make a mark on
humanity. And we all got caught up in the opportunity that this
presented to us. Not only to make a lot of money for our class
action and perhaps for ourselves, but to really make a difference in
the world. It was an inspiration. And I think most of the lawyers, at
least those who were in the vanguard of this litigation, got caught
up in that feeling. That they were really doing a service to
humanity.17
However, this success was not always achieved through honest means. As
reviews of the book have noted, "it's all about money, power, greed, and class."18
To get to the top, Scruggs developed his own philosophy about how to win
cases." He called [this philosophy] the three-legged stool of litigation, only one
leg of which – and I would suggest it was the shortest of the three legs – was
actual litigation. The other two pieces were the political piece and the public
relations piece, and he completely understood those things."19 Scruggs himself
14
Terry Carter, "Long Live the King of Torts?", ABA Journal Magazine (Apr 1, 2008)
http://www.abajournal.com/magazine/article/long_live_the_king_of_torts/; Bill Haltom, "Let Us
Now Praise Real Lawyers", Tenn. B.J., August 2008, at 40.
15
Interview with PBS Frontline, PBS (1997-1998).
16
Wilkie, at 7 (2010).
17
Interview with PBS Frontline, PBS (1997-1998).
18
Thomas Naylor, "The Fall of the House of Zeus," Counterpunch Magazine (2010)
http://www.counterpunch.org/2010/12/31/the-fall-of-the-house-of-zeus/.
19
Who's Afraid of Dickie Scruggs?", Newsweek Magazine (December 5,
http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/1999/12/05/who-s-afraid-of-dickie-scruggs.html;
Staff, "How a $50,000 Bribe Led to Scruggs' Downfall," NPR (June 28,
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=92000139
3
1999),
NPR
2008),
acknowledges that winning verdicts in those cases are not always about the
evidence or a lawyer's skill, and "are not won in the courtroom. They're won on
the back roads long before the case goes to trial."20
He acknowledged that he owed much of his success in the asbestos cases to
what he termed "magic jurisdictions," . . . "where the judiciary is elected with
verdict money [and] voters are in on the deal." He recognized the ease with
which a case could be won in these areas, "any lawyer fresh out of school can
walk in there and win the case, so it doesn't matter what the evidence or the law
is."21 The combination of back road maneuvering and "magic jurisdictions"
combined to make Scruggs very successful with mass tort asbestos cases.22
However, success was not always easy or nice. Scruggs' also acknowledged
early on that success involved these back road politics and necessitated dealing
with what he termed "the Dark Side of the Force," a system of politicians and
lawyers ranging from small town Mississippi to Washington, D.C. that had
previously been governed by the late Senator Eastland.23 One of the important
players in "the Force" was Scruggs' brother-in-law and former Republican
majority leader in the U.S. Senate, to whom many of Eastland's former
connections now looked for guidance.24 Another important player was P.L. Blake,
"an officer in Eastland's army" described as "kind of a dealmaker . . . a
character. A Deep Throat king of a guy."25 For members of the general public,
Blake remained a mystery who was "seldom quoted and rarely photographed",
he existed as the "enigmatic don of the Delta;" for attorneys and politicians, Blake
was known as someone with "the ability to fix things."26
After Scruggs discovered a case was being mounted against him locally, he
received a phone call summoning him to Blake's home in Greenewood. Scruggs
assumed this phone call had come at the direction of his brother in law, Lott.27 It
20
Nelson D. Schwartz, "Court Intrigue for the King of Torts," New York Times (December 9,
2007) http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/09/business/09scruggs.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0.
21
Jim Copland, "The Tort Tax," Wall Street J. (June 11, 2003) http://online.wsj.com/article/
0,,SB105529059234573100,00.html.
22
Wilkie, at 16 (2010)
23
Id. at 16 (2010).
24
Id. at16 (2010).
25
Wilkie, at 14 (2010); New Yorker, "How the Mississippi Lawyer Who Brought Down Big
Tobacco Overstepped" (May 19, 2008) 46-47.
26
Id. at 13-14 (2010).
27
Id. at 13 (2010).
4
was at this time that Scruggs' wife Diane began to worry "about some of her
husband's associates outside … Pascagoula … [and] believed Dick had taken
untrustworthy partners into his law practice while consorting with others who
seemed to her a bit crude and reaching."28 The case against Scruggs was
"effectively settled that night in Blake's living room."29 To seal this newfound
understanding, Scruggs had dinner with another member of "the Force."
Afterwards, Scruggs felt that he had become a "made man" and likened the
feeling to being "anointed by the Mafia."30 When asked to explain the moniker,
Wilkie said, "If you wanted things accomplished in Mississippi, he had to do
business with them. And [Scruggs] did."31 Nonetheless, Scruggs had developed
a fascination with "the intrigue of politics and [had been] eager to become an
inside player himself."32 Scruggs indiscriminately amassed political connections
over his career and was "connected to everyone of any political importance in the
state. To Scruggs it did not matter whether you were black or white, liberal or
conservative, Democratic or Republican. What did matter was whether you could
be useful to him. And if he thought that to be the case, use you he would."33
Legal Career
Scruggs began his legal career where he had grown up and gone to school – in
Mississippi. After graduating from "Ole Miss" Law School, Scruggs worked briefly
at a few Jackson law firms before opening his own law office. Scruggs' first big
case was an asbestos suit representing workers at the local shipyard in
Pascagoula. While standard practice for attorneys representing similar suits was
to accept only clients who had evidence of their maladies, Scruggs paid the cost
of medical examinations for potential clients and took the cases if their tests
came back with evidence of asbestos.34 This tactic garnered him hundreds of
clients.35
His success in this first suit and in the ones that followed, came from the method
he created to try cases. As asbestos litigation became more widespread,
28
Wilkie, at 15 (2010).
29
Id. at 15 (2010).
30
Id. at 16 (2010).
31
NPR Staff, "An Attorney's Fall: From Billionaire to Inmate," NPR (December 22, 2010).
32
Wilkie, at 13 (2010).
33
Thomas Naylor, "The Fall of the House of Zeus," Counterpunch Magazine (2010)
http://www.counterpunch.org/2010/12/31/the-fall-of-the-house-of-zeus/.
34
New Yorker at 46-47.
35
New Yorker at 46.
5
Scruggs and other attorneys faced the problem of getting their cases tried. When
Scruggs realized how far down his cases were on the docket, he set out to find a
way to get them into court. Scruggs then consolidated a large number of his
asbestos cases and persuaded a judge in Pascagoula to allow him to split the
litigation into a primary trial on the company's general liability and then a
secondary trial on the issue of damages for the individual plaintiffs within the
larger suit.36
According to Danny Cupit, a Jackson attorney who helped Scruggs win the first
asbestos case in Mississippi, "this is where the Scruggs approach was unique.
The risk to a defendant of having liability imposed on several hundred cases was
a risk that was more than that defendant wanted to bear. It created an
atmosphere to settle the cases."37 However, some do not consider Scruggs' a
true "trial lawyer" for this methodology.38 Rather, a Washington Times book
review describes Scruggs as "a businessman specializing in the mass marketing
of personal-injury claims."39 Nonetheless, it was with this tactic that Scruggs built
his career.
It was for mass tort cases like this that Scruggs became known as a counselor
and crusader, a white knight for the plaintiffs in Big Tobacco and asbestos
cases.40 He carried the tactic beyond manufacturers to insurance providers. After
Katrina, which leveled his own home and many others, insurance companies
were refusing to compensate owners for the damage.41 Scruggs declared that
he would "not sit still for this" and pledged to "bring every organizational and legal
skill [he] possess[ed] to make these guys do the right thing under their policies."42
His willingness to go after these cases with "unpopular defendants" also made
many admire him.43 Matt Meyers, president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free
Kids, has only praise for the work Scruggs has done in tackling the tobacco
industry. "He's made a lot of money, but by and large he's made it working on
36
New Yorker at 46-47.
37
New Yorker at 47.
38
Ben C. Toledano, "The Nature and Quality of Justice," The Washington Times (November 3,
2010).
39
Id.
40
Terry Carter, "Long Live the King of Torts?", ABA Journal Magazine (Apr 1, 2008)
http://www.abajournal.com/magazine/article/long_live_the_king_of_torts/.
41
New Yorker at 52.
42
Id.
43
Id.
6
behalf of people egregiously wronged by companies or industries engaged in
massive wrongdoing."44
However, Scruggs has not proved to be popular among everyone. It remained
clear to many that Scruggs "didn't get where he got by asking permission. He got
where he got by counting on asking for forgiveness, if he needed to."45 Wilkie's
book personifies this laissez-faire approach to the legal system with his
characterization of the story's players, the "menagerie of lawyers and politicians
from all over the state – well-known players and public officials, good ole boys on
the national scene, others lurking in the shadows, all of them trading on
astounding wealth, working impressive social connections, and seemingly
hellbent on destroying one another."46 As Wilkie describes in the book, "the
practices were common around Pascagoula . . . and throughout the rest of the
Mississippi Gulf Coast. The region is close enough to New Orleans to maintain
the same loose mores, the same tolerance for official wrongdoing that
characterizes southern Louisiana."47
The Fall
Scruggs' demise began when he formed the Scruggs Katrina Group shortly after
the devastation of the Gulf Coast in 2005.48 Scruggs and the group handled
hundreds of lawsuits against insurance companies who denied homeowners
payments for the damage their homes sustained in the hurricane.49 Among the
Scruggs Katrina Group was the Jones Funderburg team, who worked with
Scruggs and other members on the insurance claims. Jones Funderburg filed
suit against the Scruggs Katrina Group in March of 2007, alleging Scruggs and
the other group members of attempting to cheat them of their share of the
attorney fees from the settlement.50 The suit alleges that Scruggs Katrina Group,
with the help of Jones Funderburg, reached an $80 million settlement with
defendant State Farm to resolve hundreds of pending lawsuits regarding
44
Terry Carter, ABA Journal Magazine (April 1, 2008).
45
New Yorker at 48.
46
Jamie Kornegay, "Story of a Lifetime: Curtis Wilkie" Delta Magazine (August 23, 2012)
http://deltamagazine.com/?features=story-of-a-lifetime-curtis-wilkie.
47
Wilkie, at 8.
48
Roger Parloff, "The Siege of State Farm," CNN Money (April 10,
http://money.cnn.com/2008/04/09/news/newsmakers/parloff_scruggs.fortune/index2.htm.
49
2008)
Roger Parloff, CNN Money (April 10, 2008); "Famed Katrina Lawyer Scruggs Pleads Guilty to
bribing Judge United States v. Scruggs," 2008 WL 1808647 (A.N.D.R.E.C.L.R), 2
50
New Yorker at 55.
7
hurricane damage.51 According to Jones Funderburg, this settlement entitled
them to $26.5 million in attorney fees. Scruggs and the Scruggs Katrina Group
instead offered what Jones Funderburg considered a "ridiculously low" amount of
the money they believed they were entitled to based on the "substantial and
extensive" legal work they had assisted with in the insurance litigation.52
Ultimately, Scruggs desire to win the fee dispute case led to his downfall.
According to the November 2008 indictment, Scruggs, together with his son and
law partner, Sidney Backstrom, began the conspiracy to bribe Judge Lackey
shortly after the suit was filed by Jones Funderburg. Attorney Timothy Balducci
acted as the go-between for Scruggs, letting him know he would consider it a
"personal favor if Lackey would rule for Scruggs" and later paying Judge Lackey
$50,000 in separate installments.53 Balducci allegedly told Lackey that "The only
person in the world outside of me and you that has discussed this is me and Dick
[Scruggs]. Like I say, it ain't but three people in the world that know anything
about this ... and two of them are sitting here and the other one ... the other one,
being Scruggs... he and I, how shall I say, for over the last five or six years there,
there are bodies buried that, that you know, that he and I know where...where
[they] are, and, and, my, my trust in his, mine in him and his in mine, in me, I am
sure are the same."54
The investigation of Scruggs began when Judge Henry Lackey alerted authorities
that Balducci, representing Scruggs, had approached him and offered $40,000
as a bribe in return for a favorable ruling in a fee dispute.55 Balducci allegedly
approached Scruggs later on, telling him that Lackey wanted an additional
$10,000 and asking, "Do you want me to cover that or not?" to which Scruggs
responded "I'll take care of it." He then instructed Balducci to bill him for legal
drafting in order to cover the bribe.56 As the court said in its opinion following the
affirmation of Dickie's sentence, he had "wanted a sure thing."57 However,
Scruggs motivation remains unclear to many, including himself. When Wilkie
51
New Yorker at 54.
52
"Famed Katrina Lawyer Scruggs Pleads Guilty to Bribing Judge United States v. Scruggs,"
2008 WL 1808647 (A.N.D.R.E.C.L.R), 2
53
Id.
54
U.S., v. Scruggs 2007 WL 7268477 (N.D.Miss.).
55
Debra Cassens Weiss, "Scruggs Pleads Guilty; Plus a Profile of the 'King of Torts,'" ABA
Journal (March 14, 2008) http://www.abajournal.com/news/article/scruggs_pleads_guilty/.
56
57
Id.
United States v. Scruggs, 12-60423, 2013 WL 1499584 (5th Cir. Apr. 12, 2013) at 2.
8
interviewed him for the book, Scruggs asked, "when all this is over, are you going
to tell me how I got mixed up with these guys?"58
Scruggs was indicted for attempted bribery in 2007 and 2009.59 Scruggs himself
was hesitant to use the term bribery or to agree to its use as a description of his
actions. When asked by prosecutors about his guilt, he responded that his action
constituted "ear-wigging," before acquiescing.60 "Ear-wigging" is a term "unique
to Mississippi; no other state incorporates the term into any code, rule or
statute."61 Ultimately, he pled guilty to those charges in both March 2008 and in
February 2009.
In 2008, Scruggs was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Neal Biggers to five
years in prison and in 2009, he was sentenced to seven years for the second
bribery charge, to run concurrently. "The justice system has made you a rich
man, and you attempted to corrupt it," Biggers told Scruggs as he sentenced him.
"You not only corrupted the court, but you violated your oath as an attorney."62
Scruggs had been serving his time in an Ashland, Kentucky, prison until a federal
judge granted his motion to be released from prison on bail pending appeal of the
2009 conviction.
Reactions to the Case
The dual characterization of Scruggs' career was reiterated by many in reactions
to his indictment and trial.63 Many of Scruggs allies and friends were unable to
believe that the man who fought so hard for plaintiffs, and had made so much
money doing so, could be guilty of bribing a judge. Jack Palladino, the San
Francisco private investigator that worked with Scruggs in the tobacco suits was
quoted as saying, "I'm rarely at a loss for words, but I am at a complete loss
about it. It can't be that he needed the money. I just don't know what to say about
58
Wilkie, at 4 (2010).
59
U.S. v. Scruggs, 2007 WL 7268477 (N.D.Miss.).
60
Transcript of Change of Plea as to Count 1 of Indictment at 15, United States v. Scruggs, No:
3:07CR19 (N.D. Miss. Mar. 14, 2008), available at http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/
documents/Scruggstranscript1.pdf.
61
James Haltom, "Earwigging the Chancellor Prohibited: A Violation of Legal Ethics," Miss. L. J.,
(2012).
62
Martha Neil, "Scruggs Gets 5 Years, $250K Fine in Judicial Bribery Case," ABA Journal, (June
27, 2008). http://www.abajournal.com/news/article/scruggs_gets_5_years_250k_fine_in_judicial_
bribery_case/.
63
Richard Faussat, Jenny Jarvie and Henry Weinstein, "Bribery Case Brings down Legal
Legend," L.A. Times (March 15, 2008), http://articles.latimes.com/2008/mar/15/nation/nascruggs15.
9
it."64 John Grisham, popular author of legal thrillers, echoed Palladino's views.
"This doesn't sound like the Dickie Scruggs I know … When you know Dickie,
and how successful he has been, you could not believe he would be involved in
such a bone-headed bribery scam that is not the least bit sophisticated."65 Even
University of Mississippi Chancellor Robert C. Khayat, who was in the courtroom
for Scruggs' sentencing was unable to believe the charges and wrote to the court
on Scruggs' behalf, saying, "It is my belief that any time he spends being
incarcerated is an absolute waste of a great deal of talent and ability."66
While others have speculated that Scruggs was "completely intoxicated by
power," Wilkie himself dismissed greed as potential motivation for the bribery. 67
In a Wall Street Journal interview, Wilkie explained that he believed Scruggs'
personality was the cause – "He's an active, Type-A personality. I think it all
involved winning – not so much winning money but winning, defeating these
enemies. The money that was involved was, for him, chump change."68 This
echoes Scruggs' previous commentary when asked about the money at stake in
the cases he tried, often hundreds of millions of dollars. He was dismissive of
the idea that he was only in it for the money, saying, that while "the money
mattered. It didn't matter as much as the public health."69 New York University
law professor Stephen Gillers, a legal ethics expert, reiterated Wilkie's opinion
that Scruggs was not motivated by the money and described the amount at stake
as a "pittance compared to his wealth." Gillers concluded that Scruggs'
motivation to risk so much must simply be because he thinks he can.70
Still others have openly condemned Scruggs. The Mississippi Bar President
commented "it's very troubling that someone of Scruggs' legal ability and stature
would stoop to conspire to influence a judge's decision."71 Some critics, such as
64
New Yorker at 46
65
Peter Lattman, "Q&A: John Grisham on the Dickie Scruggs Case" Wall St. J. (December 3,
2007).
66
Jenny Jarvie, "For a Legal Legend, A Stiff Dose of Justice" L.A. Times (June 28, 2008).
http://articles.latimes.com/2008/jun/28/nation/na-scruggs28
67
Richard Faussat, Jenny Jarvie and Henry Weinstein, "Bribery Case Brings Down Legal
Legend," L.A. Times (March 15, 2008), http://articles.latimes.com/2008/mar/15/nation/nascruggs15.
68
Steven Kurutz, Chronicling a Trial Lawyer's Fall and Backroom Mississippi Politics," Wall St. J.
(October 23, 2010).
69
PBS
Interview,
scruggs.html
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/settlement/interviews/
70
Richard Fausset, Jenny Jarvie and Henry Weinstein, "Bribery Case Brings Down Legal
Legend," L.A. Times (March 15, 2008).
71
Id.
10
adversary attorney Charles Merkel, Jr., who has spent years litigating against
Scruggs, are not as convinced of his innocence. Merkel describes Scruggs as
"willing to use any means to an end" and portrays him as an individual who
"skates on the edge."72 Scrugg's other detractors have labeled him "a shrewd
and cynical manipulator of the culture and the law chiefly for his own immense
gain."73 Much of the difference in opinion "depends on how you knew Dickie
Scruggs. If you were a lawyer for the tobacco companies, for example, you knew
him as this ruthless, cutthroat, gentlemanly, courtly, but cutthroat guy who was in
the end going to separate you from a big pile of money with a smile and a thank
you, sir, at the end of the day." A Seattle Times review of the book flatly vilifies
Scruggs, proclaiming "any schoolchild can identify an effort to bribe a judge as
wrong."74 Others still claim that Scruggs is not a "real lawyer" and choose
instead to characterize him as the "Czar of Class Actions, the Master of Mass
Money Transfers, and the Baron of Bribery."75 Despite the various opinions of
his character, Scruggs was ultimately found guilty. Perhaps Scruggs put it best
himself in his attempt to take on the welding industry "When you have a
conspiracy, everyone is tied to the conspiracy," Scruggs said. "Those who come
early. Those who come late."76
Critical Reception of the Book
Wilkie's book was well-received as not only a chronicle of the downfall of "the
king of torts," but also for its "central, if unintended, theme – the nature and
quality of justice."77 Wilkie not only examines Scruggs' individual motivations, but
also takes a broader look at the "environment that allowed this scandal to take
root," the backwoods bribery through which Scruggs accomplished much of his
success.78 He is praised as demonstrating "evocative sensitivity and bedrock
honesty" in his critique of the American South.79 Wilkie is indeed honest in his
"journalistic depiction of a longstanding state tradition of back-scratching that
72
Nelson D. Schwartz, "Court Intrigue for the King of Torts," The New York Times (December 9,
2007).
73
David Rossmiller, Kings of Tort by Alan Lange & Tom Dawson, Pediment Publishing, 2009, 29
Miss. C. L. Rev. 601, 607 (2010).
74
Kevin J. Hamilton, "'The Fall of the House of Zeus': Portrayal of Lawyer's Fall Not a Pretty
Picture" Seattle Times (January 8, 2011).
75
Bill Haltom, "Let Us Now Praise Real Lawyers," Tenn. B.J., August 2008, at 40.
76
Suzanne Sataline, "Rodzilla: Dickie Scruggs Takes on the Welding Industry," Legal Aff.,
May/June 2005, at 14.
77
Ben C. Toledano, "The Nature and Quality of Justice," Wash. Times (November 3, 2010).
78
Jamie Kornegay, "Story of a Lifetime: Curtis Wilkie" Delta Magazine (August 23, 2012);
79
Douglas Brinkley, review.
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turned criminal."80 In doing so, he writes "a riveting American saga of ambition,
cunning, greed, corruption, high life and low life in the land of Faulkner and
Grisham. [The story's characters] are good ol' boys gone bad with flair, private
jets, and lots of cash to carry."81 The characters are larger-than-life, and all the
more compelling because the book is non-fiction.
The book appeals to an audience outside the legal community as well. It is
"addictive reading for anyone interested in greed, outrageous behavior, epic bad
planning and character, lousy luck, and worst of all, comically bad manners."82
Wilkie is praised for his honesty and for his knowledge of his subject matter, as
he "knows precisely where the skeletons, the cash boxes and the daggers are
buried along the Mississippi backroads."83 Overall, the novel accurately and
honestly portrays the machinations and maneuvering typical of the legal field in
the modern South.
Ethical Questions and Lessons
Although bribing a judge is a blatant violation of legal ethics, this book can serve
as a warning even to all attorneys. Dickie Scruggs, at times, represented both
ends of the legal sector. He was once a man who saw himself as "really doing a
service to humanity."84 And while "no one believes that the justice system can be
either perfect or pure because judges, lawyers, jurors, witnesses and
government officials are human beings . . . those who serve the law must be the
best we have."85 In the end, Scruggs was less the man plaintiffs saw as a white
knight, and had become a man "brought low by temptation and transgression"
who "chose to serve himself."86
In a description on the front of the book, Wilkie describes "Mississippi [as]
emblematic of the modern south with its influx of new money and its rising
professional class, including lawyers such as Scruggs, whose interests became
80
http://www.jacksonfreepress.com/news/2010/oct/13/how-to-make-enemies/
81
Tom Brokaw, review.
82
Richard Ford, review.
83
Richard Ford, review.
84
PBS, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/settlement/deal/people/scruggs.html
85
Ben C. Toledano, "The Nature and Quality of Justice," The Washington Times (November 3,
2010).
86
Terry Carter, "Long Live the King of Torts?", ABA Journal (Apr 1, 2008); Richard Faussat,
Jenny Jarvie and Henry Weinstein, "Bribery Case Brings Down Legal Legend" (March 15, 2008);
Ben C. Toledano, "The Nature and Quality of Justice," The Washington Times (November 3,
2010).
12
inextricably entwined with state and national politics."87 Reviews of the book
extrapolate even further, proclaiming The Fall of the House of Zeus as "a
metaphor for America."88 Regardless of whether the reader chooses such an
expansive view of the book's lessons or solely Scruggs himself, the book
nevertheless serves both as entertainment and a cautionary tale of success gone
wrong.
87
Wilkie, at cover (2010).
88
Thomas Naylor, "The Fall of the House of Zeus," Counterpunch Magazine (2010)
http://www.counterpunch.org/2010/12/31/the-fall-of-the-house-of-zeus/.
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