Wrongful Termination

by Mike Farris

  “That’s a fine line you’re walking,” Robin said.

  “Just call me Johnny Cash. I walk the line.”

  I poured myself another cup of coffee then left with Rufus. For the next thirty minutes, Meg relived her nightmare for Robin, while Rufus and I watched TV in my bedroom. When I finally heard Robin call my name, I flipped off the set and returned to the kitchen.

  “So what do you think?” I asked Robin.

  “You’re going to have to help me out here, Scratch. I’m just a poor, dumb solo lawyer. You’re going to have to explain to me how big firms work.”

  “Yeah, I feel sorry for stupid little ol’ you,” I said. Robin had finished second in her law school class and had actually started her career with a prestigious law firm. But her heart ultimately won out, and she left it all behind to set up a solo practice, working for real people, not corporations. She was, by far, the smartest lawyer I knew.

  “What do you need to know?” I asked.

  “For starters, I assume there has to be a reason why a partner would gin up a bunch of fees he didn’t earn. Is it really worth it just to add a few dollars to the bottom line?”

  “It’s not that simple. At Black West, partners get paid based on how much they originate from their clients, plus how much they bill working for other lawyers’ clients. Every dollar Tripp generates from his clients, including dollars billed by other lawyers working for his clients, goes into his originations.”

  “So he gets credit for every dollar Meg or any other of a dozen associates bill for his clients.”

  “Right. He’s got a lot of clients, and he also does a lot of work for other partners’ clients. Believe me, it all adds up.”

  “How much are we talking about?”

  “Last year, he originated over four million dollars and personally billed almost a million five.”

  Robin let out a low whistle. “How many hours do you have to work to bill that much?”

  “At five-fifty or six hundred dollars an hour, you get there pretty fast.”

  Robin and Meg exchanged looks. Meg bit back a laugh—the first time I’d seen her laugh since this had all started—as Robin said, “A math major, you’re not. Even at six hundred dollars an hour, that’s twenty-five hundred hours. He worked that much last year?”

  “No way,” Meg said.

  “And he made how much?”

  “Nearly two million,” I said.

  Robin whistled again. “Man, white collar crime pays good.” She turned to Meg. “Can you pay the expenses?”

  “We can cover the expenses,” I said before Meg could answer.

  “We?” Robin said. She looked at me, as if wondering just exactly what our relationship was.

  “Just tell me what you think, Robin,” I said.

  “It could get messy.” She looked back to Meg. “Are you prepared for that?”

  Meg nodded.

  “Then let’s go get the bastards.”

  “How soon can you file suit?” I asked.

  “If Meg’ll work with me tomorrow, I can get it filed and get the firm served by the end of the day. I want to send out a set of discovery requests with the petition, too. Can you help me draft that, Meg?”

  “I’ll do whatever you need me to do,” Meg said.

  “I want Malloy’s billing records for Patterson McBain, as well as for every other client he worked for during the same time frame. I want to see how many hours a day he was billing.”

  “We should ask for his expense records, too,” Meg said.

  “Expense records?” Robin said.

  “Yeah. For airline tickets, hotels, rental cars, and things like that. Those records are kept separate from the actual billing files.”

  “Where are they kept?” I asked.

  “Same place as the billing records, but there are separate filing areas for expenses.”

  “How do you know that?” I asked.

  “Us lowly associates are just one step above secretaries. That means we know everything you partners don’t.”

  I laughed, not wanting to point out that she was no longer an associate. I spoke quickly, hoping not to give her time to dwell on that, either. “Be sure to get all the computer records. The computer tells you, by date and time, whenever someone enters time on a file. Every one of those bills, going back for the past two years, shows time entries within the past coupla months.”

  “Which means?” Robin said.

  “Which means someone was in those computer billing files…all two years’ worth…since Meg made her accusation.”

  “Are you telling me that someone changed the time entries?” Robin asked.

  “Once you get the records in discovery, I want a copy. I’ll let you know, then, what I think.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  A Management Committee meeting with the firm’s section heads was in full swing in one of the firm’s more spacious conference rooms, luxuriously appointed with wine-colored carpet and matching drapes for the picture window that overlooked downtown Dallas. Framed watercolors adorned the other three walls, which were themselves made of rich paneling reminiscent of a New York steakhouse. The decorator’s commission for this room, alone, had come to ten thousand dollars.

  A process server, directed to the specific conference room by Robin (based on intelligence gained from Bay), knocked once then opened the door and walked in without invitation. The seven lawyers gaped at him as he stood inside the doorway and surveyed his targets. His look told them he relished the drama.

  “I’m looking for Alvin Peoples and Tripp Malloy.”

  The three committee members and four section heads sat in stunned silence as the process server handed thick sheaves of papers to the respective recipients then announced, “You have now been served.”

  He left without another word.

  Alvin held the papers as if they were electric. His eyes scanned the words that he knew would be headlines within days. “Goddammit!”

  “What’s the deal?” Paul Mills asked. Paul headed up the corporate section and was clueless as to the drama that had transpired with Tripp and Meg. True to his status as corporate head, he didn’t know who Meg Kelly even was. After all, what did he care about first-year litigation associates?

  “Just a lawsuit we knew was coming,” Alvin said.

  “What lawsuit?”

  “We’ll call a partners’ meeting when we’ve had a chance to study this, so let’s not go off half-cocked now.”

  “Now, wait a minute,” Al Boston, head of tort litigation said. “The firm’s been sued, and you’re saying you’re not going to tell us what it’s about?”

  “I said we’d tell you when we’ve had a chance to study it,” Alvin said. “We just got served. Let us at least read the frickin’ thing before you jump all over us with questions.”

  “You said you knew it was coming,” Boston said. “What’s it about? Who’s suing?”

  “Meg Kelly.”

  “Geez,” Boston said. “That thing with Tripp?”

  “Who’s Meg Kelly?” Mills asked.

  Steve McGinnis glared at him. “Come on, Paul. Keep up with the soap opera.”

  “Look,” Alvin said, “let’s cut this meeting off so we can figure this out. We’ll let y’all know when we’ve got a handle on it.”

  “When will that be?” Mills asked.

  “We’ll know when we know. And then you’ll know. And not before.”

  The heads of corporate, tax, and torts left, bitching all the way out the door about being excluded. Only the head of business litigation—Tripp Malloy—stayed behind to talk with management. Tripp had been quiet throughout the discussion, carefully reading every allegation the petition set out against him. Meg had sued the firm for wrongful termination. She had sued him, individually, for conspiring with the firm to wrongfully terminate her for whistle-blowing on his alleged fraudulent billing practices. She had also sued him for slander, for tortious interference with existing and prospective contracts—the
existing contract being the employment contract with Holloway & Davis and the prospective contracts being with any other firms Tripp had talked to about her—and false light invasion of privacy. The latter claim accused him of unconstitutionally violating her rights of privacy by placing her in a false light in the legal community. Lastly, she had sued him for intentional infliction of emotional distress.

  “Well, Tripp, here it is,” Steve said, waving the petition. “I hope you think it was worth it.”

  “You know this is bound to hit the press,” Matt Cunningham said. “This will be big news to the muckrakers.”

  “We need to get our PR folks on this, pronto,” Alvin said. “Let’s get the spin favorable, right from the start. This is just a disgruntled former employee…bad work habits, lying about partners, all that. We had to let her go, and now she’s retaliating.”

  “Let’s not forget she was sleeping around with partners,” Tripp said.

  “Partners?” Steve asked. “Plural?”

  “For all we know. We at least know about Muckleroy.”

  “That’s just rumor,” Steve said. “And quite frankly, I don’t believe it.”

  “Trust me,” Tripp said. “Muckleroy was banging her. Probably still is.”

  “And that’s got to be the party line,” Alvin said. “Once that hits the press, no one’s going to blame us for letting her go. Then we bury her with paper. We know how to do that. We’ll have this, this—” He turned to the signature on the last page of the petition. “—this Robin Napoli, we’ll bury her ass so deep in paper she won’t know what hit her. I want discovery requests, motions, deposition notices…everything we can throw at her.”

  “What about the document requests?” Steve asked. “Do we give her all this stuff?”

  “Hell, no. We fight it, tooth and nail. I want this crap quashed. Make her file her own motions. I want objections and a hearing on everything. If she wins anything, we mandamus the judge, all the way to the Supremes. If she ever gets this stuff, it’ll be a year away. And then we’ll bury her with more paper.”

  “Have you looked at the scope of this request?” Steve asked. “She wants all of Tripp’s billing records, for every client…not just Patterson McBain…since he’s been with the firm.” He looked squarely at Tripp. “She also wants your expense records.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Tripp said.

  “It’s a fishing expedition,” Matt said. “She’s firing a preemptive strike in the paper war.”

  “We can win that fight,” Alvin said. “We can outspend her.”

  “It’s bullshit,” Tripp said. “She’s just trying to pry into our financial records so she can create sympathy for Kelly as a poor oppressed associate against the big, rich firm. David versus Goliath.”

  “We already went through this with the Patterson bills and came out all right,” Alvin said. “Isn’t that right, Tripp?”

  “I sanitized those,” Tripp said.

  “Sanitized?” Matt said. “What are you…CIA?”

  “Have we got any snakes lurking around in these other records?” Alvin asked.

  “Nothing I can’t deal with,” Tripp said. “It’ll take time, though.”

  “Well, that’s the plan. We drag it all out. But to show our good faith, we let her have the Patterson records…since we know they’re okay…but we’re not giving up the others until we have an order from the Texas Supreme Court telling us we have to.”

  “This whole thing is bullshit,” Matt said. “Why don’t we just produce what she’s asked for?” He turned to Tripp. “Or can’t you live with that?”

  “We’ve got to shut her down or she’ll ruin us,” Tripp said.

  “You mean ruin you,” Matt said.

  “You really think she’ll stop with Tripp?” Steve asked.

  “Tripp’s right,” Alvin said. “She woke up the wrong sleeping dog. Let’s just deal with it.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Robin sat behind her desk and watched her client pace. The office reflected an understated elegance, much like Robin herself. The yellow tint of pine furniture dominated the room. Diplomas hung on a side wall, framed in matching pine, while cheery prints hung on the other well-papered walls. It seemed more like an interior decorator’s office, everything feminine and coordinated. The only tip-offs that a lawyer officed there, other than the wording on her diplomas, were the stacks of files and legal pads on the credenza behind the desk.

  Meg had been a bundle of nerves all day, a nervousness ratcheted up after the process server called to tell them the law firm had officially been served with the lawsuit. Now, after a late dinner, Meg paced around Robin’s office as if she’d never seen it before—as if she hadn’t been there all day—looking at diplomas, pictures, plants, anything and everything. She picked up items, studied them, and put them back. Burning up nervous energy.

  “It’s almost eleven o’clock,” Robin said. “You really need to go home and get some sleep.”

  Meg stopped in mid-circuit of her pacing. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to keep you so late.”

  “Don’t worry about that.”

  Biting back tears, Meg said, “I don’t know how to thank you.”

  “I’ve been waiting to take on guys like this for years. Besides, I owed Bay a favor.”

  “What for?”

  “He helped me out on a case once. A while back. And he’s been hurting for it ever since.”

  Meg stopped roaming and focused her attention on Robin.

  “His wife’s case.”

  “Then I handled his divorce for free. But I figure I still owe him.”

  “So you know him pretty well.”

  Robin smiled at the unspoken question—Did you sleep with him?

  “Well enough,” she said.

  “Why do you call him Scratch?”

  “You’ll have to ask him that.” Robin stood, signaling an end to the conversation. “You better go on home now. I’ll call you when they produce the documents.”

  Meg nodded.

  “Try not to worry. Everything’s going to be okay.”

  *

  Late night visits to the firm’s billing and accounting offices probably weren’t my finest moments as a Black West partner, but I found myself with rapidly shifting loyalties. And so, after a quick trip to accounting that afternoon to scout out the exact location of the filing cabinets that held the expense reports, I eased back into the firm’s deserted offices around 11 p.m. As before, the floors were quiet except for the word processing area, its occupants oblivious to all but the dictation on their headphones and the documents on their monitors.

  Guided by only a penlight, I went to the filing cabinets and quickly zeroed in on Tripp’s expense statements for the past month. I located his expenses for the day of his supposed trip to Chicago, which Meg had said actually entailed a trip to Boston. What I found made no sense.

  The expense statements indicated he had purchased an airline ticket for a flight from Dallas-Fort Worth to Chicago’s O’Hare airport several days before the day Meg had confronted him. Score one for Tripp. But, I also found a statement for another flight the next day from O’Hare to Boston’s Logan Airport, followed by an Amtrak ticket the day after from Boston South Station to New York Penn Station, with a return trip from New York to Boston via Amtrak on the next day. The bizarre itinerary concluded with an American Airlines flight from Boston Logan back to DFW. I made a mental note to check the copies of billing statements I had made to see what Tripp had billed for each of those days in each of those locations.

  Just then, I heard the sound of footsteps approaching in the hallway. I quickly stuffed the statements back into the file folder and returned it to the cabinet, then killed the penlight and withdrew into a corner, hidden by a large shelf. I held my breath as the footsteps slowed, then—unbelievably—entered the accounting office.

  I saw the faint glow of a light, probably another penlight. Then I heard the rolling sound of a file drawer opening. I trie
d to see around the corner of the shelf that sheltered me, but I could only make out a shadow near the filing cabinet. It was a certainty that whoever it was didn’t belong there—any more than I did.

  I pulled back into the corner and waited. I heard shuffling sounds of paper then the file drawer being closed. The light disappeared, followed by receding footsteps. I waited until I could no longer hear them, then waited two more minutes. Only then did I dare emerge from my hiding place.

  I turned my penlight back on and returned to the filing cabinet. Relocating the file I had singled out before, I shuffled back through its pages to retrieve the statements for Tripp’s circuitous route to New York.

  But this time, they weren’t there.

  *

  Meg grew sleepy as she neared her apartment. It was a cool night with a nip in the air as she exited from northbound Central Expressway at Haskell Avenue. She didn’t notice the red Cadillac deVille that fell in behind her as she turned onto Haskell and neared Cole Avenue.

  As the traffic light turned, Meg slowly applied the brake until she came to a complete stop. Almost home now, she stifled a yawn then flipped on her turn signal and looked in the rear-view mirror. Lights on the car behind her flashed bright. She heard the sound of a motor revving as the lights accelerated toward her in the reflection. Instinctively, she turned the steering wheel to the left and slid her foot to the accelerator.

  With a force that surprised her, the Cadillac rammed the rear of her car. Meg flopped forward. Her head slammed into the steering wheel, bounced back, and crashed against the headrest. Her foot slipped off the accelerator. The Maxima rolled forward in a crazy arc through the intersection then bounced over the curb and came to a stop.

  A Mexican-American teenager, decked out in gang colors, jumped from the back seat of the Cadillac and ran to the Maxima’s driver side. Meg shook the cobwebs from her head. Blood trickled across her nose and into her eyes from a cut on her forehead. Vaguely aware of a shadow next to her, she rolled down her window.

  The teen reached inside and unlocked the door, then pulled it open. Grabbing Meg’s hair, he yanked her out. She screamed as she fell to the ground, her feet still inside.