When I say that the case ‘landed on my desk’ I’m employing a figure of speech. It didn’t so much land on my desk as get placed there with great care, and with an elaborate protocol. The morning began with a summons to drop whatever I was doing – not a problem, I’d only just arrived and I’d barely had the time to take the lid off my morning cappucino – and report to my former interviewer and now immediate supervisor, Harry Welsh, who is in charge of the Civil Division’s litigation in the Claims Court. Harry is a good lawyer, a nice enough guy, and a decent manager. He leaves his attorneys alone to do their jobs unless something seems to be going wrong, and he doesn’t usually try to micromanage cases once he has assigned them. But he can get stressed out sometimes, which is not good for his high blood pressure, and when he gets stressed out he starts trying to control everything, and when he realises he can’t control everything he starts to panic. On this morning, he was already showing signs of nervousness. He was pacing up and down in his office when I put my head around the door.
‘What’s up?’ I asked.
He pointed to a thin brown file on his conference table, and continued to pace.
‘Read that,’ he replied.
I sat down and opened the file. It contained a single document, and if Harry was watching, he must have seen my eyes open progressively wider as I read through it. It was a Complaint, a pleading used to start proceedings in the Claims Court. The case was entitled Samantha van Eyck (individually and behalf of all those similarly situated) v United States. The Complaint said that Samantha van Eyck was suing the United States to recover the principal sum and interest due on loans made to the government by an ancestor of hers called Jacob van Eyck during the War of Independence, in the winter of 1777–1778. The Continental Congress had authorised loans to be raised for the conduct of the war, and its agents were authorised to issue loan certificates as evidence of the amount of a loan and the identity of the lender. The loans were to be repaid with compound interest at the rate of six per cent per year – that got my attention – on presentation of the certificate to a government loan office. The United States had repaid nothing, as a result of which Jacob van Eyck had been ruined and had died in poverty. The causes of action against us were: breach of contract; and the unconstitutional taking of private property for public use without just compensation. The Complaint claimed repayment of the principal and interest, a declaration that the total sum was held by the government in trust for the heirs of Jacob van Eyck, costs, and attorney’s fees. It concluded by reassuring the court that the sum satisfied its minimum jurisdictional requirement – in other words, the claim was for more than $10,000. No kidding.
I couldn’t help it. I laughed out loud, and couldn’t stop for a minute or so.
‘I’m glad you find it humorous,’ Harry said. He stopped pacing and sat down at his desk.
‘This is for real?’ I asked.
‘Well, it’s signed by an attorney, and that sure looks like the court clerk’s stamp on it, so what do you think?’
The first time through, I had been so diverted by the content that I hadn’t looked for the name of the attorney who had filed the suit. I looked now. Kiah Harmon?
‘You know her, don’t you?’
‘Kiah? Sure. I’ve had several cases with her.’
‘And…?’
‘She’s good news. She’s a straight arrow, a good lawyer, a Georgetown grad. She’s always been completely honest with me, and she’s a nice lady.’
It was true. I breathed a sigh of relief whenever I saw I had Kiah as an opponent. It meant the case on the other side would be competently prepared, everything would be done ethically and by the book, we would have honest, realistic discussions to see if we could settle the case, and there would be no lawyers’ games. You couldn’t say that about many of the lawyers I had to deal with. Kiah and I had settled every case we had together except for one, in which we went to trial and she kicked my ass.
‘So, we can assume it’s for real, then, don’t you think?’
‘I guess so.’
Harry stood and started pacing again.
‘Dave, this case may seem like a joke, and there will be a lot of people out there in the press and among the great American public, not to mention our superiors in this office, who will think it is a joke, and expect us to knock it on the head accordingly. But you and I know it doesn’t quite work like that.’
‘It’s going to need careful handling,’ I admitted, ‘especially with Kiah on the other side.’
‘Damn right. And you know what? It’s the kind of case where, when we win, everyone will say, “well, sure, it was a joke; how could they not win?” But, if, God forbid, we were to lose… guess what they’re going to be saying then?’
‘That would not be good,’ I agreed.
‘Right. So you and I are going to handle this case together. Here’s how it’s going to work. You’re my senior trial attorney. You’re going to conduct the case on a day-to-day basis, file pleadings and motions, attend hearings – all the usual stuff. You and I are going to talk about this case every day without exception, at least once, and you are going to report to me everything that happens.’
‘OK.’
‘After you report to me, I am going to report to my boss Maggie Watts, who, as you know, is Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Civil Division. Maggie is going to report to the Attorney General; and the Attorney General is going to report to the President.’
‘The President?’ I exclaimed incredulously. ‘The President is involved in this?’
‘Dave,’ Harry replied, ‘Samantha van Eyck, whoever she may be, is trying to hijack some number of billions of dollars from the federal budget. How much exactly, I don’t know. Have you ever done a compound interest calculation? Trust me, it’s a large number. So, yes, the President is taking an interest.’
He resumed his seat.
‘The resources of the office are at your disposal. Whatever and whoever you need – attorneys, paralegals – you come to me and ask and I will give them to you. I’m clearing out one of the storage rooms for you and putting in a couple of desks. All the case papers will be kept there under lock and key, and all work on the case will be done there. You and I will have keys, and I will issue keys to anyone else on a need-to-know basis.’
‘A need-to-know basis?’ I asked. ‘Why all the cloak and dagger stuff? Everybody in the office will know what’s going on.’
‘I know that. But it’s going to be all over the media from later today, and we don’t want any leaks. What was it they used to say? Loose lips sink ships? What they don’t know, they can’t talk about. Oh, and while I’m on the subject, no one in this office talks to the media – no one, myself included. Maggie will control all communications, and she, or the Attorney himself, will handle press conferences. Understood?’
‘Understood.’
‘I want you to start on this right away. Whatever you’re dealing with, drop it. I will reassign it as of this morning. By this afternoon, I need to give Maggie some kind of assessment, however general it may be.’
I shook my head.
‘Harry, this isn’t a routine insurance claim. There are going to be some legal questions, and God knows where we even begin with the facts of the case, and –’
‘I know that, Dave. I’m not asking for the complete picture. I need to make some reassuring noises, that’s all. I need to tell Maggie what areas we are exploring, what the basic issues are, what defenses we may have, and, most importantly, what steps we are planning on taking. Remember, whatever she reports higher up the chain is going to end up in the Oval Office. We have to make it look like we are doing something, taking action.’
‘We will be taking action,’ I tried to reassure him. ‘For one thing, we have to respond to the Complaint, and tell the court how we answer all this. We can probably make a request for further details of the claim, buy some time if we need it. But… OK. Let me think about it, and I’ll get back to you with a plan of action this afternoon.’
‘Good.’
‘I want Ellen Matthews to do legal research for me, and I want Pam as my paralegal.’
‘Are you sure? Ellen is good, but she’s just out of law school –’
‘That’s why I want her. She’s exactly what this case needs. This is the moot court case from hell. It could have been written by a sadistic law professor. We need someone who still thinks the way they do in law school, and hasn’t had her mind blunted by years of wading through the everyday realities of practice.’
For the first time, Harry allowed himself the suggestion of a smile.
‘OK. You got it. Talk to me soon.’