“Yes,” she said.
“And,hypothetically, if you ask for those auditors to go into the production facility to ensure that the company is followinglegal practices, which, I assure you, they are,” he said and winked. “I can makethatpart of the agreement as well. You just have to ask for it. All hypothetical, of course.”
It wasn’t what Arwen or her clients had been after, but when he had shared the number with her, she knew it would be enough to help them pay for the hospital visits and treatment and give them enough money to move if they chose to. The auditor was what they really cared about, though, since the members of her class action lawsuit only wanted the company to change its practices and be held accountable. The money was a bonus.
“I want the settlement to be disclosed. None of this PR stuff where it’s an undisclosed amount. I want people to know how much they were willing to pay.”
“Well, that’s just not going to happen. An undisclosed amount is better for both parties involved. It gets your clients the money, and my client doesn’t have to deal with other people asking why they paid so much if they weren’t guilty.”
“Exactly. Hypothetically, let’s say they’re guilty.” Arwen leaned back in her chair. “I’d like the world to know what they did, dumping toxic chemicals improperly to save money for an already incredibly profitable company, when kids are getting cancer right next door. Those kids are probably in the same doctors’ offices and hospital rooms as the CEO’s kids, as the employees’ kids. Hell, some of them worked there before this started happening. They were friends with the people dumping harmful chemicals. I’ve got at least ten women who now cannot have children because of this. I’ve got three dead kids and seven more sick and close to death. I’ve got a hundred people willing to testify today, and I can get more. That’s what you’d be facing when I take this to trial. I’ll get it past thatreasonablejudge. There’s enough here. You might not believe me now, but you will when we get to discovery. So, it’s either my settlementnumber, an independent auditor with surprise visits once a quarter, and we disclose the whole thing, or we go to trial. Oh, and it’s a vendor of our choosing, not some bribable government employee that shows up once a year, with your client being fully aware that they’re stopping by next month on the fourteenth or something, so they can hide what they’re doing.”
“I think you’d find, Arwen, that just about everyone is bribable, but I’ll take this back to my client.”
“Don’t worry about that. I’m adding a clause about financial records in there, too.”
“What are you talking about?” he asked.
“Disclosing them. The auditor’s personal and business numbers will be available to me. If you’re thinking I can’t get that done, you’re wrong. I’ll get anyreasonablejudge to allow an independent review by a forensic accountant. I know they won’t let me have that accountant also review the company’s financials, I’m not naïve, but I can show a pattern of wrongdoing where the audits have been concerned, and they’ll at least give me that, say, for the next ten years.”
“Five,” he countered.
“Fifteen,” she countered right back. “Don’t make me ask for twenty.”
“Ten,” he said. “I’ll take this all back to my client. No guarantees.”
“It’s up to them, but you don’t want me to share the test results I’ve seen from the hospital.”
“What test results?”
“Hypothetically, chemical exposure can show up in those results even if time has passed.”
“You’re bluffing,” he stated and wiped his mouth with his cloth napkin.
“Am I?” she asked with a lifted eyebrow.
???
“You said that?” Zara asked when Arwen got back to the office.
“I did, yes. I gave him until the end of the week to get back to me, or we’re moving forward,” she replied and sat behind her desk. “Hey, are you okay?”
“Yeah. Why?” Zara asked, sitting in the chair in front of Arwen’s desk.
“You don’t look good, Zara. Are you coming down with something? You look pale. A little sick.”
“Oh,” Zara said and fidgeted in her seat. “I might be. I’m okay, though.”
Arwen knew her best friend was lying to her, but as she took in Zara’s pale skin and her hair that was usually so perfectly done but was in a messy bun at the back today, with flyaways framing her face, she decided not to press further. It was possible Zara just hadn’t gotten a good night’s sleep or was stressed with this case. It had gone on longer than they had both planned, and as her paralegal, Zara had been right in there with her, researching and compiling everything to be prepared for anything the much larger firm could throw at them in depositions or trial.
Arwen had joined this small environmental law firm out of law school, and while they still had the old kind of coffee maker in the kitchen and she wasn’t paid nearly as well as the attorney she’d just had lunch with, she had no plans to leave. She’d been passionate about the environment since she was a little kid, having campaigned for the school district to stop using Styrofoam in the school cafeterias and won. Her job was often thankless, and living in DC meant that she was usually going up against lobbyists and politicians and trying to get the EPAto back what she was doing, which added to her workload and frustration, but sometimes, she got cases like this.
Yes, cases like these were devastating because she had to meet with clients who were sick or who had lost someone they loved because of the actions of greedy corporations that didn’t care about people suffering for their profits. Still, this case and ones alike were why she did this job, even though it was emotionally hard, and she sometimes went home and cried in front of her computer, thinking about the seven-year-old boy in his not-well-fitting baseball uniform, holding a bat that was just a little too big for him and trying to look tough for the photo as if the photographer had told him that the pitcher had been talking trash. That little boy would never grow into that baseball bat and uniform because he’d gotten cancer and had very quickly perished after that.
She and Zara talked about the next steps until long after everyone else in the office had gone home. Arwen knew she could get her clients to accept the deal as it was, but she also knew that she wouldn’t give up from here. The money and the surprise audits would be good victories, but she wanted a reduction in the production of the waste in question, and that was possible presently. It was just expensive and would put the company out of business if they had to apply it to one-hundred-percent of the toxic by-product. She wouldn’t stop, though, until she at least got that fifty-percent reduction and the rest of it being dealt with properly.
“Hey, do you want to grab a drink to celebrate?” Zara asked. “We haven’t gone out in forever, and I could use a night out, I think.”
“Really? You look like you need a nightin, with a bowl of chicken soup. I can come over. We can watch a movie and have soup together. I’ll get you the chicken, and I can get the tomato basil,” she suggested.
