FEE WAIVED CASES

 

PLATTE CO. CABLE TV:

In the early 1970s I was approached by John Schott, the owner of Platte County Cable TV about the fact that he was not able to get his product into Weatherby Lake and sought my help. I told him that I was simply a personal injury lawyer and did not think I could help him.

 

His response was that he had heard there was no problem I could not solve and I'll be damned if I did not prove him right. After accomplishing his goal he came to me and asked how much he owed me. I told him that I was simply glad that I could help him, but he insisted that he wanted to give me and my family free cable TV for the rest of our lives. He sent me a letter to that effect on his company letterhead and luckily I saved that letter. At that time I never had the luxury of watching TV.

 

Years later John Schott sold his company to Time Warner cable and some aggressive corporate geek decided to send me a bill for cable services and when I ignored it, they cut off my T.V. I explained to them that when Time Warner obtained the assets, they also took on the liabilities which included my free lifetime cable TV. I was forced to take them to federal court where a judge entered an order affirming what I had told them.

 

N.B. This is a good time to point out what defense lawyers do best: Mislead; obfuscate and stonewall. Defense lawyers go to great lengths in avoiding our discovering their clients' misdeeds. Witness the Tobacco Litigation that took over 30+ years to expose the bastards.

 

So, I'm appearing before a federal judge against the usual lineup of Ivy League NYC lawyers resisting my legitimate discovery requests. My motion is affirmed and the judge adds for good measure that if there are any more problems of this sort he will award Mr. Welch his attorney fees. One of the jerks snickers at this; the judge picks up on it & asks me what might be a reasonable hourly rate for my time.

 

I told the judge that I did not do hourly work, but as fate would have it, my in house money man had recently looked into just that issue. He took the last 5 years of my fee income and divided it by hours worked and it came out to a little over $10,000 per hour. The jerk gasped & the judge said that he was surprised that it was that low. However, he said, if I was willing to accept that as my reasonable hourly rate he would assess it if there were any further discovery difficulties. There were none.

 

Years passed before another corporate geek decided to squeeze some money out of me by sending me a bill from Time Warner for Web services which terminated after I ignored that bill. This time I took them to state court and after spending considerable time and energy Judge Mauer entered the expected order concluding with language to the effect that if Lantz Welch had any future difficulties, the court would assess his attorney's fees and those in violation would be subject to spending time in jail.

 

Their president approached me through their company lawyer wanting to go to lunch and bury the hatchet. I took them to lunch at the Kansas City Club and before he got started with his spiel I asked how much his company had spent on legal fees in the matter. He feigned ignorance so I asked his lawyer if it wasn't something between $40,000 and $50,000 and the answer was yes. I then told this president that they have screwed around with me for an amount less than $1,000 per year and that he should be fired. I am sure no one ever talked to him this way. He told me that he did not come to lunch to be insulted and I told him he richly deserved the insults and he was going to have to take it if I was going to buy him lunch. I insulted him a bit longer, then reached over the table and shook his hand and admonished him, "Never poke a tiger with a sharp stick." I suggested he put that in my file and over the intervening years I've never had a bit of trouble with Time Warner Cable.

 

ALASKAN FUR:

In September of 1977 there was a flood that inundated the Country Club Plaza. Of the nearly $100 million in damages throughout the area, there were substantial losses at Alaskan Fur Company to the furs stored in their basement vaults. Those individual losses were paid through Homeowners Insurance Policies. The insurance carriers had subrogation rights to those losses paid. I can just hear those Claims Managers in their monthly meeting of the Kansas City Claims Association discussing who they could sue in order to recoup their losses. They chose Alaskan Fur.

 

N.B. "Tort Reform" There are more business Vs. business cases than injury lawsuits. A recent study by Public Citizen indicates that the 7 million U.S. corporations file four times as many lawsuits as the 281 million individual Americans, so corporations are 160 times as likely to sue as an average person. The same Public Citizen study noted, "Businesses and their attorneys were 69 percent more likely than individual tort plaintiffs and their attorneys to be sanctioned by federal judges for filing frivolous claims or defenses."

 

Alaskan was owned by a lifelong pal of mine, Myron Wang. We played on the same championship high school football team.

 

Unfortunately Myron's insurance salesman sold him a premises liability policy with $1 million limits, no doubt thinking this would be adequate for covering a slip and fall case. It did not even come close to covering Alaskan Fur for this lawsuit.

 

A panic stricken Myron came to me begging me to save his family business. I told him that I did not defend people but only represented injured persons against the bad guys. He reminded me of the length and depth of our friendship, so I agreed to save him.

 

Without the boring details I walked him away from the problem. He kept asking me how much he owed me and I told him that I did not keep timesheets and I was happy to help a friend. He wanted to give me fur coats and I told him that furs were for fags and football players. He pointed out that he was neither and that he wore furs (BTW, Myron is a very tough masculine guy). It was winter at this time and he prevailed upon me to wear his mink coat. I was amazed by how light and warm it was. I then told him that Laura and I would accept his gifts and Alaskan gave us 8 to 10 matching fur coats.

 

In 1978 Tom Hullverson, the leading medical negligence lawyer in St. Louis, sent me a case that he'd been working on for some period of time and the Statute of Limitations was about to run. It involved a young man in a serious automobile accident who had suffered a broken back and was taken to a small hospital in a Missouri town near the Iowa border. The patient was allowed to thrash about all night in pain because no doctor attended him and consequentially, he suffered a severed spinal cord and became a paraplegic. Of course, there was no real proof of medical negligence in the hospital records so Tom could not figure out how to hold anyone responsible.

 

I took Art Stein, my favorite court reporter, to the area in question and lo and behold we found a nurse who lived nearby who had been working that night and had later been dismissed by the hospital.

 

This trip was a bitter snowy night and we did not get back to Kansas City until early in the a.m. The good news is that the nurse told us what actually happened and we therefore had a good liability case.

 

The policy limits were $500,000 and the country Dr. had no real assets so I settled the boy's case for $500,000 and with Tom's acquiescence I waived the attorney's fee.

 

Every holiday season thereafter that boy would come to my law offices wheeled in by his mother or father to deliver a turkey to me.

 

KANSAS CITY PHILHARMONIC:

In July of 1980 Maurice Peress was the Director of the Kansas City Philharmonic. They fired him.

 

As reported in the Kansas City Star: "Lantz Welch, Peress's lawyer here, confirmed that there are ongoing communications between the two parties. Peress is guest conducting in Europe and is expected to return around the end of the month."

 

Reported in the Kansas City Times July 24^th: "At a big meeting with orchestra officials this month, said Lantz Welch, Peress's attorney in Kansas City, we reached a certain common ground on the music director's contract. I wrote a long letter to him in Vienna, and if he follows those recommendations I should have something to tell you the next few days Welch said. The attorney suggested that a compromise might be possible."

 

Meanwhile, back with our Music Director: Headline in the Kansas City Star 8/5: ORCHESTRA TO REPLACE PERESS; GUEST CONDUCTORS TO FILL IN.

 

The media kept the heat on and there was something in the local papers on 8/6, 8/7, etc. until I finally made a public statement 8/15: "The lawyer, Lantz Welch, said he put a proposal before the Philharmonic's negotiators this week that he was confident would satisfy all sides. I think I can safely say that as of Tuesday, I thought we had structured the handling of this matter that was eminently fair to all concerned, Welch said."

 

Kansas City Times 9/26: PERESS DISPUTE ENDS: "I think everyone's pleased with the settlement said Lantz Welch, the Kansas City attorney representing Peress. I assure you that we are."

 

Kansas City Star 9/26: ORCHESTRA OFFICIAL DISCUSSES PERESS' LEAVING

 

Kansas City Times 9/27: ORCHESTRA BROKE PACT PERESS SAYS

"We had an accord said Lantz Welch, the attorney for Peress. As part of that settlement, Welch said, the Philharmonic and Peress agreed not to discuss its terms or Peress' past relations with the orchestra. As far as my client is concerned, Welch said, they have already breached the part of the settlement relating to the confidentiality of all matters. They had a deal and they broke it. Contacted in New York, Peress would only say that Welch was acting on his behalf."

 

Kansas City Star early October: PHILHARMONIC AND PERESS AGREE ON A NEW SETTLEMENT

"Lantz Welch, Peress' attorney, said the former Maestro signed the legal papers Monday. Philharmonic officials had signed the papers Friday. Welch said he and the orchestra officials had agreed that the terms of the settlement would not be released. Welch said last week, however, that the terms included a financial settlement for Peress."

 

N.B. And now for the rest of the story: This case was referred to me by a past drop dead gorgeous girlfriend of mine. At the time of this incident she was married to a very prominent local whose brother was Chairman of the Board of the Kansas City Philharmonic. Maurice was having an affair with her. The husband found out and ratted Maurice out to the Chairman of the Board brother who conspired to fire Maurice under the subterfuge that the Maestro could not get along with his musicians.

 

I made the bastards pay his two-year salary in full & execute release documents stating that the payment was for ‘personal injuries' suffered by my client. Of course this made his salary tax-free.

 

His career did not suffer: "He has also extensively conducted orchestras internationally, including the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra in 1980, the Vienna State Opera in 1981, the Santa Cecilia Orchestra of Rome in 1988, the Brno Orkester of the Czech Republic in 1997, the FOK Orkester at the Prague Spring Festival in 1988, the Shanghai Radio and Television Orchestra in 1996-1997, the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra in 1998, and the Barbican Centre Orchestra in London in 1999. In the 2000s, he has toured extensively in China, leading the Shanghai Opera Orchestra, the China National Symphony in Beijing and the Shenzhen Symphony."

 

 

MID-AMERICA HEART INSTITUTE:

I had an interesting interview with a potential new client in the early 1980s. Dr. Clark Henry, Thoracic Surgeon, presented himself in my office and discussed the underlying facts of the case that he wanted me to consider. After a few minutes he looked at me rather strangely and said, "You don't remember me do you?"

 

I confessed to him that I did not and he pointed out that he was one of the defendants in the Ray Smith case and that I had cross examined him for many hours in the courtroom. He confessed that he wanted to kill me at the time but on reflection decided that if he ever had a legal problem, I would be the attorney he would hire.

 

FACTS: Dr. William Reed, Chairman of St. Luke's Department of Cardiovascular Diseases in the Mid-America Heart Institute trained an impressive young surgeon named Dr. David Stephens to learn open-heart procedures while under Dr. Reed's supervision.

 

Drs. Henry & Graham were also cardiovascular and thoracic surgeons on the staff of St. Luke's Hospital. In 1981 they hired Dr. David Stevens to perform open heart surgery for their professional Corporation known as Henry & Graham, Inc.

 

Dr. Stevens agreed to join Henry & Graham, but was thereafter confronted by Dr. Reed who charged Stevens with disloyalty and told him he would not be welcome at the Heart Institute if he joined Henry & Graham. The young doctor was intimidated by Dr. Reed and ended up practicing in Macon, GA.

 

In my lawsuit against Dr. Reed I charged him with trying to monopolize open-heart surgery and we sued the good Dr. for $1 million in damages.

The Kansas City Star reported: "That the Heart Institute saw more than 4000 patients and performed almost 1000 open-heart procedures last year according to estimates. Patients generally are charged between $12,000 and $20,000 for coronary bypass surgeries, according to reports in medical literature."

 

I do not remember the end of this particular journey except to say that it ended extremely well for my clients. I have recently tried to locate Drs. Henry & Graham, as well as the defense lawyer to learn the details of the settlement, but they are not to be found and I fear that they have passed away.

 

However, I do remember taking Dr. Reed's deposition for two full days and that he was the toughest nut I ever had to crack.

 

DICK SMITH FORD:

Another challenging case from about the same time period involved the son of Ray Smith. Dick Smith was movie star handsome and owned Dick Smith Ford, a very successful and prominent Ford dealership in Kansas City. He had a wife and children.

 

Barbara Cox had been a very gorgeous cheerleader with the Kansas City Chiefs who married a fine gentleman who was principal of a prestigious high school in the south part of our city.

 

Dick and Barbara fell in love and decided to divorce their respective spouses to ride off into the land of dreams together.

 

Barbara got her divorce but when Dick broached the subject with his wife, his father Ray Smith and the Bishop intervened and sat him down and told him the brutal facts of life.

 

Barbara and her ex-husband, Mr. Cox, were understandably upset and Mr. Cox hired Ben Swofford to sue Dick Smith for "Alienation of Affections". This is not a popular cause of action and in fact has been outlawed in many states. I had never accepted such a case. However, a good saying in my profession is that, "Good Facts Make Good Law" and this case could not have had better facts.

 

The rich handsome car dealer sweeps the local high school principals' wife off her feet with trips, gifts etc.

 

Dick Smith hired one of the leading Silk Law Firms who assigned the case to Joseph Edward Stevens, Jr., Yale & Mich. Law School, who after 25 years of private practice became a Federal Judge appointed by Ronald Reagan.

 

Joe was of the opinion that this was a very dangerous and serious case and that none of the insurance policies owned by Dick Smith would afford him any coverage since this was an "Intentional Tort". They recommended that he pay a huge settlement. Dick was paying substantial legal fees and was not very happy.

 

After I had finished handling the Ray Smith legal matters mentioned earlier I received a visit from Ray who discussed with me his son's legal problems and wanted me to take over the handling of the case.

 

I told Ray that I was not a Defense Lawyer and that his son Dick was being represented by a large firm with a large reputation. I liked Ray Smith so much that I agreed to take a look at the problem.

 

Dick Smith came to my office and after reviewing the facts I told him that I thought I could help him but that he would first have to discharge his lawyers before I could enter into representation in his case.

 

I remembered some law in Missouri that held if an insurance company induced a person into a contract by advertising certain promises, that said promises would be held to become part of the insurance contract. Sure enough I found the case.

 

I sent a letter to the claims department of Dick's Homeowners Insurance Company demanding that they afford coverage, legal services and reimburse Dick for almost $50,000 he had paid out in legal fees. When the claims manager finally got back to me he agreed with my legal position and asked if I would be willing to continue to represent Dick on behalf of the insurance company. I told him that I would be willing to do this but in no event would I hide the fact that Dick had insurance coverage available. He replied that he knew my reputation & would never ask me to lie for them; however, would I find it necessary to volunteer the information. I told them that it would not be necessary.

I then caught a break in the case since the plaintiffs' very formidable lawyer, Ben Swofford, became a judge on the Kansas City Court of Appeals. A junior lawyer took over the handling of the case and I settled it for a modest amount.

 

When Dick Smith came to my office I told him the case was settled and gave him the check reimbursing him the legal fees he had paid to his previous lawyers. When asked how much he owed me I told him that I did not keep timesheets and I was very glad to have been able to help him. He kept insisting on payment and I remembered that my mother used to drive a Ford Thunderbird. I asked if he would like to furnish a new Ford Thunderbird to my mother for the rest of her life and he was more than happy to do this and amazed that this was all I requested.

He and I have been friends since that time.

 

 

FRANK SZASZ PORTRAIT:

In the early 80s Max Foust called and asked if I would help a lady very high in Kansas City's society because he had a conflict of interest. It seems that the lady had contracted herpes from a very prominent member of the Kansas City Country Club, our most prestigious Country Club.

 

N.B. This was the same C.C. that would not admit a Jew (Henry Bloch of H. & R. Bloch) which in turn caused Henry's son-in-law, Tom Watson, to resign his membership.

 

This member was the son of a very Right-Wing prestigious Circuit Court judge who did not like plaintiffs' lawyers. I began pursuing the case and to my shock the son committed suicide. I later made a very agreeable settlement against his estate. Since I would not accept a legal fee she commissioned a famous local portrait painter, Frank V. Szasz, to paint my portrait.