July 5, 2023 • 39 mins
The lawyers gather evidence as they prepare to take on the biggest players in the sugar industry. Tens of millions of dollars are at stake, but who are they really up against?
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
We now stop at a fish stand and Edward is
negotiating to buy two boiled lobsters from a guy who
has cooke glovesters sitting on a milk crate in front
of a little beer stand.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
We opened in the late nineteen nineties, when lawyer Edward
Tuttenham is in Jamaica with another attorney, Sarah Cleveland.
Speaker 3 (00:20):
All right, and you.
Speaker 4 (00:20):
Get king fish and all right, I'll come back.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
So how had Edward and Sarah met well through work?
It was because of this sugarcane case that Edward was
working on. Sarah was just starting out in her career
in public law, and she turned up to watch this
interview that Edward was doing with his co counsul Jim Green.
Maybe she could learn a thing or two.
Speaker 4 (00:48):
I met her, I guess the first time at this deposition.
Speaker 5 (00:52):
I do recall her coming back to me with the
odd question. She said, well, I had a wonderful time,
and I'm trying to figure out myself who should I date?
Jim Green or Edward Tutnham.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
That's her boss from the time at Gregshall. He'd heard
some less than five star reviews about Edward from his
previous girlfriends. So he suggested Sarah date the other lawyer,
Jim oh And and.
Speaker 5 (01:16):
He was not currently engaged, which Edward was engaged in
buying house with his fiance.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
But despite his pending marital status, Sarah was still drawn
to Edward.
Speaker 4 (01:27):
Edward is just charming.
Speaker 5 (01:28):
If you meet him, he is just charming, very debonair dashing.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
And the thing is Edward and Sarah had a lot
in common. They were both representing farm workers sugarcane cutters,
but in different cases, so like a budding stock of sugarcane,
their relationship grew. Edward eventually broke it off with his fiance,
and as the years rolled on, Sarah even went with
Edward to Jamaica to interview people for Edward's case. We've
(01:54):
got old dictaphone recordings from their journeys which sound like
the public law version of an Indiana Jones.
Speaker 3 (02:03):
We're now climbing on a one lane, very rocky dirt
road in jungle.
Speaker 6 (02:13):
Literally that's basically dark. I don't know if you can
hear the rattles of the jeep, but it is found
joints that it never.
Speaker 3 (02:23):
Knew that it had.
Speaker 7 (02:25):
They were every great Hollywood movie of two people united
in a common.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
Cause, journalist Marie Brenner.
Speaker 7 (02:32):
Like lovers coming together when their world was coming apart
to fight this great cause.
Speaker 6 (02:39):
We're now passing somebody's farm and planted among the boulders
are a couple of pie trees and sugarcane and what looks
like elephant ears.
Speaker 4 (02:57):
We went regularly to Jamaica to take testimony, to find clients,
to investigate potential witnesses, and we had a trip plan
and as long as we were going to Jamaica, we
decided to get married on that trip. We quickly invited
(03:20):
thirty of our friends had a wedding.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
Not only had they met because of sugarcane, bonded because
of sugarcane, taken romantic sojourns because of sugarcane. It turned out,
you guys got married on a sugar plantation.
Speaker 4 (03:38):
Yeah, well, a eighteenth century sugar plantation.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
When we left off in the last episode, lawyers Edward
Tuttenham and Dave Gorman had decided to sue the Florida
sugar industry's biggest companies, alleging that they'd underpaid thousands of
Jamaican cane cutters over decades. Their legal theory seemed irrefutable,
and it looked like an unlosable case. But what started
as a quick strike morphed into something altogether different, something
(04:08):
that expanded and compounded and rapidly hijacked the lives of
almost everyone involved. I mean, it wasn't just Sarah and
edwards relationship. The case began to sort of take over
these lawyers' lives. I mean, is that fair to say?
Speaker 7 (04:23):
Oh completely.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
I'm Celeste Hedley and from iHeartMedia, Imagine Audio and the
teams at Weekday Fun and Novel. This is Big Sugar
Episode three, the case that consumed them. On the surface,
(04:50):
what happened in nineteen ninety two wasn't particularly thrilling, even
according to Edward, who was at the center of it all.
Speaker 4 (04:57):
It's not terribly entertaining to watch. It's not riveting stuff.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
So here they are. Lawyers Edward Tuttenham and Dave Gorman
have just entered the Palm Beach County Courthouse, a brand
spanking new building, its architecture rooted firmly and proudly in
the nineteen nineties, leaning heavily on a color scheme of
salmon and teal. They're therefore what's called a summary judgment.
It's where a judge has to make a decision about
their class action on behalf of the twenty thousand sugarcne cutters,
(05:26):
should it go to trial or not.
Speaker 4 (05:28):
The lawyers were there, the judge and her clerk. There
might have been three or four people in the audience.
Spouses of lawyers or farmer officials.
Speaker 8 (05:40):
Might have been there, and the lawyers would come in
and sit down on opposite sides of the table and
present their arguments.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
That's Attorney Dave Gorman again. So it wasn't a remarkable scene,
but what's unfolding is pivotal. If the judge agrees with
Dave and Edward, they're about to get a massive payout.
If not, well they've got to go to trial, which
would be a huge amount of work.
Speaker 4 (06:04):
The case was assigned to this new young judge, Lucy Brown,
who was just brilliant.
Speaker 2 (06:13):
So first Dave sets out their argument, the argument he
hopes the judge will agree with. In essence, the contract
that was provided to the Department of Labor on behalf
of the sugar companies guaranteed the sugar cane cutters five
dollars and thirty cents per ton of cane they cut,
but they were actually paid a lot less than that,
So all these cutters are entitled to back wages.
Speaker 8 (06:35):
The original argument was pretty civil and it was pretty straightforward.
If I'm expected to cut eight tons in an eight
hour day, and I have to cut fast enough to
keep my job, that's a ton an hour. That means
a ton an hour has to be good enough, and
I have to get paid five thirty minimum for that hour,
which means I got to get paid five thirty if
(06:56):
I do the satisfactory. A one ton per hour to
me is pretty easy logic.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
Look, that is a lot of math to do in
your head, so don't worry if you haven't totally nailed
the legal argument yet. Just know that Dave and Edward
are saying the workers were entitled to be paid five
dollars thirty cents per ton of sugar cane they cut,
as per the contract, but the companies had been paying
closer to three dollars seventy cents per ton.
Speaker 4 (07:24):
There are some people who figure it out in thirty seconds.
All you have to do is say they got to
earn five thirty an hour. One ton an hour is
good enough, what's the minimum they have to pay. And
some people like instantly it just comes to them. Yeah,
other people you can explain it for hours. It just
(07:46):
never quite penetrating. Judge Brown got it, she got it
very quickly.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
Then come the lawyers on the other side, the lawyers
representing the cane companies. They say, no, this wasn't the agreement.
And you know what, these other lawyers are just in
it for the money.
Speaker 8 (08:06):
I mean, I've dealt with lawyers who are obnoxious, but
this was like a class warfare case.
Speaker 2 (08:12):
So the arguments continue on.
Speaker 4 (08:15):
We had an all day hearing with the judge where
we simply said, you know, there's nothing to have a
trial of that. This is the contract, this is what
it says, this is what they pay. We win. And
the judge we had she looked at the contract and
she said, you're absolutely right, you win.
Speaker 8 (08:39):
Just like that, and she agreed with that argument and
she ruled in our favor.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
What was your reaction when you heard the judgment.
Speaker 8 (08:53):
I was thrilled.
Speaker 4 (08:54):
I was thrilled.
Speaker 2 (08:56):
This wasn't even the best part. Then there was the money,
the amount that was going to be paid to the
cutters and the lawyers. Dave got a letter informing them
of just how much they were owed.
Speaker 4 (09:08):
The judge issued an order that she just put in
the mail, and he was just opening up his mail
one day, and sure enough, there it was, and.
Speaker 8 (09:18):
That calculated out to a total fifty one plus million
dollar judgment.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
Fifty one million dollars. They'd done it. They had outsmarted
the other side. They were even up for a national award.
Speaker 5 (09:32):
They had essentially slain the giant. They had done this
really remarkable, clever, clever case.
Speaker 4 (09:41):
I remember going out that night to a local music
venue in Austin, buying drinks for everybody at the bar,
something I'd always wanted to do.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
It was a moment in the sun. The sugar cane
cutters were going to have their back wages paid, the
lawyers were going to personally profit to the tune of millions,
and the perfect pursuit of justice seemed possible in the
drunken haze of that Texas beer hall.
Speaker 4 (10:12):
Of course, it was wonderful, but it wasn't really surprising,
because number one, how could we possibly lose? But then
that was appealed, and that's when everything went south very quickly.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
Of course, the sugarcane companies appealed this was a big
loss after all. So the lawyers are back in the courtroom,
a few beads of sweat starting to form on their brows.
Speaker 4 (10:46):
The appeals are always to a three judge court.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
First up, the sugarcane companies make their arguments that the
contract was ambiguous. It's not clear what the contract means,
so they need a trial.
Speaker 4 (10:58):
The law professor representing the sugar companies went first, and
he got a very approving response from the judges.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
Then Dave makes his rebuttal.
Speaker 4 (11:08):
Dave got up, and the hostility from particularly Martha Warner,
was really talk about shocking.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
This was a different court with different judges. They weren't
as receptive to the lawyer's theory as the previous judge.
And as you'll come to hear, some people agreed with
the theory, some didn't.
Speaker 4 (11:31):
Eventually I got up and I told Dave to sit down.
Let me try. I argued desperately and strenuously enough to
at least give the judges pause. I don't think I
convinced any of them, but at least they kind of
backed off a little bit.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
For Edward and Dave, it was a disaster. From their perspective,
it seemed like the judges didn't accept their five dollars
thirty cents per ton argument.
Speaker 4 (12:00):
At the end of that hearing, I was blown away.
I could not believe how hostile the court was to
what really in the end was nothing more complicated than
two and two equals four.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
So then the judge's decision came down.
Speaker 4 (12:17):
What the court said in their appellate decision was that
the contract was ambiguous, that it might offer a ton
an hour, but it might not, and therefore a jury
has to decide what the contract means.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
Edward and Dave, I mean, they're stunned. To them the
contract was not ambiguous and their argument was air tight.
We did ask Martha Warner about her decision, why did
the judges make this call, but she said she didn't
have anything more to add beyond what she wrote back
in the nineties.
Speaker 4 (12:56):
I remember being crushed.
Speaker 8 (12:59):
I had just had a fifty ffty one million dollar judgment,
which would have paid me probably a couple million bucks
in fees or more taken away. I've never been able
to reconcile how the appellate court could do what they did.
I really just have to say I can't do it.
(13:21):
That was my loss of innocence. Frankly, as an attorney.
Speaker 4 (13:28):
Like the Titanic, you've been ripped from stem to stern,
but you don't initially realize just how badly you've been hurt.
So the Court of Appeal's decision was definitely the Iceberg.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
I mean, one would understand if you'd thrown up your
hands at that point and said, I don't want nothing
more to do with this case.
Speaker 8 (13:52):
Well, I don't think I ever thought about that.
Speaker 4 (13:56):
It's not me.
Speaker 8 (13:58):
If you commit to do something, then you do it.
And it wasn't over.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
It was far from over.
Speaker 4 (14:04):
The case then got split into five different cases, one
for each.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
Company, the companies US Sugar Sugarcane Growers co Op and
three owned by billionaire Cuban exiles, the vun Houls, Okalanta,
Oceola and Atlantic.
Speaker 4 (14:19):
All five were then sent back for trial.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
Not only had the fifty million dollar rug been pulled
out from under them, Edward and Dave's work had quintupled.
It wasn't one case. There were now five to fight,
and no longer would they be presenting their dense legal
argument to a judge a legal expert. They'd be presenting
it to lay people. A jury. At that point, realizing
(14:43):
the work that was going to be ahead of you,
did you think let's let this one go?
Speaker 4 (14:47):
Oh no, I mean you don't let a fifty million
dollar case that you should win, You don't let it go.
I have to say, that's when I began to worry.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
More after the So, up until this point, the defense
the sugar King companies had been represented by a stable
of hotshot lawyers and legal professors. But that was when
the case was before a judge. Now they needed someone
to wow the jury. They needed a showman.
Speaker 9 (15:18):
I went down on my knees, looked up well Heaven,
and I said, Lord, you tell me what to say
to this jury this morning.
Speaker 4 (15:27):
And of course the rest is history.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
When talking about Willy Gary, it can be hard to
distinguish fact from myth. So take what follows with a
pinch or an entire handful of salt.
Speaker 5 (15:41):
Willy Gary, he certainly projected it developed a life story.
The life story has elements of truth, but it's not
entirely true.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
The legend goes that Willy Gary was born into a
poor family, the sixth of eleven children. His early childhood
was spent following the migrant farm work route, in fact,
the same path that the Jamaican migrant workers often took.
Growing up, he said to have worked twelve hour days,
sandwiching his school time with picking beans, corn, and cutting sugarcane.
(16:13):
He more or less begged his way into college, sleeping
on lounges in Shaw University's dormitories until they relented and
gave him a scholarship. It was once he graduated law
school in nineteen seventy four that a string of high
profile cases established his reputation as a talented courtroom battler. First,
(16:33):
he successfully defended a school bus driver accused of rape
in his fledgling criminal case. From there, he went on
to some truly astronomical wins, a two hundred and forty
million dollar verdict against Disney and a five hundred million
dollar verdict in a contract dispute against the Low and
Funeral Company. Because he took on these massive corporations, he
(16:55):
was known as the Giant Killer. Back in the day,
Willy was known for wearing crocodile skin shoes, hosting supermodel
Tyra Banks and the Reverend Jesse Jackson at his holiday parties,
and taking to the skies in a private jet he
called the wings of justice.
Speaker 9 (17:14):
I have to fly over the very sugar cane fields
where I worked as a kid, and man, it's you know,
sometimes you get kind of teary eyed when you think about,
you know, what you came to.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
So it's the early nineteen nineties, and there are going
to be five trials, one for each of the sugar
cane companies, the sugar cane growers co op Us, Sugar Atlantic, Osceola,
and Oklanta. Those last three are all owned by the
same parent company, Florida Crystals. Florida Crystals is part of Fanholcore,
(17:49):
a multi billion dollar corporation owned by the eponymous Cuban exiles.
They've gotten more than enough cash to hire the likes
of Willy Gary to fend off pesky lawsuits. Interestingly, Willy
Gary was known for suing big corporations, and now he
was working for one.
Speaker 8 (18:06):
Yeah, Willie, Willy Billy, I probably ought to be careful
what I say about him. Let's just say I don't
hold him in high regard.
Speaker 2 (18:18):
One point some people have made is that, of course,
for the growers, it didn't hurt the optics to have
a black former migrant worker, someone who literally used to
do the same job as the cutters from the Caribbean
on their side. That's what greg Shell thought anyway.
Speaker 5 (18:33):
That was sort of the point here that if the
sugar companies hadn't been this bad to their black workers,
and all their workers were black, why would Willie Gary
throw in with the growers in addition to whatever skills
will he brought to the table. It was that subtle
message it was being conveyed.
Speaker 2 (18:51):
Also on the defense side was Joe Clock of the
high priced law firm Steele, Hector and Davis. He'd go
on to make a name for himself nationally when he
helped George Bush claim the presidency in the disputed two
thousand election. Marie Brenner remembers meeting him when she was
covering the case for Vanity Fair.
Speaker 7 (19:09):
He was as slick as they could possibly be. He
was as slick as a lawyer gets.
Speaker 2 (19:16):
And then there was Elizabeth Defrayne, who actually once upon
a time worked to defend farm workers, but now she
was firmly entrenched on the corporate side, and the glinting
aquamarine and diamond ring that sat on her finger was
a testament to that. She bought it when she won
a two hundred and twenty two million dollar settlement for
Florida Power and Light.
Speaker 7 (19:37):
She had started in the law as a total idealist,
and then she went to work on the other side.
Speaker 2 (19:44):
So the stage is sent. The sugar companies have brought
out their star players. Both teams have assembled ready to rumble.
It's nineteen ninety nine and we're on the eleventh floor
of the West Palm Beach Courthouse. This is the trial
against the farm Atlanta. You enter along with a journalist
covering the case, Marie Brenner, and look on one side,
(20:06):
sitting there are the lawyers representing the Sugar Kane companies.
Speaker 7 (20:10):
Walking into the courtroom for the first time was a
kind of exercise in visual melodrama because on one side
of the courtroom were all the sugar people. There were
the fonn Holes.
Speaker 2 (20:23):
Remember these are the guys, the super rich sugar barons
who owned Domino Sugar, amongst others, and they owned the
sugar farm on trial.
Speaker 7 (20:31):
There were all the fawn hoole wives and daughters and
cousins with their beautiful designer suits and pastel colors for
Florida and their stiletto heels, their handsome lawyers with their
thousand dollars out of shaycases and their polished robes.
Speaker 2 (20:50):
Then you turn your head and look at the other side,
at David Edward, the team of lawyers who are suing
the sugarcane company. It was a contrast.
Speaker 7 (20:58):
You literally had six guys with backpacks, and it was
like looking at the granola team who had flown in
from New Hampshire in South Florida.
Speaker 2 (21:11):
Then enters Willy Gary.
Speaker 7 (21:13):
I was outside the courthouse the day that Willie arrived,
and I saw him drive up where he was driven
up in a Bentley and he got out with his
incredible suit and the custom made crocodile shoes, and he
walked in as if he didn't have a care in
the world. He was a star.
Speaker 2 (21:40):
Willy Gary sweeps into the courthouse and takes his seat
at the defense table alongside a gaggle of high priced attorneys.
Then the hubbub in the gallery, full of pastel linen
suits and shoulder pads quiets down and it begins. First
up Dave. He's not looking at notes. He speaks directly
to the jury. So here's what sense, according to the
(22:01):
transcript we have.
Speaker 8 (22:04):
As you've heard in little bits and pieces. This case
is fundamentally about a breach of contract.
Speaker 4 (22:09):
We'll see.
Speaker 8 (22:09):
It's a story of people who are humble, hard working
who came here from islands in the Caribbean, primarily Jamaica,
for the opportunity to improve themselves in their lives for
the families back home, even though it meant leaving their
homes for four or five months at a time, coming
here and working under some of the most difficult and
dangerous conditions that exist for labor anywhere in the world.
(22:32):
It's not just a story about people working hard and
trying to make a living the best way they know how.
It's also a story about a monumental bait and switch.
It's a story about an industry that, year after year,
was willing to tell our government one thing in order
to get permission to bring these foreign workers in, and
telling the workers themselves something entirely different. That really is
(22:54):
what the case boils down to. Should the sugar company
be held to the representation it made the a man
would be expected to cut eight tons of caine in
a normal eight hour day, or were they free to
make him cut one and a quarter one point four
one point five tons just to earn the minimum wage.
You should mean what you say, Say what you mean.
(23:16):
That's what this case is about. If you tell somebody
that you're going to do something, that you ought to
mean it and you ought to live up to what
you say.
Speaker 2 (23:26):
And then it's time for the headliner. Willy Gary begins
his opening.
Speaker 7 (23:31):
I mean he had charisma. He began telling the jury
how he used to pick corn in the fields. Now
he lived in a huge mansion in Stuart, Florida. He
was a big deal personal injury lawyer. He was an
absolute visual treat.
Speaker 2 (23:51):
We've got transcripts of the trial and Willy opened with
a classic Willy opening. We know that not because we
have audio recordings of the Atlantic trial, but we do.
You have this tape of a speech he gave during
an episode of Sixty Minutes.
Speaker 9 (24:04):
I said, members of the jury, you know, I find
it kind of strange of all this time that I've
been waiting just to talk to y'all. Oh, I've just
been waiting members of the jury to speak my piece.
Speaker 2 (24:16):
It's borderline evangelical. He went on. What we are going
to prove to you is that this is a frivolous lawsuit.
We are going to prove that to you, members of
the jury, flat out. It's not our job to do it,
but I'm convinced. I have always said the truth. The
truth will set you free. Then he talks about the
family who owns the Atlantic Farm for over thirty seven years,
(24:40):
Members of the jury, the Fanhole family has been working
in the sugarcane fields. When they started out, they didn't
have a whole lot, but they had a dream and
they worked hard.
Speaker 4 (24:50):
He was a showman. He had the jury hanging on
every word he said.
Speaker 2 (24:54):
Mister Gary continues, members of the jury, why are we here.
The evidence is going to show that no one was
ever told they would be paid by the ton never never. Never.
Workers came, they worked, supported their families. It was all
going great all those years. We told you. The evidence
is going to prove in this case that this is
a case where someone is looking for something for nothing.
(25:17):
That's what the evidence is going to be.
Speaker 7 (25:20):
He understood it didn't really matter what you said, it
was how you said it. Once Willie walked into the court,
you could sit there and you could just think these
guys don't.
Speaker 2 (25:29):
Have a chance more. After the break, now the trial
is really underway. Edward and Dave start out again with
their five dollars thirty cent spiel. They say that's the
amount the cutters were owed per ton, but there's evidence
(25:51):
that the cane cutters were only paid around three dollars
a ton. It's like asking someone to run a fifteen
mile marathon for minimum wage when really they wanted them
to run a twenty five mile marathon. To Edward and Dave,
this seems so obvious it's a breach of contract, though
I don't know. Sometimes it doesn't feel that obvious.
Speaker 4 (26:13):
We walk you through it. You're expected to cut a
ton an hour. If you cut a ton an hour,
you're a satisfactory worker.
Speaker 2 (26:21):
Okay, sorry, let me take one step back to make
sure I understand. The clearance order said we guarantee you
five thirty an hour, right.
Speaker 4 (26:32):
Right, because it had to because that was the minimum
wage rate. You couldn't get visas without saying that.
Speaker 2 (26:39):
But it was legal for the employer to say, but well,
only keep you employed if you're you're working at a
certain rate.
Speaker 4 (26:50):
Exactly of cutting exactly.
Speaker 2 (26:53):
But that to me seems like you're not actually guaranteed
five thirty an hour.
Speaker 4 (27:00):
I wish you had been on the jury The lawsuit
is very simple. If you offer a worker a written
contract that says you will be paid at least by
thirty a ton, which is effectively what the contract said,
then they have to pay that. And there is no
defense that, oh, I didn't know I offered that, or
(27:24):
I didn't know I was making them work harder. It's
just you offered that, you got to pay that.
Speaker 2 (27:32):
The way they made their argument, well, to Marie, it
wasn't the most gripping display.
Speaker 7 (27:38):
Essentially, what I can tell you is that sitting in
the courtroom was to be watching charts, charts and more charts,
math and more math.
Speaker 8 (27:49):
What we can do is multiply these four numbers that
appear on the chart by five dollars thirty cents. That's
this this column here, and it shows.
Speaker 7 (27:57):
For each of the four they had gotten these whiteboards
made at Kinko's, and they were divided up into graphs
and squares.
Speaker 8 (28:06):
The company is entitled to a credit for the build
up pay because the men weren't earning five dollars thirty
cents cutting.
Speaker 4 (28:12):
On the task.
Speaker 7 (28:13):
They were doing. Multiplication of what you got paid by
the row and what you got paid by the ton,
and I can remember sitting there thinking, hmm, I'm having
a really hard time following this. And if I'm going
to have a hard time following this, what's going to
happen on that jury.
Speaker 2 (28:33):
Yeah, let's be real here. This might have been a
brilliant theory formulated in the minds of brilliant lawyers, but
was it interesting hard No.
Speaker 7 (28:42):
The jury I felt was lost.
Speaker 2 (28:51):
So on the defense side, the sugarcane company side, well,
the argument and what they asked witnesses was completely different.
Willie Gary steps up. What was Willy Gary's argument in
that case?
Speaker 8 (29:04):
Billy Gary's ague, there's a frivolous case. This is all
about the lawyers trying to make money. That literally was
his argument.
Speaker 2 (29:10):
At one point, Willy Gary said, this is a frivolous lawsuit.
Members of the jury, this is a lawsuit about somebody
trying to get something for nothing, and there's no place
for that in this society.
Speaker 4 (29:22):
Witnesses talked about all kinds of things that really had
nothing to do with the case. And Willie Gary, as
I say, he was a showman. He was very good
at drawing the jury's attention to himself and away from
the witnesses who generally weren't saying anything worth listening to anyway.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
But he did have another effective tactic.
Speaker 7 (29:48):
He simply kept asking everyone who came on the stands,
where you ever told that you were going to be
paid by the hour? And so, of course none of
them could say yes, because they really weren't told that.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
He brings witness after witness, the supervisors, the cutters. Did
anyone expect that they'd be paid five dollars thirty cents
a ton? Everyone says no.
Speaker 4 (30:13):
This defense that, well, we never actually read the contract.
The workers never saw the contract. The employers claim they
never saw the contract.
Speaker 2 (30:22):
Greg and Marie said, this really hit the jury, this
argument that no one saw or agreed to this contract
that apparently entitled the workers to five dollars thirty cents
a ton. It was merely something an independent agent wrote
to secure farm worker visas with the Department of Labor.
Speaker 5 (30:39):
Juries are full of lay people who have a common
sense understanding of what a contract is, and the common
sense of understanding the contract is parties agree on something,
and there has to be an agreement between the parties,
and that's what you enforce a contract. The problem with
this case was that the theory. The plans were pushing
that the companies were required to pay a certain amount
(31:00):
per ton of kane harvested. Nobody understood that to be
the deal. The company certainly didn't intend for that to
be the deal, The United States government didn't understand that
to be the deal, and none of the workers understood that.
Speaker 4 (31:13):
To be the deal.
Speaker 5 (31:14):
So it didn't sound like it was a contract at all.
How could it be a contracted Nobody knew what it
was about or agreed to it. That doesn't make common sense.
Speaker 7 (31:24):
The argument they were making seemed like a contradiction to
any jury. The document that no workers saw is nonetheless
legally binding. So this was something that was a very
very arcane point that it was very hard for them
to get point across. That the workers hadn't really signed
(31:45):
off on this. You know, it was just a very frustrating,
grinding trial.
Speaker 2 (31:50):
And this was a long trial dragging on for weeks
and a long case. By now, Edward and Dave had
been working on it for ten years decade. In that time,
they'd come up with the theory, launched the class action,
had the summary judgment, fought appeal after appeal, and now
they're trying to convince a jury. Sitting there at the
(32:12):
plaintiff bench is the Atlantic trial ground on. Dave and
Edward are thinking about everything they'd sunk into this case.
How were you guys funding the continued case? How are
you paying for it.
Speaker 4 (32:26):
Out of our own pockets? And then friends. I had
friends who contributed money just out of a sense of justice,
but mostly Dave and I funded it. The money I
got when my grandmother died, I you know, contributed to
the case. I'm sure it was over one hundred thousand,
(32:47):
but how much over the fifteen years, I have no
earthly idea.
Speaker 7 (32:52):
Edward moved into his garage, you know, surrounded by all
these boxes. There were ninety crates of legal documents.
Speaker 2 (33:00):
He even had sugarcane growing in his backyard so he
could study it. So much of their lives orbited around
these lawsuits. Of course, Edward was by this time married
to Sarah, who he'd met through the case. Then there
were all the trips to Jamaica to gather depositions and such.
Speaker 6 (33:18):
Were trying to find a man named Beckford, the blue House,
the white one.
Speaker 2 (33:26):
Okay, thank you. This was the other thing driving them on.
The men they'd met most of the former cutters they'd
tracked down in Jamaica had no idea about the case.
Speaker 4 (33:38):
He's trying to get testimony to help the company and
defeat the workers. That's here, So it's very important.
Speaker 3 (33:47):
Don't talk to him.
Speaker 4 (33:49):
I'm your lawyer. Believe it or not.
Speaker 2 (33:53):
Most of these guys in Jamaica had stories of being underpaid,
that the hours they actually worked wouldn't match up with
what was on their tickets at the end of the day.
Speaker 4 (34:01):
Did you ever look at your cane ticket and have
you'd worked the full eight hours that they put fewer
hours on your cane tickets?
Speaker 2 (34:12):
More after the break So back in the courtroom, puncturing
the fog of the experts in the math were the cutters,
their personal stories. These were the men whom Dave and
Edward had brought over from Jamaica to testify. And this
was what it was all about, the heart of it all.
Speaker 8 (34:32):
Willie gary Cross examined a fellow in the Atlantic trial
named Clinton James was a really good guy. We brought
him up for the trial. He lives in Jamaica. He's
on the witness stand and Willie's Cross examining him, and
Willy says something like this. He goes, so, you know,
if the pay was so bad, why did you keep
coming back year after year after year? And Clinton responds,
(34:54):
he says, well, he says, a quarter of a slice
of bread is better than no bread at all, which
was very much the attitude these guys. They knew they
were getting cheated, but they didn't know how.
Speaker 2 (35:07):
In his testimony on the stand, Clinton talks about where
he lived in the barracks, and meanwhile a tear slips
out when he remembers it all eating rice every day.
But then Willy brings it back to what this trial
is all about. Did Clinton James ever understand that there
was an agreement between the parties to pay by the ton?
What did Clinton James say? He said, no, he'd never
(35:30):
heard of it.
Speaker 5 (35:32):
The workers one question, they didn't understand the theory. What
they understood was they said, I don't think I got paid, right.
I know I worked for more than I got paid,
But that wasn't what the theory was about. And so
the worker testimony also was at odds with what the
theory they were asking the jury to adopt.
Speaker 3 (35:49):
Was.
Speaker 2 (35:50):
The jury retires, Dave and Edward feel like they'd done
all they could. They don't know if the jury is
going to agree with them. They're five dollars thirty cents
a ton. Theory, this wasn't about the workers working for
more than they got paid, though we'll return to that later,
And keep in mind how much is on the line,
millions of dollars for both the cutters and lawyers, plus
(36:13):
all the work, money, and energy they'd sunk into this.
Dave and Edward are praying it wasn't for nothing.
Speaker 8 (36:20):
I was physically exhausted. I had been working seven days
a week, twelve or thirteen hours a day for that
whole period of time, including the weekends.
Speaker 2 (36:31):
So they're sitting there awaiting the jury's decision, and time
is passing. The jury still hasn't come back.
Speaker 8 (36:38):
When they didn't come right back in and pour us out,
you start to become optimistic. And the longer it goes,
I figured, the better it was for us.
Speaker 2 (36:47):
So they wait and look out the window of the courtroom.
Speaker 7 (36:51):
The courtroom looked out toward the marina. You could see
in the way distance. You could see many boats, could
see the ocean, and if.
Speaker 2 (37:02):
You squinted, you could just make out a yacht, a
massive yacht called Krey who owned that luxury vessel. Well,
the answer to that tells you a lot about what
went down in this case, and it stretched far beyond
the eleventh floor of the West Palm Beach Courthouse. The
(37:22):
verdict wasn't in yet. There's even more to unpack before
we get to that. You see, you've heard the names
of the companies and the people the lawyers are squaring
off against Atlantic Oakulanta Osceola, Florida Crystals, the companies that
make CNH Domino Sugar, and the family that owns these companies,
the fun Hools. But before we get to the outcome
(37:43):
of this case, you've got to know who the lawyers
are truly up against. You've got to meet the fun Holes.
Speaker 7 (37:57):
They were rich boys in the Havana of the nineteen fifties.
Their parents would have the Duke of Windsor and the
Duchess of Windsor coming to stay with them.
Speaker 2 (38:07):
It's an origin story of incredible wealth.
Speaker 7 (38:10):
They were probably one of the richest families in Cuba.
Speaker 2 (38:14):
And it's a story of revolution.
Speaker 7 (38:16):
Suddenly it's the shooting and people are having to flee
and run and run under cover and run for the
airport and run for Boats and Everyone Is Fleeing.
Speaker 2 (38:40):
Big Sugar is produced by Imagine Audio, Weekday Fund Productions
and novel for iHeartMedia. The series is hosted by me
Celeste Henley. Big Sugar is produced by Jeff Eisenman at
Weekday Fund Productions. It's executive produced by Karl Welker, Nathan
Kloke and Marie Brenner. Story editor and executive producer is
Joe Wheeler. The researcher is Nadia Metti. Production management from
(39:05):
Scherie Houston, Frankie Taylor and Charlotte Wolfe. Our fact checker
is Sona Avakian. Field reporting by Amber A. Mortage. Sound
design and mixing by Eli Block, Naomi Clark and Daniel Kempsen.
Original music composed by Troy McCubbin at Alloy Tracks. Additional
music by Nicholas Alexander. Special thanks to Alec Wilkinson, author
(39:29):
of the book Big Sugar, and Stephanie Black, director of
the documentary H two Worker. Big Sugar is based on
the Vanity Fair article in the Kingdom of Big Sugar
by Marie Branner.
We now stop at a fish stand and Edward is
negotiating to buy two boiled lobsters from a guy who
has cooke glovesters sitting on a milk crate in front
of a little beer stand.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
We opened in the late nineteen nineties, when lawyer Edward
Tuttenham is in Jamaica with another attorney, Sarah Cleveland.
Speaker 3 (00:20):
All right, and you.
Speaker 4 (00:20):
Get king fish and all right, I'll come back.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
So how had Edward and Sarah met well through work?
It was because of this sugarcane case that Edward was
working on. Sarah was just starting out in her career
in public law, and she turned up to watch this
interview that Edward was doing with his co counsul Jim Green.
Maybe she could learn a thing or two.
Speaker 4 (00:48):
I met her, I guess the first time at this deposition.
Speaker 5 (00:52):
I do recall her coming back to me with the
odd question. She said, well, I had a wonderful time,
and I'm trying to figure out myself who should I date?
Jim Green or Edward Tutnham.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
That's her boss from the time at Gregshall. He'd heard
some less than five star reviews about Edward from his
previous girlfriends. So he suggested Sarah date the other lawyer,
Jim oh And and.
Speaker 5 (01:16):
He was not currently engaged, which Edward was engaged in
buying house with his fiance.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
But despite his pending marital status, Sarah was still drawn
to Edward.
Speaker 4 (01:27):
Edward is just charming.
Speaker 5 (01:28):
If you meet him, he is just charming, very debonair dashing.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
And the thing is Edward and Sarah had a lot
in common. They were both representing farm workers sugarcane cutters,
but in different cases, so like a budding stock of sugarcane,
their relationship grew. Edward eventually broke it off with his fiance,
and as the years rolled on, Sarah even went with
Edward to Jamaica to interview people for Edward's case. We've
(01:54):
got old dictaphone recordings from their journeys which sound like
the public law version of an Indiana Jones.
Speaker 3 (02:03):
We're now climbing on a one lane, very rocky dirt
road in jungle.
Speaker 6 (02:13):
Literally that's basically dark. I don't know if you can
hear the rattles of the jeep, but it is found
joints that it never.
Speaker 3 (02:23):
Knew that it had.
Speaker 7 (02:25):
They were every great Hollywood movie of two people united
in a common.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
Cause, journalist Marie Brenner.
Speaker 7 (02:32):
Like lovers coming together when their world was coming apart
to fight this great cause.
Speaker 6 (02:39):
We're now passing somebody's farm and planted among the boulders
are a couple of pie trees and sugarcane and what looks
like elephant ears.
Speaker 4 (02:57):
We went regularly to Jamaica to take testimony, to find clients,
to investigate potential witnesses, and we had a trip plan
and as long as we were going to Jamaica, we
decided to get married on that trip. We quickly invited
(03:20):
thirty of our friends had a wedding.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
Not only had they met because of sugarcane, bonded because
of sugarcane, taken romantic sojourns because of sugarcane. It turned out,
you guys got married on a sugar plantation.
Speaker 4 (03:38):
Yeah, well, a eighteenth century sugar plantation.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
When we left off in the last episode, lawyers Edward
Tuttenham and Dave Gorman had decided to sue the Florida
sugar industry's biggest companies, alleging that they'd underpaid thousands of
Jamaican cane cutters over decades. Their legal theory seemed irrefutable,
and it looked like an unlosable case. But what started
as a quick strike morphed into something altogether different, something
(04:08):
that expanded and compounded and rapidly hijacked the lives of
almost everyone involved. I mean, it wasn't just Sarah and
edwards relationship. The case began to sort of take over
these lawyers' lives. I mean, is that fair to say?
Speaker 7 (04:23):
Oh completely.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
I'm Celeste Hedley and from iHeartMedia, Imagine Audio and the
teams at Weekday Fun and Novel. This is Big Sugar
Episode three, the case that consumed them. On the surface,
(04:50):
what happened in nineteen ninety two wasn't particularly thrilling, even
according to Edward, who was at the center of it all.
Speaker 4 (04:57):
It's not terribly entertaining to watch. It's not riveting stuff.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
So here they are. Lawyers Edward Tuttenham and Dave Gorman
have just entered the Palm Beach County Courthouse, a brand
spanking new building, its architecture rooted firmly and proudly in
the nineteen nineties, leaning heavily on a color scheme of
salmon and teal. They're therefore what's called a summary judgment.
It's where a judge has to make a decision about
their class action on behalf of the twenty thousand sugarcne cutters,
(05:26):
should it go to trial or not.
Speaker 4 (05:28):
The lawyers were there, the judge and her clerk. There
might have been three or four people in the audience.
Spouses of lawyers or farmer officials.
Speaker 8 (05:40):
Might have been there, and the lawyers would come in
and sit down on opposite sides of the table and
present their arguments.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
That's Attorney Dave Gorman again. So it wasn't a remarkable scene,
but what's unfolding is pivotal. If the judge agrees with
Dave and Edward, they're about to get a massive payout.
If not, well they've got to go to trial, which
would be a huge amount of work.
Speaker 4 (06:04):
The case was assigned to this new young judge, Lucy Brown,
who was just brilliant.
Speaker 2 (06:13):
So first Dave sets out their argument, the argument he
hopes the judge will agree with. In essence, the contract
that was provided to the Department of Labor on behalf
of the sugar companies guaranteed the sugar cane cutters five
dollars and thirty cents per ton of cane they cut,
but they were actually paid a lot less than that,
So all these cutters are entitled to back wages.
Speaker 8 (06:35):
The original argument was pretty civil and it was pretty straightforward.
If I'm expected to cut eight tons in an eight
hour day, and I have to cut fast enough to
keep my job, that's a ton an hour. That means
a ton an hour has to be good enough, and
I have to get paid five thirty minimum for that hour,
which means I got to get paid five thirty if
(06:56):
I do the satisfactory. A one ton per hour to
me is pretty easy logic.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
Look, that is a lot of math to do in
your head, so don't worry if you haven't totally nailed
the legal argument yet. Just know that Dave and Edward
are saying the workers were entitled to be paid five
dollars thirty cents per ton of sugar cane they cut,
as per the contract, but the companies had been paying
closer to three dollars seventy cents per ton.
Speaker 4 (07:24):
There are some people who figure it out in thirty seconds.
All you have to do is say they got to
earn five thirty an hour. One ton an hour is
good enough, what's the minimum they have to pay. And
some people like instantly it just comes to them. Yeah,
other people you can explain it for hours. It just
(07:46):
never quite penetrating. Judge Brown got it, she got it
very quickly.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
Then come the lawyers on the other side, the lawyers
representing the cane companies. They say, no, this wasn't the agreement.
And you know what, these other lawyers are just in
it for the money.
Speaker 8 (08:06):
I mean, I've dealt with lawyers who are obnoxious, but
this was like a class warfare case.
Speaker 2 (08:12):
So the arguments continue on.
Speaker 4 (08:15):
We had an all day hearing with the judge where
we simply said, you know, there's nothing to have a
trial of that. This is the contract, this is what
it says, this is what they pay. We win. And
the judge we had she looked at the contract and
she said, you're absolutely right, you win.
Speaker 8 (08:39):
Just like that, and she agreed with that argument and
she ruled in our favor.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
What was your reaction when you heard the judgment.
Speaker 8 (08:53):
I was thrilled.
Speaker 4 (08:54):
I was thrilled.
Speaker 2 (08:56):
This wasn't even the best part. Then there was the money,
the amount that was going to be paid to the
cutters and the lawyers. Dave got a letter informing them
of just how much they were owed.
Speaker 4 (09:08):
The judge issued an order that she just put in
the mail, and he was just opening up his mail
one day, and sure enough, there it was, and.
Speaker 8 (09:18):
That calculated out to a total fifty one plus million
dollar judgment.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
Fifty one million dollars. They'd done it. They had outsmarted
the other side. They were even up for a national award.
Speaker 5 (09:32):
They had essentially slain the giant. They had done this
really remarkable, clever, clever case.
Speaker 4 (09:41):
I remember going out that night to a local music
venue in Austin, buying drinks for everybody at the bar,
something I'd always wanted to do.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
It was a moment in the sun. The sugar cane
cutters were going to have their back wages paid, the
lawyers were going to personally profit to the tune of millions,
and the perfect pursuit of justice seemed possible in the
drunken haze of that Texas beer hall.
Speaker 4 (10:12):
Of course, it was wonderful, but it wasn't really surprising,
because number one, how could we possibly lose? But then
that was appealed, and that's when everything went south very quickly.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
Of course, the sugarcane companies appealed this was a big
loss after all. So the lawyers are back in the courtroom,
a few beads of sweat starting to form on their brows.
Speaker 4 (10:46):
The appeals are always to a three judge court.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
First up, the sugarcane companies make their arguments that the
contract was ambiguous. It's not clear what the contract means,
so they need a trial.
Speaker 4 (10:58):
The law professor representing the sugar companies went first, and
he got a very approving response from the judges.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
Then Dave makes his rebuttal.
Speaker 4 (11:08):
Dave got up, and the hostility from particularly Martha Warner,
was really talk about shocking.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
This was a different court with different judges. They weren't
as receptive to the lawyer's theory as the previous judge.
And as you'll come to hear, some people agreed with
the theory, some didn't.
Speaker 4 (11:31):
Eventually I got up and I told Dave to sit down.
Let me try. I argued desperately and strenuously enough to
at least give the judges pause. I don't think I
convinced any of them, but at least they kind of
backed off a little bit.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
For Edward and Dave, it was a disaster. From their perspective,
it seemed like the judges didn't accept their five dollars
thirty cents per ton argument.
Speaker 4 (12:00):
At the end of that hearing, I was blown away.
I could not believe how hostile the court was to
what really in the end was nothing more complicated than
two and two equals four.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
So then the judge's decision came down.
Speaker 4 (12:17):
What the court said in their appellate decision was that
the contract was ambiguous, that it might offer a ton
an hour, but it might not, and therefore a jury
has to decide what the contract means.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
Edward and Dave, I mean, they're stunned. To them the
contract was not ambiguous and their argument was air tight.
We did ask Martha Warner about her decision, why did
the judges make this call, but she said she didn't
have anything more to add beyond what she wrote back
in the nineties.
Speaker 4 (12:56):
I remember being crushed.
Speaker 8 (12:59):
I had just had a fifty ffty one million dollar judgment,
which would have paid me probably a couple million bucks
in fees or more taken away. I've never been able
to reconcile how the appellate court could do what they did.
I really just have to say I can't do it.
(13:21):
That was my loss of innocence. Frankly, as an attorney.
Speaker 4 (13:28):
Like the Titanic, you've been ripped from stem to stern,
but you don't initially realize just how badly you've been hurt.
So the Court of Appeal's decision was definitely the Iceberg.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
I mean, one would understand if you'd thrown up your
hands at that point and said, I don't want nothing
more to do with this case.
Speaker 8 (13:52):
Well, I don't think I ever thought about that.
Speaker 4 (13:56):
It's not me.
Speaker 8 (13:58):
If you commit to do something, then you do it.
And it wasn't over.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
It was far from over.
Speaker 4 (14:04):
The case then got split into five different cases, one
for each.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
Company, the companies US Sugar Sugarcane Growers co Op and
three owned by billionaire Cuban exiles, the vun Houls, Okalanta,
Oceola and Atlantic.
Speaker 4 (14:19):
All five were then sent back for trial.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
Not only had the fifty million dollar rug been pulled
out from under them, Edward and Dave's work had quintupled.
It wasn't one case. There were now five to fight,
and no longer would they be presenting their dense legal
argument to a judge a legal expert. They'd be presenting
it to lay people. A jury. At that point, realizing
(14:43):
the work that was going to be ahead of you,
did you think let's let this one go?
Speaker 4 (14:47):
Oh no, I mean you don't let a fifty million
dollar case that you should win, You don't let it go.
I have to say, that's when I began to worry.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
More after the So, up until this point, the defense
the sugar King companies had been represented by a stable
of hotshot lawyers and legal professors. But that was when
the case was before a judge. Now they needed someone
to wow the jury. They needed a showman.
Speaker 9 (15:18):
I went down on my knees, looked up well Heaven,
and I said, Lord, you tell me what to say
to this jury this morning.
Speaker 4 (15:27):
And of course the rest is history.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
When talking about Willy Gary, it can be hard to
distinguish fact from myth. So take what follows with a
pinch or an entire handful of salt.
Speaker 5 (15:41):
Willy Gary, he certainly projected it developed a life story.
The life story has elements of truth, but it's not
entirely true.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
The legend goes that Willy Gary was born into a
poor family, the sixth of eleven children. His early childhood
was spent following the migrant farm work route, in fact,
the same path that the Jamaican migrant workers often took.
Growing up, he said to have worked twelve hour days,
sandwiching his school time with picking beans, corn, and cutting sugarcane.
(16:13):
He more or less begged his way into college, sleeping
on lounges in Shaw University's dormitories until they relented and
gave him a scholarship. It was once he graduated law
school in nineteen seventy four that a string of high
profile cases established his reputation as a talented courtroom battler. First,
(16:33):
he successfully defended a school bus driver accused of rape
in his fledgling criminal case. From there, he went on
to some truly astronomical wins, a two hundred and forty
million dollar verdict against Disney and a five hundred million
dollar verdict in a contract dispute against the Low and
Funeral Company. Because he took on these massive corporations, he
(16:55):
was known as the Giant Killer. Back in the day,
Willy was known for wearing crocodile skin shoes, hosting supermodel
Tyra Banks and the Reverend Jesse Jackson at his holiday parties,
and taking to the skies in a private jet he
called the wings of justice.
Speaker 9 (17:14):
I have to fly over the very sugar cane fields
where I worked as a kid, and man, it's you know,
sometimes you get kind of teary eyed when you think about,
you know, what you came to.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
So it's the early nineteen nineties, and there are going
to be five trials, one for each of the sugar
cane companies, the sugar cane growers co op Us, Sugar Atlantic, Osceola,
and Oklanta. Those last three are all owned by the
same parent company, Florida Crystals. Florida Crystals is part of Fanholcore,
(17:49):
a multi billion dollar corporation owned by the eponymous Cuban exiles.
They've gotten more than enough cash to hire the likes
of Willy Gary to fend off pesky lawsuits. Interestingly, Willy
Gary was known for suing big corporations, and now he
was working for one.
Speaker 8 (18:06):
Yeah, Willie, Willy Billy, I probably ought to be careful
what I say about him. Let's just say I don't
hold him in high regard.
Speaker 2 (18:18):
One point some people have made is that, of course,
for the growers, it didn't hurt the optics to have
a black former migrant worker, someone who literally used to
do the same job as the cutters from the Caribbean
on their side. That's what greg Shell thought anyway.
Speaker 5 (18:33):
That was sort of the point here that if the
sugar companies hadn't been this bad to their black workers,
and all their workers were black, why would Willie Gary
throw in with the growers in addition to whatever skills
will he brought to the table. It was that subtle
message it was being conveyed.
Speaker 2 (18:51):
Also on the defense side was Joe Clock of the
high priced law firm Steele, Hector and Davis. He'd go
on to make a name for himself nationally when he
helped George Bush claim the presidency in the disputed two
thousand election. Marie Brenner remembers meeting him when she was
covering the case for Vanity Fair.
Speaker 7 (19:09):
He was as slick as they could possibly be. He
was as slick as a lawyer gets.
Speaker 2 (19:16):
And then there was Elizabeth Defrayne, who actually once upon
a time worked to defend farm workers, but now she
was firmly entrenched on the corporate side, and the glinting
aquamarine and diamond ring that sat on her finger was
a testament to that. She bought it when she won
a two hundred and twenty two million dollar settlement for
Florida Power and Light.
Speaker 7 (19:37):
She had started in the law as a total idealist,
and then she went to work on the other side.
Speaker 2 (19:44):
So the stage is sent. The sugar companies have brought
out their star players. Both teams have assembled ready to rumble.
It's nineteen ninety nine and we're on the eleventh floor
of the West Palm Beach Courthouse. This is the trial
against the farm Atlanta. You enter along with a journalist
covering the case, Marie Brenner, and look on one side,
(20:06):
sitting there are the lawyers representing the Sugar Kane companies.
Speaker 7 (20:10):
Walking into the courtroom for the first time was a
kind of exercise in visual melodrama because on one side
of the courtroom were all the sugar people. There were
the fonn Holes.
Speaker 2 (20:23):
Remember these are the guys, the super rich sugar barons
who owned Domino Sugar, amongst others, and they owned the
sugar farm on trial.
Speaker 7 (20:31):
There were all the fawn hoole wives and daughters and
cousins with their beautiful designer suits and pastel colors for
Florida and their stiletto heels, their handsome lawyers with their
thousand dollars out of shaycases and their polished robes.
Speaker 2 (20:50):
Then you turn your head and look at the other side,
at David Edward, the team of lawyers who are suing
the sugarcane company. It was a contrast.
Speaker 7 (20:58):
You literally had six guys with backpacks, and it was
like looking at the granola team who had flown in
from New Hampshire in South Florida.
Speaker 2 (21:11):
Then enters Willy Gary.
Speaker 7 (21:13):
I was outside the courthouse the day that Willie arrived,
and I saw him drive up where he was driven
up in a Bentley and he got out with his
incredible suit and the custom made crocodile shoes, and he
walked in as if he didn't have a care in
the world. He was a star.
Speaker 2 (21:40):
Willy Gary sweeps into the courthouse and takes his seat
at the defense table alongside a gaggle of high priced attorneys.
Then the hubbub in the gallery, full of pastel linen
suits and shoulder pads quiets down and it begins. First
up Dave. He's not looking at notes. He speaks directly
to the jury. So here's what sense, according to the
(22:01):
transcript we have.
Speaker 8 (22:04):
As you've heard in little bits and pieces. This case
is fundamentally about a breach of contract.
Speaker 4 (22:09):
We'll see.
Speaker 8 (22:09):
It's a story of people who are humble, hard working
who came here from islands in the Caribbean, primarily Jamaica,
for the opportunity to improve themselves in their lives for
the families back home, even though it meant leaving their
homes for four or five months at a time, coming
here and working under some of the most difficult and
dangerous conditions that exist for labor anywhere in the world.
(22:32):
It's not just a story about people working hard and
trying to make a living the best way they know how.
It's also a story about a monumental bait and switch.
It's a story about an industry that, year after year,
was willing to tell our government one thing in order
to get permission to bring these foreign workers in, and
telling the workers themselves something entirely different. That really is
(22:54):
what the case boils down to. Should the sugar company
be held to the representation it made the a man
would be expected to cut eight tons of caine in
a normal eight hour day, or were they free to
make him cut one and a quarter one point four
one point five tons just to earn the minimum wage.
You should mean what you say, Say what you mean.
(23:16):
That's what this case is about. If you tell somebody
that you're going to do something, that you ought to
mean it and you ought to live up to what
you say.
Speaker 2 (23:26):
And then it's time for the headliner. Willy Gary begins
his opening.
Speaker 7 (23:31):
I mean he had charisma. He began telling the jury
how he used to pick corn in the fields. Now
he lived in a huge mansion in Stuart, Florida. He
was a big deal personal injury lawyer. He was an
absolute visual treat.
Speaker 2 (23:51):
We've got transcripts of the trial and Willy opened with
a classic Willy opening. We know that not because we
have audio recordings of the Atlantic trial, but we do.
You have this tape of a speech he gave during
an episode of Sixty Minutes.
Speaker 9 (24:04):
I said, members of the jury, you know, I find
it kind of strange of all this time that I've
been waiting just to talk to y'all. Oh, I've just
been waiting members of the jury to speak my piece.
Speaker 2 (24:16):
It's borderline evangelical. He went on. What we are going
to prove to you is that this is a frivolous lawsuit.
We are going to prove that to you, members of
the jury, flat out. It's not our job to do it,
but I'm convinced. I have always said the truth. The
truth will set you free. Then he talks about the
family who owns the Atlantic Farm for over thirty seven years,
(24:40):
Members of the jury, the Fanhole family has been working
in the sugarcane fields. When they started out, they didn't
have a whole lot, but they had a dream and
they worked hard.
Speaker 4 (24:50):
He was a showman. He had the jury hanging on
every word he said.
Speaker 2 (24:54):
Mister Gary continues, members of the jury, why are we here.
The evidence is going to show that no one was
ever told they would be paid by the ton never never. Never.
Workers came, they worked, supported their families. It was all
going great all those years. We told you. The evidence
is going to prove in this case that this is
a case where someone is looking for something for nothing.
(25:17):
That's what the evidence is going to be.
Speaker 7 (25:20):
He understood it didn't really matter what you said, it
was how you said it. Once Willie walked into the court,
you could sit there and you could just think these
guys don't.
Speaker 2 (25:29):
Have a chance more. After the break, now the trial
is really underway. Edward and Dave start out again with
their five dollars thirty cent spiel. They say that's the
amount the cutters were owed per ton, but there's evidence
(25:51):
that the cane cutters were only paid around three dollars
a ton. It's like asking someone to run a fifteen
mile marathon for minimum wage when really they wanted them
to run a twenty five mile marathon. To Edward and Dave,
this seems so obvious it's a breach of contract, though
I don't know. Sometimes it doesn't feel that obvious.
Speaker 4 (26:13):
We walk you through it. You're expected to cut a
ton an hour. If you cut a ton an hour,
you're a satisfactory worker.
Speaker 2 (26:21):
Okay, sorry, let me take one step back to make
sure I understand. The clearance order said we guarantee you
five thirty an hour, right.
Speaker 4 (26:32):
Right, because it had to because that was the minimum
wage rate. You couldn't get visas without saying that.
Speaker 2 (26:39):
But it was legal for the employer to say, but well,
only keep you employed if you're you're working at a
certain rate.
Speaker 4 (26:50):
Exactly of cutting exactly.
Speaker 2 (26:53):
But that to me seems like you're not actually guaranteed
five thirty an hour.
Speaker 4 (27:00):
I wish you had been on the jury The lawsuit
is very simple. If you offer a worker a written
contract that says you will be paid at least by
thirty a ton, which is effectively what the contract said,
then they have to pay that. And there is no
defense that, oh, I didn't know I offered that, or
(27:24):
I didn't know I was making them work harder. It's
just you offered that, you got to pay that.
Speaker 2 (27:32):
The way they made their argument, well, to Marie, it
wasn't the most gripping display.
Speaker 7 (27:38):
Essentially, what I can tell you is that sitting in
the courtroom was to be watching charts, charts and more charts,
math and more math.
Speaker 8 (27:49):
What we can do is multiply these four numbers that
appear on the chart by five dollars thirty cents. That's
this this column here, and it shows.
Speaker 7 (27:57):
For each of the four they had gotten these whiteboards
made at Kinko's, and they were divided up into graphs
and squares.
Speaker 8 (28:06):
The company is entitled to a credit for the build
up pay because the men weren't earning five dollars thirty
cents cutting.
Speaker 4 (28:12):
On the task.
Speaker 7 (28:13):
They were doing. Multiplication of what you got paid by
the row and what you got paid by the ton,
and I can remember sitting there thinking, hmm, I'm having
a really hard time following this. And if I'm going
to have a hard time following this, what's going to
happen on that jury.
Speaker 2 (28:33):
Yeah, let's be real here. This might have been a
brilliant theory formulated in the minds of brilliant lawyers, but
was it interesting hard No.
Speaker 7 (28:42):
The jury I felt was lost.
Speaker 2 (28:51):
So on the defense side, the sugarcane company side, well,
the argument and what they asked witnesses was completely different.
Willie Gary steps up. What was Willy Gary's argument in
that case?
Speaker 8 (29:04):
Billy Gary's ague, there's a frivolous case. This is all
about the lawyers trying to make money. That literally was
his argument.
Speaker 2 (29:10):
At one point, Willy Gary said, this is a frivolous lawsuit.
Members of the jury, this is a lawsuit about somebody
trying to get something for nothing, and there's no place
for that in this society.
Speaker 4 (29:22):
Witnesses talked about all kinds of things that really had
nothing to do with the case. And Willie Gary, as
I say, he was a showman. He was very good
at drawing the jury's attention to himself and away from
the witnesses who generally weren't saying anything worth listening to anyway.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
But he did have another effective tactic.
Speaker 7 (29:48):
He simply kept asking everyone who came on the stands,
where you ever told that you were going to be
paid by the hour? And so, of course none of
them could say yes, because they really weren't told that.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
He brings witness after witness, the supervisors, the cutters. Did
anyone expect that they'd be paid five dollars thirty cents
a ton? Everyone says no.
Speaker 4 (30:13):
This defense that, well, we never actually read the contract.
The workers never saw the contract. The employers claim they
never saw the contract.
Speaker 2 (30:22):
Greg and Marie said, this really hit the jury, this
argument that no one saw or agreed to this contract
that apparently entitled the workers to five dollars thirty cents
a ton. It was merely something an independent agent wrote
to secure farm worker visas with the Department of Labor.
Speaker 5 (30:39):
Juries are full of lay people who have a common
sense understanding of what a contract is, and the common
sense of understanding the contract is parties agree on something,
and there has to be an agreement between the parties,
and that's what you enforce a contract. The problem with
this case was that the theory. The plans were pushing
that the companies were required to pay a certain amount
(31:00):
per ton of kane harvested. Nobody understood that to be
the deal. The company certainly didn't intend for that to
be the deal, The United States government didn't understand that
to be the deal, and none of the workers understood that.
Speaker 4 (31:13):
To be the deal.
Speaker 5 (31:14):
So it didn't sound like it was a contract at all.
How could it be a contracted Nobody knew what it
was about or agreed to it. That doesn't make common sense.
Speaker 7 (31:24):
The argument they were making seemed like a contradiction to
any jury. The document that no workers saw is nonetheless
legally binding. So this was something that was a very
very arcane point that it was very hard for them
to get point across. That the workers hadn't really signed
(31:45):
off on this. You know, it was just a very frustrating,
grinding trial.
Speaker 2 (31:50):
And this was a long trial dragging on for weeks
and a long case. By now, Edward and Dave had
been working on it for ten years decade. In that time,
they'd come up with the theory, launched the class action,
had the summary judgment, fought appeal after appeal, and now
they're trying to convince a jury. Sitting there at the
(32:12):
plaintiff bench is the Atlantic trial ground on. Dave and
Edward are thinking about everything they'd sunk into this case.
How were you guys funding the continued case? How are
you paying for it.
Speaker 4 (32:26):
Out of our own pockets? And then friends. I had
friends who contributed money just out of a sense of justice,
but mostly Dave and I funded it. The money I
got when my grandmother died, I you know, contributed to
the case. I'm sure it was over one hundred thousand,
(32:47):
but how much over the fifteen years, I have no
earthly idea.
Speaker 7 (32:52):
Edward moved into his garage, you know, surrounded by all
these boxes. There were ninety crates of legal documents.
Speaker 2 (33:00):
He even had sugarcane growing in his backyard so he
could study it. So much of their lives orbited around
these lawsuits. Of course, Edward was by this time married
to Sarah, who he'd met through the case. Then there
were all the trips to Jamaica to gather depositions and such.
Speaker 6 (33:18):
Were trying to find a man named Beckford, the blue House,
the white one.
Speaker 2 (33:26):
Okay, thank you. This was the other thing driving them on.
The men they'd met most of the former cutters they'd
tracked down in Jamaica had no idea about the case.
Speaker 4 (33:38):
He's trying to get testimony to help the company and
defeat the workers. That's here, So it's very important.
Speaker 3 (33:47):
Don't talk to him.
Speaker 4 (33:49):
I'm your lawyer. Believe it or not.
Speaker 2 (33:53):
Most of these guys in Jamaica had stories of being underpaid,
that the hours they actually worked wouldn't match up with
what was on their tickets at the end of the day.
Speaker 4 (34:01):
Did you ever look at your cane ticket and have
you'd worked the full eight hours that they put fewer
hours on your cane tickets?
Speaker 2 (34:12):
More after the break So back in the courtroom, puncturing
the fog of the experts in the math were the cutters,
their personal stories. These were the men whom Dave and
Edward had brought over from Jamaica to testify. And this
was what it was all about, the heart of it all.
Speaker 8 (34:32):
Willie gary Cross examined a fellow in the Atlantic trial
named Clinton James was a really good guy. We brought
him up for the trial. He lives in Jamaica. He's
on the witness stand and Willie's Cross examining him, and
Willy says something like this. He goes, so, you know,
if the pay was so bad, why did you keep
coming back year after year after year? And Clinton responds,
(34:54):
he says, well, he says, a quarter of a slice
of bread is better than no bread at all, which
was very much the attitude these guys. They knew they
were getting cheated, but they didn't know how.
Speaker 2 (35:07):
In his testimony on the stand, Clinton talks about where
he lived in the barracks, and meanwhile a tear slips
out when he remembers it all eating rice every day.
But then Willy brings it back to what this trial
is all about. Did Clinton James ever understand that there
was an agreement between the parties to pay by the ton?
What did Clinton James say? He said, no, he'd never
(35:30):
heard of it.
Speaker 5 (35:32):
The workers one question, they didn't understand the theory. What
they understood was they said, I don't think I got paid, right.
I know I worked for more than I got paid,
But that wasn't what the theory was about. And so
the worker testimony also was at odds with what the
theory they were asking the jury to adopt.
Speaker 3 (35:49):
Was.
Speaker 2 (35:50):
The jury retires, Dave and Edward feel like they'd done
all they could. They don't know if the jury is
going to agree with them. They're five dollars thirty cents
a ton. Theory, this wasn't about the workers working for
more than they got paid, though we'll return to that later,
And keep in mind how much is on the line,
millions of dollars for both the cutters and lawyers, plus
(36:13):
all the work, money, and energy they'd sunk into this.
Dave and Edward are praying it wasn't for nothing.
Speaker 8 (36:20):
I was physically exhausted. I had been working seven days
a week, twelve or thirteen hours a day for that
whole period of time, including the weekends.
Speaker 2 (36:31):
So they're sitting there awaiting the jury's decision, and time
is passing. The jury still hasn't come back.
Speaker 8 (36:38):
When they didn't come right back in and pour us out,
you start to become optimistic. And the longer it goes,
I figured, the better it was for us.
Speaker 2 (36:47):
So they wait and look out the window of the courtroom.
Speaker 7 (36:51):
The courtroom looked out toward the marina. You could see
in the way distance. You could see many boats, could
see the ocean, and if.
Speaker 2 (37:02):
You squinted, you could just make out a yacht, a
massive yacht called Krey who owned that luxury vessel. Well,
the answer to that tells you a lot about what
went down in this case, and it stretched far beyond
the eleventh floor of the West Palm Beach Courthouse. The
(37:22):
verdict wasn't in yet. There's even more to unpack before
we get to that. You see, you've heard the names
of the companies and the people the lawyers are squaring
off against Atlantic Oakulanta Osceola, Florida Crystals, the companies that
make CNH Domino Sugar, and the family that owns these companies,
the fun Hools. But before we get to the outcome
(37:43):
of this case, you've got to know who the lawyers
are truly up against. You've got to meet the fun Holes.
Speaker 7 (37:57):
They were rich boys in the Havana of the nineteen fifties.
Their parents would have the Duke of Windsor and the
Duchess of Windsor coming to stay with them.
Speaker 2 (38:07):
It's an origin story of incredible wealth.
Speaker 7 (38:10):
They were probably one of the richest families in Cuba.
Speaker 2 (38:14):
And it's a story of revolution.
Speaker 7 (38:16):
Suddenly it's the shooting and people are having to flee
and run and run under cover and run for the
airport and run for Boats and Everyone Is Fleeing.
Speaker 2 (38:40):
Big Sugar is produced by Imagine Audio, Weekday Fund Productions
and novel for iHeartMedia. The series is hosted by me
Celeste Henley. Big Sugar is produced by Jeff Eisenman at
Weekday Fund Productions. It's executive produced by Karl Welker, Nathan
Kloke and Marie Brenner. Story editor and executive producer is
Joe Wheeler. The researcher is Nadia Metti. Production management from
(39:05):
Scherie Houston, Frankie Taylor and Charlotte Wolfe. Our fact checker
is Sona Avakian. Field reporting by Amber A. Mortage. Sound
design and mixing by Eli Block, Naomi Clark and Daniel Kempsen.
Original music composed by Troy McCubbin at Alloy Tracks. Additional
music by Nicholas Alexander. Special thanks to Alec Wilkinson, author
(39:29):
of the book Big Sugar, and Stephanie Black, director of
the documentary H two Worker. Big Sugar is based on
the Vanity Fair article in the Kingdom of Big Sugar
by Marie Branner.
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