The Price of Justice

Starred review from March 18, 2013
Leamer’s newest (after King of the Night) is the riveting and compulsively readable tale of the epic battle between Don Blankenship, the man who essentially ran the West Virginia coal industry through his company Massey Energy, and two seemingly ordinary attorneys: Bruce Stanley and David Fawcett. The centerpiece of the story is a West Virginia mine owner whom Blankenship purposefully bankrupted, and on whose behalf Stanley and Fawcett won (in 2002) a $50 million dollar verdict that is still unpaid. In hopes of having the ruling overturned by the West Virginia Supreme Court, Blankenship sought to “buy” a seat on the court by contributing over $3 million to the successful campaign of a conservative judicial candidate. However, the U.S. Supreme Court eventually found that Blankenship’s contributions were too much to allow the new West Virginia justice to hear the case. Leamer has produced a Shakespearean tale of greed, corporate irresponsibility, and personal hubris on the one hand, and idealism, commitment to justice, and personal sacrifice on the other. Blankenship is a villain for all time, and Stanley and Fawcett are lawyers who bring honor to their profession. Agent: Joy Harris, The Joy Harris Literary Agency Inc.

April 15, 2013
A well-constructed nonfiction legal thriller from prizewinning journalist Leamer (Madness Under the Royal Palms: Love and Death Behind the Gates of Palm Beach, 2009, etc.). In 1998, Harman Coal Company, owned by Hugh Caperton, was destroyed in what was proven through the court system to have been a fraudulent declaration of "force majeure" by Donald Blankenship, then chairman of the massive coal company Massey Energy, one of the largest employers in West Virginia. Leamer uses the more than 14 years of court battles, organized by Dave Fawcett and Bruce Stanley, Caperton's Pittsburgh lawyers, as the scaffold on which he unfolds this amazing account of contemporary political corruption, skulduggery and mayhem, a situation compared by the New York Times to John Grisham's courtroom drama The Appeal. When, in 2002, Blankenship was defeated and Caperton awarded $50 million in damages, the coal king proceeded to buy his way through West Virginia's elected Supreme Court of Appeals to overthrow the verdict. According to Leamer, Blankenship gave "more money, by far [$3 million plus], than any other group or individual in any one judicial contest." The refusal of a corrupt judge to recuse himself was successfully pursued all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which declared that "a fair trial in a fair tribunal is a fundamental constitutional right." This, however, was not enough to secure financial redress for Caperton, whose appeals in West Virginia were rejected for a third time in 2009. The vote, his lawyers believed, "was not just a defeat but also an insult and attempt to silence them." The case proceeded against a background of blackmail, negligence and mining disasters, which eventually combined to precipitate Blankenship's ouster. An eye-opening story about the relations among politics, business and justice.

COPYRIGHT(2013) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

May 15, 2013

Leamer (Madness Under the Royal Palms: Love and Death Behind the Gates of Palm Beach) tells the true story of the legal clashes between coal baron Donald Blankenship, the head of Massey Energy, and attorneys Dave Fawcett and Bruce Stanley. In a drama that went all the way to the United States Supreme Court, Fawcett and Stanley sought reparations for a mine owner who was intentionally forced into bankruptcy by Blankenship. He tells the complex legal story well, making sense of the procedural machinations and crafting a compelling narrative that rivals good courtroom fiction. The author skillfully profiles his principles, documenting Blankenship's propensity for personal vendetta and his disregard for environmental considerations, an impartial judiciary, and mine safety. Fawcett and Stanley make a fascinating duo with marked personality differences but a single, determined goal of seeing justice served. There are extensive notes, a good bibliography, and a helpful list identifying the people who appear in the book. VERDICT This archetypal tale of might versus right is all the more riveting for being true. Readers in the legal profession and admirers of courtroom stories, whether fiction or nonfiction, will appreciate this book.--Joan Pedzich, formerly with Harris Beach PLLC, Pittsford, NY

Copyright 2013 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from April 1, 2013
Not content to dominate the coal-mining industry through Massey Energy and the West Virginia judicial system that indirectly supported it, CEO Don Blankenship ferociously punished anyone who dared to challenge that dominance. So, in 1998, when attorneys Bruce Stanley and Dave Fawcett went after Massey on behalf of their client, a small mining company, they set off a 14-year-long struggle that eventually took them to the U.S. Supreme Court to argue against corporate corruption of the judicial system. The legal intrigue that formed the basis of John Grisham's novel The Appeal (2008) includes fascinating real-life characters: vindictive, coldhearted Blankenship; folksy Stanley, a son of West Virginia; and meticulous, cause-driven Fawcett. Best-selling author Leamer offers a compelling nonfiction thriller that traces the story, steeped in the particular culture of dangerous coal country, from back-room influence peddling to courtroom drama, through arduous efforts to get and keep the issues before the media, and, finally, during the long, hard task of getting the case heard by the Supreme Court. Leamer is masterful at presenting the important issues, strong personalities, political and legal machinations, and economic stakes of the challenge to Massey, looking beyond the law to reveal a case about social inequities, greed, and arrogance.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)