THE APPEAL by John Grisham

Finished Th 5/9/19

This is a paperback that I picked up at the library sale a couple of months ago.
Grisham is a fantastic sociopolitical story teller- no one does it better!

A small town in rural Mississippi has been savaged by a major chemical manufacturer. The water is no longer drinkable, but hazardous. Bowmore is located in Carter County- now referred to as 'Cancer County'.

A husband and wife team of lawyers has just won a $41 million dollar settlement against the corporation.

The CEO of the company realizes that he must 'buy' a seat on the Mississippi supreme court. The balance is five to four- liberal bias. He needs that swing vote to be conservative and 'business friendly' and a proponent of 'tort reform'.

Conservative forces in Washington DC search the area for a candidate that they can promote. The find a man with sterling character, but only a lawyer with absolutely no experience as a judge. Ron Fisk didn't even have any aspirations toward the judicial branch.

The liberal swing vote was a woman who normally ran unopposed. The conservative forces spent over three million and use a smear campaign to get the seat for Ron Fisk.

Near the end of the novel is kind of a clunky sub-plot where Ron Fisk's son is insured in a baseball game. One of the kids is using an aluminum bat that was judged dangerous, banned, yet the company was not required to recall the faulty equipment. And when they bring the kid into the emergency room, the doctor reads the wrong x-rays. This causes much more brain damage and the hospital is clearly responsible for massive damages. Fisk realizes that he cannot come out 'for' damages because he was elected as a 'tort reform' candidate.

Fisk, as the swing vote, goes with the conservative majority on the court. However, in his summation he admits that the court has been 'purchased'.

The takeaway from the book is that 'buying' a judgeship might be a more effective way of governing that passing legislation, or even electing a president.

People will be unable to sue and receive compensation for malpractice. Lawyers won't even bother to take the cases because they know that whatever the result, if they win, they will be overturned in the supreme court.

Not mentioned in the book, but companies will slash safety features because they know that they'll never be held responsible for unsafe products.

I loved the book, and the day that I finished the book I got 'THE CAMBER' in the mail from Netflix. Another Grisham novel about a white Klansman who is on death row and his lawyer grandson tries to save him from the gas chamber. Gene Hackman as the Klansman and Faye Dunaway as his alcoholic sister.