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