I’ve been writing about open questions in the Scruggs mess that may or may not be answered in Curtis Wilkie’s Fall of the House of Zeus. I’m going to isolate a question I asked in May of 2008, because there’s so much information to be gleaned, and because it highlights so many aspect of my reactions to this book.
I asked:
3. [NMC] What’s the full story on the 3% of the tobacco fees paid to Joey Langston — who is getting what parts, and are the Butler family (whom Joey’s brother Shane represented in a tobacco case) sharing some of that money?
There’s two bits about the Butler settlement. The whole mess is described in very general terms– that Ron Motley had been a lawyer in tobacco litigation in Jones County, the Butler case, that Motley was sued for malpractice in that case by Shane and Cindy Langston, that Scruggs called their brother Joey to see if he could settle the case. There’s a typical acceptance of a Scruggs point of view that sounds a little disengenousness about how Scruggs came to call Joey: ”‘Scruggs didn’t know Langston well, but he recalled sending a few asbestos cases his way after Steve Patterson, who now worked with Langston, asked for the business. Scruggs felt he was in a position to seek a favor.” The book notes that if Langston worked a deal, Scruggs “promised to assign 3 percent of his take from tobacco toward a settlement of the Butler disagreement. The conditions were vague, but some of Motley’s share of the tobacco money would also go to resolve Mrs. Butler’s complaint.”
NMC
10/6/10
Magnolia Tribune
