The financial effects of a simple lawsuit can have a huge effect on a business. The novel known as The Appeal by John Grisham is a perfect example of that. The story starts out as a law firm known as Payton & Payton wins a large lawsuit against chemical company Krane Chemical for contaminating the drinking water. The story goes back and forth between many different perspectives as Krane Chemical tries to build up an appeal against the lawsuit to avoid their business from going bankrupt. However, in business, honesty doesn’t always exist.
We start out with two main characters. We have Carl Trudeau, the Chief Executive Officer of Krane Chemical, and we have Mary Grace, a lawyer representing her clients on behalf of Payton & Payton (which her husband runs). Upon reading the first few chapters, you already begin to realize that both Carl and Mary are very aggressive, sneaky, and determined. They both want to win the lawsuit and will each do whatever sneaky tricks possible to achieve a verdict in their favor. Throughout the story you see Mary Grace start to become a more hopelessly upset and angered character due to the threatening appeal from the chemical company. Whereas Carl starts to become a worried and scared character at first, but slowly turns into an evil mastermind. Although often their personality and physical appearance can be quite unclear, we know for sure that Carl and Mary will do anything to destroy each other’s business and they’re persistent in doing so.
As things start to unfold, we begin to see a some major problems for Mr.Trudeau. He is faced with a major problem, his company is facing bankruptcy and he needs to protect confidence from investors. With share prices dropping from $40 down to $19 in a matter of hours, the company needs to win their appeal to ensure that they’ll be able to continue operating and be able to please investors. Thanks to Payton & Payton for suing them for the deaths of many people, they find themselves in this desperate situation. However, Carl starts to think of something geneous. If he buys all the shares in his business while they’re low, pay a few million to get the federal judge he wants, and then win the appeal, he’ll be able to not only save his business, but profit tremendously in the process. Throughout the course of the novel, they train the federal judge so that finally they can be rid of the annoying law firm that’s suing them for millions and killing their market value.
This novel’s focus on the sneaky ways of business is quite something. It really makes a person wonder if corporations in real life actually buy members of the government to benefit themselves or what corporations are really getting away with. It’s hard to know but truly makes someone want to find out. This is what make’s the novel interesting. This can very easily happen in real life and there’s probably been scenarios similar to it, but hopefully not. It’s the kind of book that starts making a person rethink their whole view on governments, politics, and the court system.
Overall, this book was a very satisfying read. If there wasn’t the switch between two different scenarios and if it focused more on one central character, it might have been easier to understand but that’s just my opinion. It has a large foundation of law, economics, politics, and business which are subjects that I happen to take an interest to. Upon reading this, I feel as though I have a better understanding of the court system and of business as a whole which is what I aimed to get out of this book. That makes me happy and if you like the kind of things that I like, you’ll love it too!
Thomas Burleigh 