A stench like that of rotten eggs enveloped the town, and residents began complaining of sudden ailments: headaches, burning eyes, nosebleeds, intestinal disorders. "They thought they were bringing this waste into a poor, ignorant community," says Friloux, "and we'd never have enough nerve to fight."
Within weeks, Grand Bois residents had hired New Orleans attorney Gladstone Jones III, then just 29. Like a John Grisham character, Jones, not two years out of Tulane University law school, found himself taking on the oil industry. "This case was intimidating," admits Jones. "But it's a lot easier to have confidence when you know you're right."
Campbell Wells, an oil waste-disposal company, and its predecessor had been legally treating oil-field sludge—a mix of salt water, lead and chemicals like benzene and arsenic—in the once-pristine wetlands around Grand Bois since the early 1980s. (State and federal laws exempt oil companies from some environmental regulations.) But this time, when the convoy arrived from an Exxon oil-production facility in Alabama, something seemed different.
R.J. Molinere, 36, who runs an oil supply-boat company, recalls his son, then 6, waking up with a rash on much of his body. "It was like a stinging caterpillar had crawled all over him," says Molinere. Angel Orgeron, whose family lives 300 feet from one of the waste pits, was 3 when the delivery arrived. When she developed severe diarrhea, leg welts and involuntary blinking, her family sent her to relatives away from town. "She'll never be the girl she was," says her disabled father, Lyes Verdin.
No one in Grand Bois—where most people work blue-collar jobs in the seafood and oil industries—had much experience with lawyers or lawsuits. But a series of calls to environmental groups led them to Jones. "Because he was so young," says Stacey Molinere, "we thought he would fight very hard to make a name for himself."
Though Jones lacked experience, he seemed almost bred to be a lawyer. Born in Mississippi, he grew up in Washington, D.C., where his stepfather, John Kramer, taught law at Georgetown University. (Father Gladstone Jr., now 58, a county attorney in Mississippi, and Jones's mother, Sandra, 57, a former political consultant, divorced when Jones was 3.) "I don't think a day ever passed in my childhood when I didn't think I'd be a lawyer when I grew up," says Jones, who ended up in New Orleans when his stepfather became dean at Tulane's law school.
Jones had opened a solo practice and was looking for work when the Grand Bois residents hired him. In April 1994, he filed suit against Exxon and Campbell Wells on behalf of 301 residents of the town, claiming that material dumped there had caused physical and emotional injury as well as property damage. It took courage for the Grand Bois plaintiffs to sue, Jones says, since so many depend on the oil business for their livelihood. "Do you let the oil industry poison you and your family," he asks, "or do you stand up and say, 'I don't care who you are, you cannot rip the heart out of my community'?"
For four years, Jones practically lived in Grand Bois. "I don't think he'll ever be as emotionally attached to a case as this one," says his wife of 10 years, Amanda, 31, who pitched in as a legal assistant.
When the case of the first 11 plaintiffs went to trial on July 13 in Thibodaux, lawyers for the two companies challenged the Grand Bois residents, who for the most part lacked medical records to document their ailments. "In most cases they [the residents] waited years after the incident to seek medical attention," says Exxon spokesman Dave Gardner, "and only then because their attorney advised them to do so." (Grand Bois residents say that most of them can't afford health insurance and generally see doctors only in an emergency.) Gardner maintains the company disposed of oil-field waste legally and safely. Though a state-financed study of the town's women and children found that 74 percent showed symptoms often associated with heavy-metal poisoning, other studies, also paid for by the state, found no evidence that the air, water or soil around Grand Bois posed a danger.
In the end, the ambiguous evidence led to an ambiguous conclusion. Before the case went to the jury, Campbell Wells settled out of court, reportedly agreeing to pay between $5 million and $10 million to the 301 residents and to close the four sludge pits closest to town. That agreement stands. Then, on Aug. 9, the jury found in favor of four of the plaintiffs and ordered Exxon to pay just $35,000 in damages.
A day after the verdict, Gladstone and Amanda Jones drove to a Grand Bois church to see 50 of their clients, who greeted them with a round of applause and began the meeting with a prayer. "Thank you, God," intoned one woman, "for sending Gladstone Jones to represent us."
With the cases of 290 Grand Bois plaintiffs still pending against Exxon, Jones vows to fight on, and the residents are behind him. Says Clarice Friloux: "This is our fight. If we don't do this, someone else is going to suffer down the line."
Thomas Fields-Meyer
Chris Rose in Grand Bois
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