Airport (14 page)

A man’s voice called peevishly, “Get on with it!”

Zanetta nodded agreement. He continued speaking, picking his way–like a climber over rocks–between recurring peaks of sound from overhead. What the community of Meadowood must do, he declared, was to discard politeness and reasonable approaches to the airport authority and others. Instead, a purely legalistic attack must be the order from now on. The residents of Meadowood were citizens with legal rights, which were being infringed upon. Along with those legal rights went recourse to the courts; therefore, they must be prepared to fight in the courts, with toughness, even viciousness if necessary. As to what form a legalistic offensive should take, it so happened that a noted lawyer, Mr. Elliott Freemantle, whose offices were downtown in the Loop, had consented to be present at the meeting. Mr. Freemantle had made a study of laws affecting excessive noise, privacy and airspace, and, very soon, those who had braved the weather to attend would have the pleasure of hearing this distinguished gentleman. He would, in fact, present a proposal…

As the clichés rolled on, Elliott Freemantle fidgeted. He passed a hand lightly over his barber-styled, gray-streaked hair, fingering the smoothness of his chin and cheeks–he had shaved an hour before the meeting–and his keen sense of smell confirmed that the exclusive face lotion, which he always used after shaving and sunlamp sessions, still lingered. He recrossed his legs, observing that his two-hundred dollar alligator shoes still gleamed with mirror clearness, and was careful not to spoil the crease in the trousers of his tailored Blue Spruce pebble-weave suit. Elliott Freemantle had long ago discovered that people preferred their lawyers–unlike their doctors–to look prosperous. Prosperity in a lawyer conveyed an aura of success at the bar, success which those about to engage in litigation wanted for themselves.

Elliott Freemantle hoped that most of those in the hall would shortly become litigants, and that he would represent them. Meanwhile, he wished the old cluck of a chairman, Zanetta, would get the hell off his feet so that he, Freemantle, could take over. There was no surer way to lose the confidence of an audience, or a jury, than by letting them think faster than yourself, so that they became aware of what you were going to say before you said it. Freemantle’s finely honed intuition told him this was what was happening now. It meant that when his own turn came, he would have to work that much harder to establish his competence and superior intellect.

Some among his legal colleagues might have questioned whether Elliott Freemantle’s intellect was, in fact, superior. They might even have objected to the chairman’s description of him as a gentleman.

Fellow lawyers sometimes regarded Freemantle as an exhibitionist who commanded high fees mainly through a showman’s instinct for attracting attention. It was conceded, though, that he had an enviable knack for latching early onto causes which later proved spectacular and profitable.

For Elliott Freemantle, the Meadowood situation seemed custom made.

He had read about the community’s problem and promptly arranged, through contacts, to have his name suggested to several homeowners as the one lawyer who could most likely help them. As a result, a homeowners committee eventually approached him, and the fact that they did so, rather than the other way around, gave him a psychological advantage he had planned from the beginning. Meanwhile, he had made a superficial study of the law, and recent court decisions, affecting noise and privacy–a subject entirely new to him–and when the committee arrived, he addressed them with the assurance of a lifetime expert.

Later, he had made the proposition which resulted in this meeting tonight, and his own attendance.

Thank God! It looked as if Zanetta, the chairman, were finally through with his windy introduction. Banal to the last, he was intoning, “…and so it is my privilege and pleasure to present…”

Scarcely waiting for his name to be spoken, Elliott Freemantle bounded to his feet. He began speaking before Zanetta’s buttocks had made contact with his chair. As usual, he dispensed with all preliminaries.

“If you are expecting sympathy from me, you can leave right now, because there won’t be any. You won’t get it at this session, or others we may have later. I am not a purveyor of crying towels, so if you need them, I suggest you get your own, or supply each other. My business is law. Law, and nothing else.”

He had deliberately made his voice harsh, and he knew he had jolted them, as he intended to.

He had also seen the newspaper reporters look up and pay attention. There were three of them at the press table near the front of the hall–two young men from the big city dailies and an elderly woman from a local weekly. All were important to his plans, and he had taken the trouble to find out their names and speak to them briefly before the meeting started. Now, their pencils were racing. Good! Cooperation with the press always ranked high in any project of Elliott Freemantle’s, and he knew from experience that the best way to achieve it was by providing a lively story with a fresh angle. Usually he succeeded. Newspaper people appreciated that–a lot more than free drinks or food–and the livelier and more colorful the story, the more friendly their reportage was inclined to be.

He returned his attention to the audience.

Only a shade less aggressively, he continued. “If we decide, between us, that I am to represent you, it will be necessary for me to ask you questions about the effect of airport noise on your homes, your families, your own physical and mental health. But do not imagine I shall be asking the questions because I care personally about these things, or you as individuals. Frankly, I don’t. You may as well know that I am an extremely selfish man. If I ask these questions, it will be to discover to what extent wrong has been done you under the law. I am already convinced that some wrong has been done–perhaps considerable wrong–and, in that event, you are entitled to legal redress. But you may as well know that whatever I learn, and however deeply I become involved, I am not given to losing sleep about the welfare of my clients when I’m away from my office or the courts. But…” Freemantle paused dramatically, and stabbed a finger forward to underscore his words. “But, in my office and in the courts, as clients, you would have the utmost of my attention and ability,
on questions of law
. And on those occasions, if we work together, I promise you will be glad I am on your side and not against you.”

Now he had the attention of everyone in the hall. Some, both men and women, were sitting forward in their chairs, striving not to miss any words as he paused–though for the minimum time–as aircraft continued overhead. A few faces had become hostile as he spoke, but not many. It was time, though, to relax the pressure a little. He gave a swift, short smile, then went on seriously.

“I inform you of these things so that we understand each other. Some people tell me that I am a mean, unpleasant man. Maybe they are right, though personally if ever I want a lawyer for myself I’ll make sure of choosing someone who
is
mean and unpleasant, also tough–on my behalf.” There were a few approving nods and smiles.

“Of course, if you want a nicer guy who’ll hand you more sympathy, though maybe a bit less law”–Elliott Freemantle shrugged–“that’s your privilege.”

He had been watching the audience closely and saw a responsible-looking man, in heavy rimmed glasses, lean toward a woman and whisper. From their expressions, Freemantle guessed the man was saying, “This is more like it!–what we wanted to hear.” The woman, probably the whisperer’s wife, nodded agreement. Around the hall, other faces conveyed the same impression.

As usual on occasions like this, Elliott Freemantle had shrewdly judged the temper of the meeting and calculated his own approach. He sensed early that these people were weary of platitudes and sympathy–well-meaning but ineffective. His own words, blunt and brutal, were like a cold, refreshing douche. Now, before minds could relax and attention wander, he must take a new tack. The moment for specifics had arrived–tonight, for this group, a discourse on the law of noise. Tbe trick to holding audience attention, at which Elliott Freemantle excelled, was to stay half a mental pace ahead; that much and no more, so that those listening could follow what was being said, but must remain sufficiently alert to do so.

“Pay attention,” he commanded, “because I’m going to talk about your particular problem.”

The law of noise, he declared, was increasingly under study by the nation’s courts. Old concepts were changing. New court decisions were establishing that excessive noise could be an invasion of privacy as well as trespass on property rights. Moreover, courts were in a mood to grant injunctions and financial recompense where intrusion–including aircraft intrusion–could be proven.

Elliott Freemantle paused while another takeoff thundered overhead, then gestured upward. “I believe you will have no difficulty in proving it here.”

At the press table, all three reporters made a note.

The United States Supreme Court, he went on, had already set a precedent. In
U.S. v. Causby
the court ruled that a Greensboro, North Carolina, chicken farmer was entitled to compensation because of “invasion” by military planes flying low above his house. In handing down the
Causby
decision, Mr. Justice William O. Douglas had stated, “…if the landowner is to have full enjoyment of the land, he must have exclusive control of the immediate reaches of the enveloping atmosphere.” In another case reviewed by the Supreme Court,
Griggs v. County of Allegheny
, a similar principle was upheld. In state courts of Oregon and Washington, in
Thornburg v. Port of Portland
and
Martin v. Port of Seattle
, damages for excessive aircraft noise had been awarded, even though airspace directly above the plaintiffs had not been violated. Other communities had begun, or were contemplating, similar legal action, and some were employing sound trucks and movie cameras as aids to proving their case. The trucks took decibel readings of noise; the cameras recorded aircraft altitudes. The noise frequently proved greater, the altitudes lower, than airlines and airport management admitted. In Los Angeles, a homeowner had filed suit against L. A. International Airport, asserting that the airport, by permitting landings on a newly extended runway close to his home, had taken an easement on his property without due process of law. The homeowner was claiming ten thousand dollars which he believed to be equivalent to the decrease in value of his home. Elsewhere, more and more similar cases were being argued in the courts.

The recital was succinct and impressive. Mention of a specific sum–ten thousand dollars–evoked immediate interest, as Elliott Freemantle intended that it should. The entire presentation sounded authoritative, factual, and the product of years of study. Only Freemantle himself knew that his “facts” were the result, not of poring over law reports, but of two hours, the previous afternoon, spent studying newsclippings in a downtown newspaper morgue.

There were also several facts which he had failed to mention. The chicken farmer ruling of the Supreme Court was made more than twenty years earlier, and total damages awarded were a trifling three hundred and seventy-five dollars–the actual value of some dead chickens. The Los Angeles suit was merely a claim which had not yet come to trial and might never do so. A more significant case,
Batten v. U.S.
, on which the Supreme Court had ruled as recently as 1963, Elliott Freemantle knew about but conveniently ignored. In
Batten
, the court accepted that only an actual “physical invasion” could create liability; noise alone did not do so. Since, at Meadowood, there had been no such invasion, the
Batten
precedent meant that if a legal case was launched, it might well be lost before it was begun.

But lawyer Freemantle had no wish for this to be known, at least not yet; nor was he overly concerned whether a case, if brought to court, might eventually be won or lost. What he wanted was this Meadowood homeowners group as clients–at a whopping fee.

On the subject of fee, he had already counted the house and done some mental arithmetic. The result delighted him.

Of six hundred people in the hall, he estimated that five hundred, probably more, were Meadowood property owners. Allowing for the presence of husbands and wives together, it meant there was a minimum of two hundred and fifty prospective clients. If each of those two hundred and fifty could be persuaded to sign a one hundred dollar retainer agreement–which Elliott Freemantle hoped they would before the evening was over–a total fee in excess of twenty-five thousand dollars seemed decidedly within reach.

On other occasions he had managed precisely the same thing. It was remarkable what you could accomplish with audacity, particularly when people were white hot in pursuing their own interests. An ample supply of printed retainer forms was in his bag.
This memorandum of agreement between………… hereinafter known as plaintiff/s and Freemantle and Sye, attorneys at law… who will undertake plaintiff/s legal representation in promotion of a claim for damages sustained due to aircraft use of the Lincoln International Airport facility… Plaintiff/s agrees to pay the said Freemantle and Sye one hundred dollars, in four installments of twenty five dollars, the first installment now due and payable, the balance quarterly on demand… Further, if the suit is successful Freemantle and Sye will receive ten percent of the gross amount of any damages awarded…

The ten percent was a long shot because it was highly unlikely that there would ever be any damages to collect. Just the same, strange things sometimes happened in law, and Elliott Freemantle believed in covering all bases.

“I have informed you of the legal background,” he asserted. “Now I intend to give you some advice.” He flashed one of his rare, quick smiles. “This advice will be a free sample, but–like toothpaste–any subsequent tubes will have to be paid for.”

There was a responsive laugh which he cut off brusquely with a gesture. “My advice is that there is little time for anything else but action. Action now.”