Price of Justice

Don Blankenship, head of Massey Energy since the early 1990s, ran an industry that provides nearly half of Americas electric power. But wealth and influence werent enough for Blankenship and his company, as they set about destroying corporate and personal rivals, challenging the Constitution, purchasing the West Virginia judiciary, and willfully disregarding safety standards in the companys mines—in which scores died unnecessarily.

As Blankenship hobnobbed with a West Virginia Supreme Court justice in France, his company polluted the drinking water of hundreds of citizens while he himself fostered baroque vendettas against anyone who dared challenge his sovereignty over coal mining country. Just about the only thing that stood in the way of Blankenships tyranny over a state and an industry was a pair of odd-couple attorneys, Dave Fawcett and Bruce Stanley, who undertook a legal quest to bring justice to this corner of America. From the backwoods courtrooms of West Virginia they pursued their case all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, and to a dramatic decision declaring that the wealthy and powerful are not entitled to purchase their own brand of law.

The Price of Justice is a story of corporate corruption so far-reaching and devastating it could have been written a hundred years ago by Ida Tarbell or Lincoln Steffens. And as Laurence Leamer demonstrates in this captivating tale, because its true, its scarier than fiction.

“Laurence Leamer does a superb job of condensing this fifteen-year legal brawl into a highly readable and entertaining narrative.  Greed, arrogance, injustice, corruption - it has it all, and, sadly, its all true.  Fortunately, it also has some heroes.  This is a book I wish I had written.”—John Grisham

“The Price of Justice is the nail-biting, harrowing story of two courageous trial lawyers facing down corporate greed, Wall Street law firms, powerful politicians and corrupt judges in the hardscrabble and dangerous coal fields of West Virginia to protect the safety of miners and the health of our nation. I have nothing but admiration for these lawyers and this modern-day David and Goliath tale.”—Morris Dees, Founder and Chief Trial Counsel, Southern Poverty Law Center

Don Blankenship, head of Massey Energy since the early 1990s, ran an industry that provides nearly half of Americas electric power. But wealth and influence werent enough for Blankenship and his company, as they set about destroying corporate and personal rivals, challenging the Constitution, purchasing the West Virginia judiciary, and willfully disregarding safety standards in the companys mines—in which scores died unnecessarily.

As Blankenship hobnobbed with a West Virginia Supreme Court justice in France, his company polluted the drinking water of hundreds of citizens while he himself fostered baroque vendettas against anyone who dared challenge his sovereignty over coal country. Just about the only thing that stood in the way of Blankenships tyranny over a state and an industry was a pair of odd-couple attorneys, Dave Fawcett and Bruce Stanley, who undertook a legal quest to bring justice to this corner of America. From the backwoods courtrooms of West Virginia they pursued their case all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, and to a dramatic decision declaring that the wealthy and powerful are not entitled to purchase their own brand of law.

The Price of Justice is a story of corporate corruption so far-reaching and devastating it could have been written a hundred years ago by Ida Tarbell or Lincoln Steffens. And as Laurence Leamer demonstrates in this captivating tale, because its true, its scarier than fiction.