Ordinary Americans take on a powerful corporation and change everything. The Prisoner’s Dilemma is a provocative story about what happens when private citizens try to sue corporations. When a poorly maintained truck loaded with tons of concrete loses its brakes, careens down a mountain, and collides with a school bus, killing 25 children, and the teacher, the parents decide to sue. They quickly learn they cannot because of a Supreme Court case from the late 1880’s that protects corporate leaders from personal liability. While corporations can be sued, corporate leaders cannot even though they make decisions that create major damage or loss of life. The case lands in Supreme Court where the fate of millions could depend on the single swing vote of a Justice.    Excerpt Chapter 34 Kirk Hopkins knocked on the office door of Bert Russo. Russo looked up from his copy of the Financial Times. “Well, what do you have?” “It seems that our investigation turned up something on Killiam. About sixteen or seventeen years ago, Killiam was accused of unethical behavior. He was working at McGarrity and Lyons Law Firm at the time. He was severely reprimanded by the Connecticut Bar Association, had his license suspended for six months, paid a heavy fine and received a letter of reprimand that was put in his file at work. He left McGarrity and when his license was restored, he started his own practice. He’s been on his own ever since.” “What was the incident?” “We’re trying to track that down. Apparently, afterwards he was good to go as far as his law practice goes. The Bar removed the reprimand after three years and McGarrity destroyed the letter in their files.” “Keep working on it. We need every bit of leverage we can get. When we find out, we’ll go public. The Court will never admit him to the Supreme Court Bar and he’ll have to drop the case. By the time someone else gets up to speed, the Court session will be over.” “We should find out in a couple of days, but even if we can’t, we can still intimidate him.”

Professional Reviews
An Attorney reacts to The Prisoner's Dilemma
Hi Mel,
Thank you so much for the book! I really enjoyed reading it! A Civil Action was the first book assigned to me going into law school, and I learned a lot of lessons from Jan Schlichtman.

I like the way you started with the insertion of the Santa Clara case. I didn't know about that.

In future editions, I hope you will develop the characters more, especially the children. You want to take your reader to the brink of despair to make them outraged enough to want to change the law. In order to do this, you have to breathe more life into the characters and children so the reader identifies with them ("it could have been me!") Also, it would increase your chances of making it to the big screen.

In Chapter 7, add some footnotes to explain the cases.

Cite some reference to the $200k value for the life of a child. Draw this out more to outrage the reader.

I like the theories used to overturn corporate personhood. The combo of the 5th, 13th, and 14th Amendments are sound, though 13th Am litigation goes nowhere unless there is literal slavery. I thought the idea of slavery through stock ownership was brilliant, even if it wouldn't fly in real life.

You did a good job explaining the Santa Clara case in Chapter 10.

I like how you had the parents form a non profit to pay for the litigation. That's a big problem in our judicial system in litigating against deep pockets. Depositions can average around $10k, experts can be $10k each, plus factor in legal fees (usually $300/hr), motions, delays, other discovery costs. Justice doesn't come cheap!

I really liked "How to be and Expert Witness" in Chapter 18. It was spot on.
The quotes from Lincoln, Jefferson, T, Roosevelt, and J's Black and Douglas against corporations were interesting.

Chapter 24 had some good advice about sticking it to corporations and defeating databases.

I liked Prison's Dilemma and Tragedy of the Commons and believe all law schools should utilize these exercises. I am glad that you are doing it with your students.

I love your shameless plug on page 214! LOL!

Good job portraying the back door deals of SCOTUS. (Supreme Court of the United States)

The 5th Am bootstraps the 14th Am protections to the federal government.

The 14th Am proscribes State conduct ("No State shall..."), so the Court used the 5th AM’s Due Process clause to apply the 14th Am to D.C. and other fed gov entities.

The Due Process Clause applies to substantive and procedural due process. Substantive rights are narrowly defined and the Court refuses to sculpt new rights. There is a substantive right to petition the court to redress grievances, and this right is imperiled when fighting deep-pocket entities.

However, under our current Justices, there is virtually no chance of winning under this argument even though it is legally sound.

Procedural due process only requires sufficient notice and the opportunity to be heard. It could be argued that a lack of money to fund litigation is a violation of the right to be heard, but the Court would rule that a party could proceed pro se and ask for reimbursement of costs (if successful) or forego expensive discovery all together.

The ABA is fighting to push a right to counsel for civil matters, but this has not been successful. If this ever comes to pass, your 5th Am arguments might have some weight.

You're better off lobbying legislators to change the law or broaden exceptions to "pierce the corporate veil." A constitutional amendment is highly unlikely, so the best chance is to work within the laws we already have.

Your plaintiff’s brief was excellent! Well done!

Julie Milner
Law Offices of Milner & Zheng
5 East Broadway, Suite 302
New York, NY 10038
(212) 227-8669

Oh I forgot to mention that I was happy with how the story ended with
a new relationship and the tour.

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