The "Hog Wild" War by Robert A. Steadman
What's It About?
What started as a basic business transaction turns into a firestorm, one that could hardly be foreseen and one that Steadman develops into an intriguing narrative for readers of all interests.Are the executives at a multibillion-dollar company acting like pigs when they sacrifice the reputation and goodwill of their organization to squeeze out every last cent of profit from a small-time farmer?
The vice president for farm operations for one of the largest feed companies in the world shakes hands with Charlie Jackson, representing an “oral” agreement for the businessman-turned-local-farmer to set up a so-called parent farming operation for the farming giant’s new hog leasing program.
The locking of hands in lieu of a written contract between Charlie and Century Agricultural’s Jeremy Brand becomes the epicenter of controversy in author Robert A. Steadman’s new legal novel The “Hog Wild” War!, which recounts a real-life case Steadman tried as a lawyer in the early 1960s. He describes the book as a novel in order to take dramatic license with some of the court scenes.
A Hog Wild Case Goes to Court
Jackson, a successful manufacturing executive forced to give up his career after a debilitating flying accident, purchases a farm with his wife for its peace and tranquility. When his new life becomes too dull, he takes up with Century, with the promise of significant gains on his investment.
But when Jackson is informed in an impromptu phone call with Brand that Century had cancelled its initiative two years earlier and Jackson can’t recover anything due to the nature of the oral agreement and the Statute of Frauds, the battle is set in motion.
It was not only the impact but the attitude that appalled Jackson. “Century swatted me like a fly,” he later testified, “and, as one of the largest and most powerful corporations in the world, has turned its back on my damage as though I don’t exist.” That damage was tabulated at about $140,000.
Steadman, a contented small-town country lawyer, reluctantly gets involved with the case and represents his friend Jackson. Jackson has built a career as a fighter and, as David, wants to give Goliath all it can handle. Steadman advises from the outset that chances for victory are slim, taking on a statute that has held for 200 years.
But Steadman has a trick or two up his sleeve, and stumbles upon a doctrine that in the end will provide his only chance.
Business Transaction Turns Firestorm
Readers immerse themselves inside the mind of Steadman as he scours law books in search of a “Holy Grail.” They get an up-close peek into his research, his thinking, his theories and his frustrations. At times they will feel his hopelessness but devotion to being there for a friend even though they may be on a fruitless journey.
The book factors in everything going through Steadman’s head, from pillow talk discussions with his wife to his seeming abandonment of his law firm partners, who understand that Steadman is simply doing what he has to do.
What started as a basic business transaction turns into a firestorm, one that could hardly be foreseen and one that Steadman develops into an intriguing narrative for readers of all interests.
As for Jackson, Steadman writes, “When he joined in that handshake, he was doing so with an unsullied reputation for keeping his word. For Charlie, that’s one of the bedrocks that governs a civilized society: Men keep their word.”
“He assumed Century worked the same way. Boy was he wrong.”
Robert A. Steadman grew up in Marcellus, NY, and graduated from Wayne University Law School. in Michigan. He had the great fortune of working a year with the best attorney in Flint, MI, and one year as an assistant prosecutor, where he had an intensive introduction to trial work.
While learning to fly at Flint’s Bishop Airport, he met and married his instructor, Bernice Trimble, already a famous racing pilot. His aviation expertise later led to a position as corporate and trial attorney for Airway Insurance Company in Ann Arbor, where he defended aviation death cases from Massachusetts to Alaska. Bob was 81 when he tried and won his last jury case with an extremely rare verdict of fraud against a local bank. Now he enjoys fishing, hunting pheasants with his German Shorthair pointer, Belle, and playing bridge. His first book, I Killed Sam, is a novel based on the 1957 groundbreaking trial of a battered woman.
