Original subtitles

- This is for white paper, this is for colored paper,

this is for newspaper, this is for shiny paper.

- Benny, try not to spend the whole day on this.

You know what I mean?

- OK.

- Where's my buddy?

Hey, Ben.

- Dominic?

- There he is.

How's it going, chief?

- Dominic, hi.

- Put out your hand.

- How come?

- Put out your hand.

I got something for you.

Ha ha.

I wheeled an exact in the eighth race at a 25 to 1 shot.

Bingo.

He has no idea what I'm talking about.

We had a very big day today, Ben.

There's three large right in the palm of your hand.

- Oh thanks.

This is my friend Dominic.

- Don't dribble on your shirt.

- How do you do? - Fine.

Thank you. Nice to make your acquaintance.

Very beautiful offices you have here.

Very nice.

Very centrally located.

- Where do you know Benny from?

- Oh, we sit at the counter at Du-par's and have

supper every night.

- Are we still doing the thing?

- What thing?

- The place you said we were going.

- Yeah, if I said we're going, we're going.

- Going where?

- It's a secret.

- Oh this guy.

Everything's a big game.

It's no big deal, Benny.

- Well, it is to me.

- Don't get all emotional on me, all right?

- Sorry.

- OK, now there's a two-year-old running today

that looks very good to me.

OK, Darryl Vienna's the trainer.

McCarron's up.

I intend to show this horse some support

by going out to the track and betting next month's rent.

Who's coming along?

- We have work to do, Dominic.

- Well, are you sure it's nothing that can wait?

- Thanks anyway.

I don't think so.

- How about you, dear?

You interested in dating a jockey?

- Excuse me? - All right.

Never mind. Listen, Benny.

Don't spend it all on comic books, huh?

I'll see you for supper same time, same station?

Nice meeting you's.

Yeah.

[music playing]

- All right, folks.

Busy day today.

Let's get on with it.

The Craig estate.

- I'll handle that myself, Douglas.

- I'm available if you need me.

- Well, thank you.

- Given the length of time that I've known the family,

I think Vivian would be more comfortable if she

had to deal only with me.

- Moving on.

McAllister versus the United States Postal Service.

- Brian McAllister's wife was shot and killed

by a deranged co-worker.

- What's the cause of action?

- Wrongful death.

- If the co-worker's deranged, how do you get liability

on the part of the post office?

- Negligent supervision together with a particularly

high-stress work environment.

- Excuse me.

The post office is high stress?

- The way it's run now, it is.

- Hey, delivering the mail is not high stress.

This is high stress.

What we do is high stress.

- And I think that at least a few of us

here are probably deranged as a result of it.

- Melina, wasn't this matter supposed to be settled?

- It's not for want of trying that it isn't, Douglas.

- Unfortunately, what that means for us is that you're going

to be consumed with a trial.

- You're worried about Southern Pacific Savings.

- You're right. - What's the problem?

- The problem is we've been called in

by their general counsel to perfect an appeal

and the clock is ticking.

- What's the lawsuit about?

- Discriminatory lending practices.

- We're representing the bank? - Yes.

We're representing the bank.

And my hope is that we represent the bank well enough that we

get to represent other banks.

- All right, Douglas. Calm down.

- All I know is you better get some help.

- I will, Douglas.

I will.

- I'm available.

- Melina, this is a complicated case.

Get some help.

- Jonathan.

I'm sorry.

I don't have it yet.

- What?

- That law review article you asked me to bring in.

Between the trial, and the appeal,

and all the rest of what's on my desk,

I just didn't have time to look for it.

I'm sorry. - Don't worry about it.

- Because I have to go digging through this whole bunch

of boxes.

And I didn't have a spare moment in which to do it.

- Melina, it's OK.

- I feel badly, Jonathan.

I promised I would help you with your brief

and I haven't done it.

- You're busy.

- Yes.

- You need to lighten your load.

- How do I do that?

- Just do it any way you can.

- Benny, we'd like you to tell us a little bit more

about this friend of yours.

- What do you want to know?

- For starters, we'd like to know why

it was that he gave you $3,000.

- The horse he bet on won.

- But why did he give you money?

- He always gives me money when the horse wins.

I give him money to bet with, and he gives

me money if the horse wins.

And sometimes, I think even if the horse comes in second,

he can still win.

- You give him money to bet with.

- Yeah.

- How much money do you give him?

- Oh, that depends on how much money he needs to bet with.

Sometimes, he doesn't bet anything.

And other times, he says, you got to bring down the hammer.

That's what he calls it.

And I give him $100, $200.

One time, I gave him $500.

- Benny, you have to stop doing that.

- Well, why? - Why?

Because you work hard for your money.

You don't have that much of it.

And you shouldn't be giving it to some guy

to blow at the track.

- But he didn't blow it.

He won.

The other night, I gave him $200.

And yesterday, he gave me $3,000.

- That's yesterday.

What's he going to do tomorrow?

- I don't know.

The paper that has all the different horses

that are running comes out in the morning.

- Benny, the point is that he shouldn't

be doing this with your money.

He should be doing it with his money.

- But he doesn't have any money.

- Then he shouldn't be gambling.

He should be working.

- Well, he says that gambling is working.

He says, some people go to the office to work

and other people go to the track.

- Benny, this guy is taking advantage of you.

- It's OK, guys.

Really.

I don't mind giving him money.

He's my friend.

- The fact that Nathaniel didn't leave a will

means the estate goes to you, Vivian.

- Which is as it should be, mom.

You do with it whatever you see fit.

- Well, Leland, tell me this.

Are we all right as far as taxes go?

- Yes.

We can pay whatever is owed out of savings.

- I'll go on living in the house since we own that.

And I'll keep whatever investments

we've made through the years.

There are a lot of other things I want you kids to have.

And I'd like you to decide who gets what.

- Mom, we want what you want.

- Well, why don't you let her tell us what they are.

- Well, Leland, you have the list.

Why don't you go through it?

- Yes.

There are golf clubs.

- Frank.

- Well, I don't want them.

- I guess Dick could use an extra set.

- There's a 1975 Cadillac.

- Mom, why don't you keep that?

- I don't need two cars, Judith.

- Frank, you take it.

- All right.

- There's a stamp collection.

I've taken the precaution of putting it in the vault.

- Which, if no one wants it, I'd really love to have.

- Well, I certainly don't.

- Do we know what it's worth?

- I have no idea.

I just have the most incredibly vivid memories of dad shutting

himself in his study with the door closed

and the blinds drawn pouring over his stamps.

- I'd like to get some idea of what it's worth, Judith.

- I can remember him telling us we couldn't

even knock on his door as long as he

was working on those stamps.

- It would be nice for the kids.

- Well, I hate to stand in the way

but I'd like to find out what the stamp collection's worth.

- What it's worth in dollars, or what it's worth in memories?

- Dollars.

- Are you saying that you could sell dad's stamp collection?

- I'm up to my ears in debt, Judith.

You're damn right I would sell it.

- Oh, kids.

This is just what I didn't want to happen.

I don't want to see you fight about it.

- May I suggest that the first thing we do

is have the collection appraised?

That way we'll know whether it's worth selling

and what the tax situation is.

- I don't want to sell that stamp collection.

- It's nice to have money, isn't it, sis?

- My husband and I work for a living, Frank.

That's how you get to have money.

- All right. All right.

- The fact is that whether or not

you're going to sell the collection,

it has to be appraised for tax purposes.

- If it has to be appraised, have it appraised.

But you are not going to sell my father's stamp collection.

- We were married 7 and 1/2 years.

- Any children?

- Alexis is two, Susan just turned four.

- Did your wife work, Mr. McAllister?

- She worked where I worked at the Northfield

Postal Facility, regional distribution

center number five.

- And what were your jobs at the Northfield Postal Facility?

- We sorted mail.

- Did you know George Whelan?

- Yeah, he also sorted mail.

- Would you describe for us what it was like to work

at the Northfield facility?

- What it was like?

Well, they have a machine called an optical character reader.

It spits out 30,000 letters an hour.

There's a man with a stopwatch standing behind you timing

to see how long it takes you to read an address

and punch in the first three digits of the zip code.

- And what, if anything, would the man with the stopwatch

do if you weren't fast enough?

- Write you up.

If you move too slow, they write you up.

If you take too many steps, they write you up.

If you hold an envelope at the wrong angle,

if you're five minutes late for your lunch break,

if you don't ask permission to go to the bathroom, anything,

everything, they write you up.

I once saw them write up a 60-year-old woman for showing

a picture of her grandchild.

You have no idea what it's like in there.

- Would you describe the event that

took place on April 15, 1991?

- I was finishing my shift.

And George Whelan walked out on the floor

and asked me if I'd seen our postmaster, Mr. Daggett.

I told him I hadn't.

He turned around and walked toward the door.

Next thing I knew, he had a gun in his hand.

- Did you see him fire that gun?

- Yes, I did.

When Mr. Daggett came out of his office, he fired at him.

- And what happened after he fired at him?

- He got my wife instead.

She just punched in and was walking out to the floor.

She caught a bullet right in the head.

She died in my arms.

- Mr. McAllister, you hold that the Postal

Service is responsible for your wife's death.

I'd like you to explain to us why.

- Because George Whelan never would

have done what he did if the Postal Service

hadn't driven him to do it.

- Thank you.

Nothing further.

- Mr. McAllister, I'm very sorry about your wife.

But there are a few questions I have to ask you.

Did you observe anything unusual about George Whelan

prior to the day of the shooting?

- Did I?

No, I didn't. I didn't know the man that well.

- You worked together.

Why didn't you know him that well?

- There are 600 people working there.

- That's right, Mr. McAllister.

There are 600 people working there.

Yet you maintain, do you not, that it

was incumbent on the supervisory personnel

at the facility to not only know this man but to know him

well enough to predict what he would do.

- They knew the pressure he was under.

They knew the pressure we were all under.

- But all of you didn't do what this man did.

All of you didn't take a gun and start shooting.

- No, but George Whelan's not the only postal worker

who has though, is he?

- There are more than 700,000 employees in the United

States Postal Service.

What percentage of them do you suppose

have behaved as Mr. Whelan has? - I have no idea.

- Objection.

The witness isn't qualified to answer.

- That objection is sustained.

- Hey, my wife wasn't supposed to get shot.

My kids weren't supposed to lose their mother.

- That's absolutely true, Mr. McAllister.

The question is, who's to blame?

- Right.

And according to you, no one's to blame.

George Whelan's insane.

So you can't blame him.

The post office is too big and too busy.

So you can't blame them.

According to you, it just happened, right Mr. Spitzer?

Because according to you, it's one

of life's little oddball tragedies and it just happened.

- Mr. McAllister.

- You're wrong, Mr. Spitzer.

Wrong.

It didn't just happen.

George Whelan didn't just one day go insane.

- Mr. McAllister.

- Sons of bitches like the man at that table drove him insane.

He's the one to blame.

- Mr. McAllister--

- He didn't pull the trigger, but he's

the one who killed her.

- These are the transcripts from the trial and the briefs

that were submitted.

Read them, digest them.

We'll talk about them tomorrow.

- OK.

- Go ahead and use my office.

Start culling through the cases that were cited.

And if anything jumps out at you that you need an answer for,

call the general counsel's office at the bank.

- I can call them?

- By all means.

Because I am going to be buried under this trial for at least

a week.

No one here knows anything about the case.

So if you need to know something,

call the bank's lawyers.

- I have to say I kind of hate the idea of working on the side

of the bank in this case.

- Why is that?

- Because I think they do discriminate

in their lending policy.

- Read the papers.

- I will.

- I think you'll find that the bank

was using very reasonable criteria

in evaluating the credit risks.

- Maybe it's just a matter of general principles.

- That's usually not a good way to decide

the merits of a specific case.

- No, you're right.

- I appreciate you doing this, Gwen.

I'm really underwater right now.

Tell us, Dr. Gerhart.

What is your field of expertise?

- The psychological effects of stress in the workplace.

- And have you spent much time at the Northfield

Postal Facility?

- Yes. I have.

- Have you examined George Whelan?

- Yes.

- And what observations are you prepared to make?

- That there was a direct link between conditions

at the postal facility and Mr. Whalen's actions on the day

he shot and killed Tina McAllister.

- In your opinion, what was responsible for that link?

- The workers are governed by machines at the Postal Service.

And whether we're talking about optical readers or stopwatches,

management has made it abundantly clear

that the pace of work has nothing

to do with human behavior, and everything to do

with mechanized efficiency.

Add to this draconian regulations

and few meaningful outlets for worker frustrations,

and you have the conditions that result

in tragedies like this one.

- In your opinion, could this tragedy have been prevented?

- Yes.

This wasn't the first episode of a violent behavior

on the part of a postal worker.

Far from it.

The fact is that there have been clusters of such behavior

ranging from homicides to suicides

to fistfights at postal facilities

all over the country.

Now, had management been willing to view these indications

as a fundamental problem and taken steps to remedy that,

this tragedy could have been prevented.

- Did the management in your opinion

have any basis to conclude that George Whelan was a person who

was likely to become violent?

- Again, the answer is yes.

See, contrary to popular myth, people

don't just suddenly snap.

In 17 years, George Whelan had never filed a single grievance.

Now suddenly, he was disciplined for a petty infraction.

And in the span of two weeks, he filed six.

He wrote three letters to supervisors

and requested an appointment to speak to Mr. Daggett, something

he had never done before.

Now, he made numerous references in his letters

to acts of violence committed at other postal facilities.

These were signals.

These were calls for help.

And anyone who was listening would have heard them.

- I have nothing further.

- You referred to the clusters of violent behavior

among postal workers.

Tell me something, doctor.

How does the Postal Service compare with other industries

in that regard?

- Not having done a statistical analysis on other industries,

I really couldn't say.

- In that I have done a little statistical analysis,

let me run the following figures by you.

The number of homicides and or suicides among postal workers

is 2.3 for every 500,000 workers.

Among hotel clerks, the rates 10 per every 500,000 workers.

Should we look into on-the-job stress

in the hotel industry, doctor?

- I'm sure you know, counselor, that those kind of statistics

are hardly what I base my conclusions on.

- Doctor, I don't think you base your conclusions

on any kind of statistics.

- Objection.

- Sustained.

- Is there scientific proof of any kind that on-the-job

stress was responsible for acts of violence in postal workers?

- Well, if you mean hard and fast verifiable data,

the answer is no.

- In other words, it's impossible to prove,

it's impossible to disprove.

It's a theory, isn't it, doctor?

- Yes.

- It's a theory that if accepted as fact will allow

the plaintiff in this case to collect a great deal of money

because the Postal Service is, after all, a deep, deep pocket.

Did you have that in mind by any chance

when you were formulating this theory?

- No.

I didn't.

- All right, doctor.

I have no further questions.

- Oh my.

- How does it look?

- This is quite a collection, not necessarily

in terms of its monetary value, although that's

not inconsiderable.

But primarily in terms of its intellectual organization,

its understanding of historical significance,

a superb series of 1923 imperforates,

a never-hinged plate block of a 1924 Huguenot-Walloon,

some fine examples of Graf Zeppelins.

This was a real collector.

- Well, that doesn't surprise me.

Nat was very methodical about everything he did.

He was a very thoughtful, rather scholarly, man.

- It shows.

- Do you have any idea yet as to how much it's worth?

- Well, from what I've seen thus far,

I would say we were into the mid five figure range.

And there are a couple of boxes that I

haven't been through as of yet.

Let's see what we have over here.

- All right.

- Speaking strictly as a fellow philatelist,

I can tell you there's much to admire here.

There are themes and confluences running throughout what

this man has done.

What is this?

- What?

- There's a false bottom in this box.

It appears that there's pornography

in here, Mr. Mackenzie.

- What?

- It appears that it didn't get in here by mistake, either.

- Well, I have no idea where it would have come from.

- There's quite an array, isn't there?

Look at this degradation.

- Did you know George Whelan, Mr. Daggett?

- Not personally.

No.

- Were you aware of the fact that he had requested

an appointment with you?

- I wasn't aware of it for the simple reason

that all employee communications are handled further

down the chain of command.

It was dealt with.

It just wasn't dealt with by me.

- Was there any mechanism in place

to deal with worker stress?

- Yes.

There's a referral service for psychological counseling.

There's the grievance procedure if an employee feels

he or she has been wronged.

And then of course, there's all of us, by which I mean

employees and supervisors both.

Our number-one resource at the US Postal Service

is our people.

We should never lose sight of that.

- In your opinion, was there any way

that you could have prevented this tragedy from happening?

- I wish there had been.

The truth is I don't know what I would have done differently.

I don't know what I could have done.

I'm trained to move the mail, not diagnose mental illnesses.

But what I want to say to Mr. McAllister

is this, that while I did not lose anyone dear to me,

I too was devastated by what happened.

I think I can safely say that all

of us whose lives were touched by this event

will never be the same.

- I have nothing further.

- Since you say that your life will never be the same,

I'd like to start by asking exactly how it's different.

- I'm not sure I know what you mean.

- Do you have the same work rules in place

now that you had in place before?

- Those work rules exist for a reason.

- Is that a yes?

- Yes.

- Do you still write people up for taking too many steps?

- We've conducted studies, Ms. Perros.

- Do you write them up for holding an envelope

at the wrong angle to read it?

- Those studies have shown us the optimally efficient

method to perform each task.

- And if someone deviates from that which is optimally

efficient, you bust them.

- I correct them.

That's my job.

- Isn't it also your job to provide

a work environment that's safe?

- What happened that day could have happened anywhere.

It could have happened on the street.

It could have happened on a bus.

It could have happened right here in this courtroom.

I tried to provide a work environment that's safe.

But sometimes, unforeseen events will

occur that render it otherwise.

- And it's your testimony that the work rules in place

at your facility did nothing to bring

about this unforeseen event.

- Look.

I have a very clear-cut mandate Ms. Perros.

Do it faster.

Do it cheaper.

Do it better.

People want their mail delivered.

They want it delivered promptly.

And they don't want the price of a stamp to go up

by as much as one single penny.

I do what I have to do to get the job done.

- Fix your collar.

We're not going on a bus.

We're going on an airplane.

Gotta look a little sharp.

- Do I look sharp now?

- Like a tech.

- I'm so excited.

I can't believe we're doing this.

- Remember what I told you.

This is a business trip.

- OK.

- We're a couple of businessmen.

We're going on a business trip.

If we should happen to enjoy ourselves along the way,

all well and good.

But the purpose of this trip is business.

- Business.

- You all packed? - Yeah.

- Good.

Let's make like a hockey stick and get the puck out of here.

Let's go.

- Oh.

- Where are you off to, Benny?

- Oh, I asked Douglas if I could leave early.

And he said it was OK.

- Where are you going?

- I gave out the mail, and I put extra paper in the copier,

and I cleaned up the kitchen.

- Benny.

- Tell her where we're going.

- We're going to Vegas.

[music playing]

- I'm going to get rid of it.

- You can't get rid of it, Leland.

It's hard core pornography, Stewart.

The family doesn't know about it.

What possible good would it do them to find out?

- Yeah, I guess I wouldn't want to know that my father

collected pornography.

- Your father collected pornography?

- No. - No.

No.

The deceased in this estate matter collected pornography.

- What do you mean by collected?

- I mean, collected.

I mean, boxes of magazines, films, playing cards,

a jigsaw puzzle.

- Have you seen it? - No, I haven't seen it.

- I really think everyone's interest would be best

served if I just destroyed it.

- Well, you can't destroy it, Leland.

You have a fiduciary relationship to the estate.

- But it's not as if it's worth any money.

- Are you sure?

- Are you telling me there's a market

in secondhand pornography?

- I don't know whether there is or there isn't.

But before you dispose of this stuff,

I think I ought to call Yale Tobias to come and take a look.

- Oh, that's a great idea.

- Yeah, his wife divorced him because of his collection

of pornography.

He's rich, he's obsessed, I think

we ought to get him in here.

- Give him a call, Arnold.

One way or another, I want that material out of my office.

- Where do you now reside, Mr. Whelan?

- I reside at Atascadero State Hospital,

Atascadero, California.

- And how long did you work for the Postal Service, Mr. Whelan?

- 17 years.

- Would you tell us what your job was?

- I sorted mail.

- Did you like your job?

- One time, I did.

- And did that change?

- Yes, it did.

- What happened?

- They wrote me up.

- What'd they write you up for?

- For being late.

- Were you late?

- No, I wasn't.

In 17 years of working there, I was never late.

I make something of a point of that.

I figure out how long it's going to take me to get from point A

to point B. I allow for traffic, I allow for weather,

and as a result of that, I'm always on time.

- Then why were you written up?

- Because a pipe broke in one of the restrooms.

As a result of that, they closed the entrance

I was accustomed to using.

As a result of that, I had to go around half the circumference

of the building to get in.

As a result of that, I was, in fact, late in punching in.

But I was not late in getting to work.

- How late were you in punching in?

- 10 minutes late, which I know seems trivial to many people,

but the rule was you had to be on time.

I have no quarrel with that rule.

In this instance, however, it wasn't my fault.

- Did you say that?

- I said it repeatedly.

I put it in writing.

I wanted that lateness notation expunged from my record.

- And were they willing to do that?

- No.

They weren't.

And because I was unwilling to let it go, I was disciplined.

- How were you disciplined.

- I was told to watch the scale.

They'd bring packages over to weigh them.

And I would see how much they weighed.

There were yellow lines painted on the floor.

And I was told to stay inside those lines my entire shift.

I was permitted out for lunch for two 10-minute breaks.

And if I had to go to the bathroom,

I'd ask permission to go.

- Why did you bring a gun to work, Mr. Whelan?

- Because I felt as though I had been unfairly treated.

And maybe I made too much of that.

I did make too much of it.

I know, Mr. Daggett, that you had a lot more on your minds

than my excuses.

If I was late, I was late.

Period.

But now that I have your ear, sir, there's

something else I'd like to say.

If you could find it in your heart to give me my job back,

you never have to worry about my being late again.

That's a promise.

- Benny, you need to tell us what's going on.

- What do you mean?

- We understand that your friend Dominic took you to Las Vegas.

- Yeah.

- Who paid?

- I did.

- I think we got to take some action here.

- What do you mean?

- What do I mean?

How much did you spend to go to Las Vegas, Benny?

- Well, airplane tickets were $387.

- Wait a second.

You paid for his ticket as well as your own?

- Uh-huh. - What else did you pay for?

- Well, I paid for chips.

- How much?

- $500 worth.

- Can we get a protective order?

- We can certainly try.

- What happened after you bought the chips?

- Dominic played this dice game they have.

If you throw the dice and get a seven, you win.

Or if you get another number and then you get it again, you win.

Or if you put a chip down on a square and somebody else

is throwing the dice-- - Yes.

We know. It's called craps.

We know what the game is.

- Dominic let me throw the dice.

And we kept winning.

And the man kept giving us more and more chips.

- Then what happened?

- Then we went and played blackjack

where you got to get 21.

And then the man kept giving us more and more chips.

And then I went over to the slot machines

and I kept putting quarters in until $50 in quarters came out.

- Benny, how much money did you have when you got there?

- $620.

- How much money did you have when you left?

- $3.75.

We had to take the bus home from the airport.

- I don't get it, Benno.

You're a thrifty guy.

You're smart with money.

Why are you doing this?

- It was fun, Arnie.

We saw Siegfried and Roy.

- He's got the complete Santa Cruz series.

The Svendborg bestiality plates.

These are very rare editions.

- Oh, how long is this going to take, Arnold?

- What I find most remarkable is the scholarliness

and the discipline evidenced in this collection.

Most collectors collect along the line of fetishes.

This gentleman's approach was historical.

There are pieces from Nazi Germany.

There's a wonderful soft core section

from the '50s with those Seabrook homes

of women posing with garden hoses and guitars.

- Arnold.

- Is the quote unquote "free love hippie years"

the Chicago School, the so-called existential

nymphomania period represented like I've never

seen it represented before.

- I take it that you're interested.

- Oh my God.

Yes.

- Correct me if I'm wrong, Leland.

I think what we're interested in doing here is

selling the entire collection.

- Absolutely.

- Arnold, you don't break up a collection like this.

I mean, even if I wanted to, what wouldn't I take?

The 8 millimeter reels?

- How much Yale?

- All right.

I can give you a check right now for--

$50,000.

- Mr. Tobias, we know what we've got here.

We know what the Svendborg bestiality

plates alone are worth.

Now, out of consideration to Arnold,

I'm showing you the collection before I

show it to anyone else.

But I'm not willing, and I'm not able as an executor

of the estate, to make any concessions on price.

- You think you can do better than $50,000?

- Yes I do.

I've already got a call from a Japanese collector

willing to buy the entire collection, sight unseen.

- Well, I am not letting this fall by the wayside

because I wanted to save a buck.

An opportunity like this comes along once in a lifetime.

And I am not about to let it pass me by.

I want this collection.

- How much do you want it?

- I want it very much.

- Do you want to tell me what it was were thinking

about when you fobbed off your responsibility for this appeal

on Gwen?

- What do you mean?

- I mean that Gwen's not a lawyer, Melina.

She's not authorized by either the state of California

or this firm to practice law.

- I asked her to assist me.

- She called the general counsel's office.

- So what?

- She spoke to one of their bank's senior attorneys.

- So what?

- Did it ever occur to you that the bank's attorneys, like most

attorneys, don't appreciate having their time taken up

explaining the fine points of an appellate brief

to someone who is themself not an attorney?

- Were the questions Gwen asked stupid questions?

- I don't think that's the least bit relevant.

You had no business bringing her into that case.

- Look.

I am doing what I have to do to manage my workload.

If she screwed up, I would take responsibility for that.

She didn't screw up.

She just violated what you and some other pompous

lawyer with a pole up his ass regard

as an inviolate caste system.

And for that, you're in here wasting

what precious few moments I have left in which

to prepare to go to court.

- Now, you listen to me, Melina.

And listen good.

I wouldn't be in here if I hadn't gotten a call

from the bank's attorney.

And I wouldn't have gotten that call if he hadn't been unhappy.

Now you may think that's insignificant.

Let me assure you, you're wrong.

This bank represents what could potentially

be a substantial source of revenue for this firm.

As the managing partner, it's my responsibility to do everything

in my power to make sure that potential is realized,

starting with making sure that their attorneys are

not unhappy.

Now, if you can't assure me of that, let me know

and I'll give this case to someone else.

- Douglas, I have been working till 10 o'clock

every night for two weeks.

I haven't had a day off in over a month.

Maybe you should give this to somebody else.

- Done.

- It's always difficult to understand

a tragedy to try and make sense out of the senseless.

An innocent woman dies and we all grieve.

Unfortunately, random violence is part of society.

A day doesn't go by that we don't

read about another murder, another shooting.

Is the post office a demanding high-stress environment

in which to work?

Undoubtedly.

Is there a connection between violence and the working

conditions at the post office?

We have no idea.

The only issue here, ladies and gentlemen,

is, did the management at the Northfield Postal Facility

cause George Whelan to do what he did?

All of us in varying degrees are under stress, punching a time

clock, pleasing your boss.

Those are stressful things.

Most of us, however, don't take a gun

to work and start shooting.

And none of us, if we did so, would be entitled to hold

our employers responsible.

While it may be comforting to believe

that a dangerous individual can somehow be singled out,

somehow be stopped, the truth is that no one

knows how to do that.

Does the post office regret that Tina McAllister was killed?

Absolutely.

But are they in any way to blame for her death?

Absolutely not.

- The defense counsel's right.

We all have stress.

If we work for a living, we depend on our boss's approval.

We need our paychecks.

And we want to do a good job.

And so we're vulnerable.

We're vulnerable to our boss's whims, to their moods,

to the pressures that they're under themselves.

There are some bosses who are reasonable and fair.

And there are some who are petty, and abusive, and cruel,

and they get away with being like that

because the people who work for them need their jobs.

I would maintain that the postal service is one such employer,

and that Richard Daggett is one such supervisor.

I would maintain that when a worker becomes

violent after having been repeatedly

hounded and humiliated, it's self evident why he's done so.

Grown men and women should not be treated like children,

should not have to ask permission

to go to the bathroom, or be expected

to perform like robots.

Heightened efficiency is no justification

for the systematic degradation of a human being.

And that's what was done to George Whelan.

And that's why Brian McAllister's wife is dead.

The postal service is to blame.

And it's only fitting and proper that they be made to pay.

[music playing]

- I've gotten an appraisal on the stamp collection.

Please.

- And?

- It's worth close to $80,000.

- Well, I guess that settles that question.

- There's no way I can persuade you not

to sell dad's stamp collection? - Sure there is.

You can give me $40,000.

- Now, there may be another solution.

Within your father's collection, I found some other items

that have considerable value.

- You mean, not stamps?

- Right.

Not stamps.

- What did you find?

- Oh, well, I found some men's magazines and some film.

And I found--

I found pornography.

- That didn't belonged to my father.

- When you say pornography, how much pornography

are you talking about?

- $110,000 worth.

- I don't believe that.

- You actually have someone willing to pay that much?

- Yes.

Yes I do.

- How many dirty magazines did the old man have?

- Well, there's quite a few.

- I think I'm going to be sick.

- Well, let me suggest that what it does allow you to do

is keep the stamp collection and sell the pornography,

and split the difference between the value of the two.

- I don't want to have anything from the sale

of his pornography.

- Well, you are entitled to it.

- I don't want it.

That's what he was doing in his study?

- It's not like that's all he was doing.

- I have to get out of here.

- Well, we're supposed to sit down with your mother

today and let her know what we're going to do.

- Fine.

Right now, I just have to be by myself.

- Judith, come on.

He spent part of the time on his stamp collection, right?

- Yeah, yeah.

Well, yeah.

- The matter of McAllister versus the US Postal Service.

Has the jury reached a verdict?

- We have, your honor.

- How say you?

- We find for the plaintiff an award damages

in the amount of $1 million.

- The jury is dismissed with the thanks of the court.

We are adjourned.

- [whispering]

- We won.

So now they appeal, right?

- Either that, or offer to settle.

- Forget about that.

- Well, let's just see what the offer is.

Because they can keep us in appeals for years.

- Let them.

- Don't you want the money, Brian?

- Not if it means capitulation.

- It doesn't mean that.

It just means that you've made a rational decision

to get on with your life.

- Hey, don't use that expression with me, all right?

The life I knew is over.

The woman I loved is dead.

And there's nothing more important to me right now

than taking on the people who killed her.

- Come here.

Come on.

Come sit down.

Now, you can tell me to mind my own business, but I disagree.

Because you've got two kids to bring up and that's

a lot more important.

And you can come away from this with enough money

to make a difference and be done with it.

- I don't think I want to be done with this.

I think it'd be best for all involved if this thing just

dragged on as long as possible.

- Why?

- Because I don't know how much difference there is

between me and George Whelan.

And when this case is over, I just might kill someone too.

[music playing]

- Ah, Judith.

- Judith.

- How are you feeling?

- I'm still in a state of shock.

- He was a human being, Judith.

He had flaws.

- Well, in my book, this was a little more than a flaw.

- That didn't stop him from being a good father now,

did it?

- I don't know.

- Yes you do.

You know the kind of father he was.

- This makes me think of him differently, Frank.

He wasn't this kindly white-haired man

in a cardigan sweater working on his stamp collection.

He was an obsessive sicko pawing through dirty pictures.

- Now, now.

I haven't said anything about this to your mother.

- Oh my God.

I would hope not. - No, no, no.

She shouldn't know anything about it.

- It would kill her.

- I mean, however disconcerting this is to us,

we can still deal with it a hell of a lot better than she could.

- So we won't say anything.

- Nothing.

- Hello, children.

- Hi, Mom.

- Leland.

- Well, have you kids worked out your differences?

- Yes, mom.

We have.

- Good.

I think the last thing your father wanted

was for something like his stamp collection

to have driven the two of you apart.

By the way, did you ever find his dirty magazines?

- So you know, Mr. Nuzzi, we take an interest

in Benny Stulwicz's welfare.

- Lest you're about to tell us that's none of our business.

- Right.

Because we maintain it's very much our business.

- In addition to being Benny's employers,

we also administer his trust.

Now, if need be, we can march into court

and get control of all of Benny's assets

as well as a protective order against you personally.

- And while we'd rather not do that, the next time we

find out you're taking money from him,

that's exactly what we'll do.

- Are you done?

- Yeah. - Good.

Let me set you straight about something.

I'm not afraid of you. All right?

That's for openers.

Ben Stelwards and I have our own arrangement.

That arrangement doesn't have anything to do with you.

- You are taking advantage of someone

who is mentally retarded.

- So far as I'm concerned, I'm not taking advantage of anyone.

So happens Ben's an adult.

- A retarded adult.

- An adult. A grown man who doesn't have to answer to you

or anyone else about how he spends his money.

- You're the one who's got to answer for it, Dominic.

- Either of you ever take Ben to Vegas?

- That's not really the point.

- I think it is the point.

The fact that we're 45 minutes from the greatest

spectacle of the Western world, and before I took him he'd

never been? That's exactly the point.

- Believe it or not, Benny has never expressed

any interest in Las Vegas.

- Well, that's sadder still.

Because I'll tell you what, he's real interested in going back.

He saw lights.

He saw action.

He saw Siegfried and Roy.

OK?

He saw white tigers appear and disappear on command.

Not much compares with that.

- And we're supposed to ignore the fact that it's

Benny who pays for everything?

- Hey, right now, he's the one who's

got, so he's the one that pays.

When I'm the one that's got, I'm the one that pays.

With me, Benny is Ben.

He's not a retarded messenger boy.

He's a man.

We do the things that men do.

We go to the track.

We go to Vegas because we're men.

We don't need your permission, your approval.

You want to take me to court, be my guest.

- Dominic.

- Hey, Ben.

How are you doing?

- What's going on?

- We're just having a little chat.

- Are you guys are going to be friends?

- Absolutely.

- Maybe they could go with us to the racetrack sometime.

- Yeah, I don't see why not. Hey.

Listen, Ben. Walk me out, will ya?

I got to get going.

- Yeah.

- So we have a good time in Vegas or what?

- We had a great time.

- Hey.

Next time we go, we go see Ann-Margret.

- Really? - Oh, hey.

She's only the most beautiful woman on the face of the Earth.

What, she should be there and we wouldn't go see her?

- So we will go.

- That's what I'm saying.

- I'll connect you.

One moment.

- Are you going to bet on any horses today, Dominic?

- I don't know yet.

- I went to the bank and I got money.

Here.

- Give me that.

Come here.

How many times have I told you not

to keep your money in a wallet?

- I forgot.

- Farmers keep their money in wallets.

Anyone that's hip keeps their money in their pants pocket.

Look at this mess.

Look at this.

All right.

I'm going to tell you this one more time.

Bills, right side up.

OK, larger denominations on the bottom,

smaller denominations on the top.

Folded in the middle.

And when you pay out, you always peel them off towards you.

Not towards the other guy.

Towards you.

- OK.

- Trying to teach you something here.

- I know.

Here.

- Don't you want any money to bet with?

- No.

- You sure?

- Yeah.

- I'll see you at Du-par's tonight.

- Hey.

I got to eat supper, right?

[music playing]