But Chairman Mao Liedtke's attempts to stop the deal in court were fruitless; he then concentrated
his attention on a civil suit for damages on a claim that Texaco had been guilty of "tortiousinterference" with Pennzoil's alleged oral contract with Getty Oil. The charge was that Texaco had (^)
known that there already had been a contract, and had set out deliberately to breach it. After
extensive forum shopping, Chairman Mao concluded that Houston, Texas was the right venue for a
suit of this type.
Liedtke and Pennzoil demanded $7 billion in actual damages and $7 billion in punitive damages for
a total of at least $14 billion, a sum bigger than the entire public debt of the United States on
December 7, 1941. Liedke hired Houston lawyer Joe "King of Torts" Jamail, and backed up Jamail
with Baker & Botts.
Interestingly, the judge who presided over the trial until the final phase, when the die had already
been cast, was none other than Anthony J.P. "Tough Tony" Farris, whom we have met two decades
earlier as a Bushman of the old guard. Back in February, 1963, we recall, the newly elected
Republican County Chairman for Harris County, George H.W. Bush, had named Tough Tony Farris
as his first assistant county chairman. [fn 2] Tfor his failed 1964 senate bid. Farris had tried to get elected to Congrehis was when Bush was in the midst of preparationsss on the GOP ticket, but
failed. During the Nixon Administration, Farris became the United States Attorney in Houston.
Given what we know of the relations between Nixon and George Bush (to say nothing the relations
between Nixon and Prescott Bush), we must conclude that a patronage appointment of this type
could hardly have been made without George Bush's involvement. Tough Tony Farris wasdecidedly an asset of the Bush networks.
Now Tough Tony Farris was a State District Judge whose remaining ambition in life was an
appointment to the federal bench. Farris did not recuse himself because his patron, George Bush,
was a former business partner and constant crony of Chaissuing a string of rulings favorable to Pennzoil: he ruled that Pennzoil had a right to quickriman Mao Liedkte. Farris rather began
discovery, rocket-docket discovery from Texaco. Farris was an old friend of Pennzoil's lead trial
lawyer Joe Jamail, and Jamail had just given Tough Tony Farris a $10,000 contribution for his next
election campaign. Jamail, in fact, was a member of Tough Tony's campaign committee. Texaco
attempted to recuse Farris, but they failed. Farris claimed that he would have recused himself ifTexaco's lawyers had come to him privately, but that their public attempt to get him pitched out of (^)
the case made him decide to fight to stay on. Just at that point the district courts of Harris County
changed their rules in such a way as to allow Bush's man Tough Tony Farris, who had presided over
the pretrial hearings, to actually try the case.
And try the case he did, for fifteen weeks, during which the deck was stacked for Pennzoil's
ultimate victory. With a few weeks left in the trial, Farris was diagnosed as suffering from a
terminal cancer, and he was forced to request a replacement district judge. The last-minute
substitute was Judge Solomon Casseb, who finished up the case along the lines already clearly
established by Farris. In late November, 1985, tbillion, a figure that exceeded the total Gross National product of 116 che jury awarded Pennzoil damages of $10.53ountries around the world. (^)
Casseb not only upheld this monstrous result, but increased it to a total of $11,120,976,110.83.
Before the trial, back in January, 1985, Chairman Mao Liedkte had met with John K. McKinley, the
chairman of Texaco, at the Hay-Adams Hotel across Lafayette Park from the White House inWashington DC. Liedkte told McKinley that he thought what Texaco had done was highly illegal, (^)
but McKinley responded that his lawyers had assured him that his legal position was "very sound."
McKinley offered suggestions for an out-of-court settlement, but these were rejected by Chairman
Mao, who made his own counter-offer: he wanted three sevenths of Getty Oil, and was now willing
to hike his price to $125 a share. According to one account of this meeting: