Chapter 1194 Larry Griffin

11th Griffin

"Each hat here represents a family or life that has been ruined by Griffith Coal and Electric Company."

The female shopkeeper's words made Jack and Clay look at each other. There were no fewer than seventy or eighty old hats densely packed on the wall, which meant that almost the same number of families had suffered misfortune.

"So how did Griffin get away with it? I mean, we heard you launched a class action lawsuit." Clay volunteered to help carry the remaining fertilizer bags.

"Because we are all poor." The female shopkeeper held her waist, with a self-deprecating smile on her sickly pale face.

"We can't afford better lawyers, but Griffin has a lot of experts speaking for him. They say that poor people like to smoke and eat junk food, so it is normal for cancer and leukemia to be higher.

They discovered that I smoked cigarettes in high school, so in court, their lawyer, Andy Witherspoon, said that my lung cancer was caused by those cigarettes. "

"So the shutdown of the power plant is not because of the class action lawsuit you initiated?" Jack asked with a frown.

"Of course not." The female shopkeeper thanked Clay for his help in a low voice and continued, "That's because the nearby coal mines are almost finished and their board of directors sold off the power plant and coal mines."

"So Larry Griffin can be considered as retiring and living comfortably in his old age with the money he earned?" Clay's eyes contained anger.

"Of course not. He has now started a new business and transferred the money he earned to his girlfriend's name, so the lawyer told us that even if we won the lawsuit, we would not get any compensation, so most of us gave up. ”

The female shopkeeper's tone was full of sarcasm, "Want to know what his new business is? I bet you won't expect it."

"What is it?" Clay asked curiously.

In just a moment of talking, Jack and Clay easily finished moving hundreds of kilograms of fertilizer bags. The grateful female shopkeeper invited them into the store and took a few bottles of cold beer from the refrigerator.

"He is now selling green products, such as natural tree sap shampoo, silicone-free detergent, etc. His new company is called 'Blue Spring Flower'."

The female shopkeeper twisted off the beer cap and handed it to the two of them with a disgusted expression.

——

“I remember seeing on the news that the governor of Alabama tried to increase the income standard for subsistence welfare from US$900 to US$1,100 per month. His explanation was that this would prevent the poor from being too lazy.”

As the two were driving to Pelham, a suburb of Birmingham, Clay, who was driving, seemed to have a casual conversation.

"At first, I thought this was quite reasonable. After all, if one person can only earn more than 1,000 US dollars a month through hard work, and another person can live a similar life like him if he does nothing, It’s really better to just lie down.”

"So what now?" Of course Jack knew that was not what he wanted to express.

"But it's not that these people don't want to work hard, at least not the people I met." Clay sighed, "They are already working very hard in life, but those rich people can easily turn all their hard work into nothing. ”

Jack nodded in agreement. The conditions in Laomei can be said to be unique. The land is so vast and the people are so sparse that although there are big landowners everywhere, there is no contradiction between man and land that Seris has had since ancient times.

For example, the town of Blue Spring where they were just now was not favored by large landowners because it was close to Mount Baker, where the coal mines of the thermal power station were located. The rolling hills were not suitable for large-scale mechanized farming. There were still many small farmers in the town.

The living environment of these small farmers is much more difficult than that of the small farmers in California that Jack knows. There is no surrounding metropolitan area that can digest agricultural products such as vegetables and fruits, and they can only grow cotton or livestock.

However, compared with large landowners who often operate tens of thousands of acres, both production costs and labor costs for small farmers are much higher.

Because they do not have access to large agricultural machinery, they cannot hire professionally trained agricultural workers from South Africa, and they do not have unified sales channels.

But even so, they were still struggling to survive and try to live a self-sufficient life until Griffin Coal and Electric Company destroyed all hopes.

The commemorative board that the female shop owner showed them was just an abbreviation of the local area in recent decades. In fact, there was no essential difference between the rednecks living at the bottom and black people, including being discriminated against.

However, the emotion is emotion, the sympathy is sympathy, and the case must continue. God knows how many explosives the Hammond brothers have prepared, and the FBI does not dare to let it go.

Larry Griffin has almost no assets in his name. The land he purchased belongs to his minor daughter's name. The car and the luxurious villa where Jack and Clay are currently living all belong to a charity that nominally belongs to his girlfriend. in the name of the foundation.

"I don't remember anything about Greg Hammond." Larry Griffin opened the door for the two FBI agents after receiving a call from the FBI. After they expressed their intention to come, he immediately said that he knew nothing about it.

The old guy is not tall, about 1.7 meters tall at most. He wears a well-pressed handmade suit and his hair is meticulously combed, looking like a rich man.

The smile on Jack's face was as fake as the other man's, "He used to be a truck driver for you, one of the plaintiffs in that class action lawsuit, and he lost his daughter to cancer not long ago."

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"Please come in and talk." Larry Griffin led two FBI agents and walked into a special meeting room after many twists and turns.

Along the way, Jack noticed that the walls of the villa from the corridor to each room were hung with abstract paintings of unknown meaning. Judging from the alarms set beside the picture frames, these were obviously all valuable.

"That lawsuit was naked extortion. Those lazy people who don't want to work always want to make a fortune in various ways. They can't produce any evidence to prove illegal emissions. Please sit down, gentlemen."

Larry Griffin extended his hand to signal the two to sit down. In the middle of the room was a small postmodern coffee table with cups and water prepared on it. There were several chairs with equally unique shapes around the small coffee table.

Jack didn't know the coffee table, but he recognized the brand of the chair, the "Caruselli" chair from the Finnish brand "ARTEK", which costs more than 10,000 euros. He had seen a similar one in Rossi's study.

"I entrusted the case to the lawyer, and we won both the first trial and the appeal." Larry Griffin said in a relaxed tone.

While he was talking, a well-maintained blonde beauty in her 30s walked in from the other side of the room and sat next to him. Jack, who had seen the photo, recognized her as Larry Griffin's current girlfriend.