Going to Trial
AFTER A QUARTER CENTURY OF EMPLOYMENT, I lost my job in the turmoil of manic depression. I fought desperately to return to the workplace, filing a health discrimination suit that would go to trial in 1993.
In this precedent to the Americans With Disabilities Act, one of my lawyers, a former investigative reporter in television named Steve Petrou, was trying his first case, endowed with idealistic zeal for this journalist.
A star witness for the defense had been a valued friend socially for years, but loyalty was tattered by my manic conduct in the newsroom and he had fired me.
Others among the mentally ill were rooting for me to strengthen their case with employers, less than wary of a possible determination that the employer might have been pushed beyond the limits of its patience by an ugly sickness.
THE TRIAL, a sizable undertaking in federal district court, was Carlton E. Leatherwood, Jr. (plaintiff) vs. The Houston Post Co. (defendant). Teams of lawyers would present the case to an eight-person jury in a proceeding presided over by the Honorable Hugh Gibson.
The small maverick Houston law firm of Coane and Associates had drawn up the suit, and my parents helped foot the cost. I do not know the thousands of dollars spent because these parties were always quiet about finances. But I do know that after four years of preparation, lengthened by illnesses on my part, we went to federal court on the strength of a Texas statute.
The case made it on the Galveston docket a few days before Thanksgiving in 1993, and my family settled in a hotel built on a pier jutting into die Gulf of Mexico.
Court was called into session.
A jury of five men and three women was seated.
"The attorneys will be given an opportunity to make an opening statement," Judge Gibson told the jury. "The purpose of the statement is to set forth from each of their standpoints what the issues in this case are, and to provide evidence that they expect will develop in support of their positions."
"Now for the plaintiff, Mr. Steven Petrou." Petrou strode forward. "Thank you, Your Honor," he said. "Ladies and gentlemen, this case is about a gentleman who for twenty-two years devoted himself to one newspaper, The Houston Post. But the evidence will show that when that newspaper changed ownership, it disowned this loyal journalist and cut him loose simply because he was ill.
"It is a privilege for me today to represent Carlton Leatherwood, Jr. Some of you may have seen his bylines in The Houston Post, because in addition to being an editor, which was his main job, he was also a writer. He wrote features for the Sunday magazine of The Post on subjects ranging from the environment to museums to the Rio Grande River. He also wrote travel stories, going all the way to Italy to cover some resorts, and you'll find out he wrote more than two dozen editorials.
"Mr. Leatherwood was fired from The Houston Port in July, 1989. He's coming to you now, a jury of his peers, because he believes he was wrongfully terminated.
"In Texas, an employer, you'll find out, can fire an employee for almost any reason. This is known as an 'employment at will state.' But the legislature and Congress, they have passed laws that say you cannot fire employees for some reasons. You cannot fire employees just because of their race. You can't fire an employee just because of their sex. You can't fire an employee because you feel they're too old. You can't fire because of their national origin. And they have said you cannot fire an employee because of their disability if that employee can reasonably be accommodated. We're going to prove to you, ladies and gentlemen, that Mr. Leatherwood was fired because of a disability, a health disability, and specifically a mental health disability.
"When I say mental health, I hope this doesn't frighten you or conjure up negative images in you, because some of the experts who will testify in this trial will tell you some very well-known people such as actress Patty Duke and golfer Bert Yancy have experienced the very same mental health illness as Carl Leatherwood, and those people have been able to lead productive lives. In fact, Patty Duke was in an NEC movie just two weeks ago called 'A Matter of Justice.'
"You will hear evidence that Carl Leatherwood has battled this illness for many, many years, and he's always been able to get treatment and return to work until July 1989. And before I tell you The Post forced Carl Leatherwood to prematurely end his career, I'll tell you a little more about how it began.
"Mr. Leatherwood was born in a small town in West Texas, and he moved with his family around, followed the oil patch until they reached Beaumont. He was a high school journalist, and then he became a college journalist. You'll find out he won awards as a writer in high school and in college. And by the mid-1960s, he found himself here in Galveston as an editor for the Galveston Daily News. You'll learn that he was an idealistic journalist who believed that his work allowed him to serve the public by better informing them of the world around them.
"He was lured away from the Galveston Daily News and went to The Houston Post in 1967. He started out as a copy editor for The Post. Later he worked on the wire desk where he gathered international, national and local stories, and later he worked on the business desk. As I mentioned earlier, he also throughout his tenure there contributed articles for magazine features and editorials.
"Before Media News and Dean Singleton took over this paper, it was owned for a few years by a Canadian group. And for many years before that, it was owned by the Hobby family, Oveta Gulp Hobby. The evidence will be that the previous owners accommodated Carl's illness and rewarded his loyalty with pay raises and praise. You will learn that the old management cared about the welfare of their employees long before there were any laws that protected workers from losing their jobs because of their disability. But you'll find out that the new owners were good at reporting our laws—about our laws against disability discrimination. They were good at reporting but not following them.
"The Texas Commission of Human Rights act was passed to prevent employers from discriminating against employees who are disabled and who have handicaps. Mr. Leatherwood is here asking you, a jury of his peers, to listen to all the evidence and at the end to give him the justice that he was denied."
FOR THE DEFENSE, the court calls Ms. Cherry Bounds." "Ladies and gentlemen, good morning,'' Bounds said as she took Petrou's place before the jury.
"The issue in this case regards handicapped discrimination. As you might have surmised, The Houston Post has a difference of opinion than Mr. Leatherwood does as to whether or not we discriminated against him because of his disability. We don't believe we discriminated against him because of his disability.
"We believe the evidence will show you that Mr. Leatherwood was with us for over twenty years, and that during that twenty-year period, the possession and control of The Houston Post changed three different times. But the philosophy was still the same, and the philosophy, unfortunately, was of business to make money. And whether or not those changes in management brought about a more businesslike and professional atmosphere than had been experienced under Mrs. Hobby's leadership, so be it.
"The bottom line is The Post is in business for several reasons, the number one being to make money, but most importantly they're in business to put out a newspaper. They have an obligation to the public, to you and me, to put that paper out in the most efficient, most effective, and most correct manner.
"Car! Leatherwood was a copy editor. He started with The Post as a copy editor in the 1960s. For a period of time his position changed, and you'll hear testimony that his position became a general wire editor. After he was having some problems, his supervisors decided, and they will testify, that it was in the best interest of Carl and the newspaper to move him from that general wire editor position to a business wire editor position. There were reasons for that. The bottom line is they were accommodating Carl's mental health, and they were always accommodating the needs of The Post. They needed someone they could rely on to do that job.
"Carl continued to have episodes, and his illness continued to get worse. The employees, his coworkers, his supervisors did everything they could as individuals. Yes, The Post is a company, but the company is made up of individual people. Those people know Carl. You'll see them testify. You'll hear them talk about Carl, and you'll hear them say that they like Carl. They enjoyed being around Carl most of the time, but the bottom line is those people, those individuals including Carl, had a higher obligation to their employer, The Post, and that was to see that that newspaper that we get on our front porches every day gets out and gets out accurately.
"A point was reached with Carl where he could not be trusted. One of the greatest attributes of a person as a copy editor or any kind of editing position at a newspaper, and specifically The Houston Port, they will testify, is your confidence in their ability to do their job. The Post 's position is that Carl's ability to do the job finally reached a point that they could no longer accommodate. In the last year or so, he couldn't do the job most of time.
"Thank you."
"Is the plaintiff ready to proceed?" Gibson inquired.
"Yes, Your Honor, we are," Petrou answered.
"Who will be your first witness? the judge asked.
"Mr. Leatherwood."
I was sworn in and Petrou began the questioning:
"Did you do some writing while you were at The Houston Post?"
"Yes, I did."
"What kind of writing did you do?"
"I wrote magazine articles, twenty-two magazine articles in about three years.
"Did you also write travel articles?"
"I wrote three prominent travel articles during that time."
"Did you also write editorials?"
"I wrote 20 editorials prior to that."
"Mr. Leatherwood, let me just get an understanding of what you understood your job to be at The Houston Post. What did your job consist of?"
"I was a—for 20 years, I was a general wire editor and then a business wire editor. And I was given the freedom to write and photograph during that time."
"Did you express an interest to a management person that you wanted to be a full-time writer?"
Yes. Martha Liebrum, editor of the magazine, knew of my devout interest in writing, thought I would be best traveling about Texas obtaining stories on people, and she tried to accomplish this fact with Peter O'Sullivan, editor-in-chief at the time the Canadians owned the paper."
"In your own life, was writing an important part of your job at The Port?"
Bounds objected, "He's leading the witness."
"Overrule the objection," the judge said.
"It was an important part, if I may say, for avoiding stress on the job," I said. "For some of these people I know that have been in a job for ten or fifteen years, there is burnout and there is stress, and stress is an ugly component of my illness. And so this relieved that stress, and that was the reason I sought a job other than editing the past twenty years."
Petrou continued his line of questioning. "Did you get some compliments from management on your writing?" he asked.
"Martha, who is one the executives now, said two words that I appreciated very much. They were on a story two newspaper pages long and with pictures partially shot in Galveston. She said: 'Lovely writing.'"
Petrou turned toward the judge. "May I approach the bench, Your Honor?"
"All right."
"Couldn't we look at some samples?" Petrou asked. "I'll not go into the whole thing, just some flavor. This man did more than just edit at The Post."
"What year are we talking about?"
"Some were written in 1986, '87. 1 think the position is he testified that he saw part of his job as writing. He asked to be a permanent writer, and that's the issue of accommodation."
"If you would select a few sample items. I'll consider admitting them."
"There's a sample, Your Honor. It shows his photography and feature writing."
"Was he a photographer also?"
"Yes, he was a photographer also, Your Honor. Then this one here, then two editorials that he wrote."
"That's enough. I'll tell you why I'm going to admit it, if you cannot guess. He claims that his skills included his ability to write. And the issue is, was he discharged because of incompetence or not. The thing of it is that the jury must take into consideration all of his skills in making the determination as to whether they can reasonably accommodate whatever disability he claims he has, and I think it does have that relevancy."
Petrou resumed questioning the plaintiff.
"What is the name of this article, Mr. Leatherwood?"
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| The Dixie Dude Ranch has been the scene of some happy days dating back to the early 40's. In those days, many cadets from the Lackland and Randolph Air Force Bases visited and are remembered for their wild horseback riding. Today, however, insurance requirements say guests must ride single file behind a wrangler. |
"The Dudes of Dixie."
"Tell us a little bit about it."
"It's about the first dude ranch in that part of Texas, Central Texas."
"Who was this lady whose picture you have here in the article?"
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| Rose Crowell, owner of the Dixie Dude Ranch |
"Rose Crowell."
"Who was Ms. Crowell?"
"She was the owner. She was the daughter of the owner who founded it in 1939, and she helped her father."
"Did you interview her for the article?"
"Yes, I did."
"And when was this article published?"
"1986."
"Did you take all the pictures for this article?"
"Yes, I did."
I WELL REMEMBER rounding up ranches in the Hill Country, not Central Texas as I had testified. It's a time to paddle forward, to take a reflective break from the courtroom. Rose "Billie" Crowell, owner of one of the oldest guest ranches in Texas, sat down in the dining room of the Dixie Dude Ranch to tell about the time the dinner bell rang in midafternoon and horses came running, mounted with Air Force cadets on weekend passes from training bases at nearby San Antonio. The day was Dec. 7, 1941. Japanese planes had bombed Pearl Harbor.
"We had around forty military people here, men mostly," she said. "We had twenty-eight horses at that time, and we would let the boys ride back in the hills. We would try to keep them from killing themselves, but some of them rode like they were flying a plane."
She laughs at the memory. "They were all alerted to report back in the event something happened. Somebody called me over the party line and told me that Pearl Harbor had been attacked. So do you see that big old dinner bell? That was off of a locomotive. We went immediately and rang it. Horses and riders came in here from every direction.
"In no time at all the cadets were in their uniforms and checked out—handed me their money and were on their way back to Lackland and Randolph Air Force bases. During the war we heard from many of those people. Every once in a while we would get a letter back saying address unknown or deceased. Those were sad days, and lots of happy days, too, during the war."
Crowell rose and removed a small framed picture of a young officer from the wall. She spoke softly, pensively. The former guest in uniform had been killed in a plane crash. A cadet in another picture, however, had recently returned to the ranch as a much older man, and she had visited his home in Florida.
As Crowell noted the visits with other guests in their homes from Houston to England and the hundreds of Christmas cards exchanged, I began to understand the real attraction of dude ranches. They are extended families. If you don't have a relative or friend to visit in the Hill Country, they are the next best thing. Crowell agreed and laughed again. "Some of the people that we have had are better than relatives," she said.
"We have one family who has come here every year for forty-six years," she said. "One lady that was a baby in the Galveston flood [1900] has come twice a year all these years. She has grandchildren coming. We have some that have great grandchildren coming."
The Dixie Dude near Bandera opened to the public with a barbecue for about one-hundred neighbors and friends on July 3, 1937, before electricity arrived in that rural district. Crowell's father, William Wallace Whitley, had bought and worked the land since 1901. His daughter was born on it in 1904.
Today, horses graze serenely beneath the oaks in evening. Insurance requirements no longer permit the carefree horseriding the cadets enjoyed, and guests ride horses single file behind a wrangler. On thirty miles of trails visitors may spot wild turkeys, redbarked trees called Texas madrones, and sotol. Sotol, more plentiful further west, was once fed to cattle during severe droughts.
"We've always had a jukebox," Crowell said. "A boy broke into one by the pool one night. There were seven of us around that table playing cards, and the children were down at the pool. The father of the boy was a psychiatrist out of Houston. The doctor jumped up right away, put his cards down, and made a beeline for the pool. Another father said, 'I think I'll go down and see how a psychiatrist can handle the situation.'
"The boy came back as a grown man not long ago and said, 'Boy, I was mean, wasn't I?'"
It happens in the best of families.
A SILVER PEUGOET TRAILED DUST under a brilliant autumn sun as the driver headed down a caliche ranch road in the Hill Country. The rough road tamed the speed of his exquisite machine to little more than a horse trot.
If he wanted to savor the Old West, he had no complaint. He was looking at it in his rear-view mirror. In the 1800s push of civilization through Texas to the Pacific, dust was a constant reminder of the rugged and uncomfortable conditions. Men kicked it up as they walked the streets of frontier towns. Their horses and wagons, and the wind, churned it into clouds. And it came to rest in layers on clothes and store goods.
A breed of driver different from the Peugoet pilot had swirled the dust of this ranchland with the hooves of cattle a century ago. And as I too churned up earth's powder, I was happy to find another element of realism in the successful conclusion of a search for a touch of the West in Texas. During that hunt for a treasured past I had heard others ask, "Where can I visit a working ranch?" The answer was the YO Ranch.
And after my first visit, its hospitality expanded to a hotel, the YO Ranch Hilton in Kerrville, thirty-five miles to the east. The hotel's grand opening in 1984 brought together some 2,500 celebrants including western movie and television actors.
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| Actor Ben Johnson rides at the front of the grand opening parade. |
Dust had figured in the finishing touches at the hotel. An argument ensued over the authenticity of the dusty, aged display cases moved into the gift shop. The shop clerk fussed over the situation, said she didn't want that much realism in the place, and won out.
Such concessions to the modern way, however, have not subdued the western flavor of the luxuriously appointed hotel or the diversified working ranch, which also welcomes overnight guests. Five chandeliers, made of more than 350 Chisolm Trail era branding irons, light a massive lobby filled with mounted moose, deer, and bear of class. Leather and longhorn hides cover hand-carved sofas and chairs, some placed near a fireplace. A red metal roof covers the native limestone walls of the sprawling 200-room hotel. At the ranch you may sleep in restored nineteenth-century cabins, which served such needs as stagecoach stop and schoolhouse.
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| The YO Ranch Hilton's Dining Room features exotic game on the menu |
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| Given the opportunity to act the boastful Texan, he shunned the role. "It's beautiful," he replied with restrained pride when asked what he thought of his hotel. |
I asked the breed's purpose.
"They are for the commercial breeder," Louis said. "Calving ease is a desirable characteristic. When a lot of our breeds have their first calves, the rancher has to stay up night and day with them—almost be there to give birth like a doctor would. Longhorns, you just turn them out. We sell our bulls to people to use on their first-calf heifers (Angus, Hereford, etc.). The breeders also want to get a certain percentage of longhorn in their herd to get that characteristic hardiness and fertility.''
The Longhorn was the first Old West animal I sighted on the YO Ranch. About 900 of the breed (cows, bulls, and calves) roamed its 50,000 acres. Former Texas Ranger Charles Schreiner began the ranch with longhorns over a century ago, in 1880. "The Texas long-horn made more history than any other breed of cattle the civilized world has known," folklorist J. Frank Dobie wrote in The Longhorns. "As an animal in the realm of natural history, he was the peer of bison or grizzly bear. As a social factor, his influence on men was extraordinary. An economic agent in determining the character and occupation of a territory continental in its vastness, he moved elementally with drought, grass, blizzards out of the Arctic and the wind from the south. However supplanted or however disparaged by evolving standards and generations, he will remain the bedrock on which the history of the cow country of America is founded."
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An estimated ten million head moved up the trails of Texas between 1866 and 1890. Capt. Schreiner, himself, drove more than 150,000 to Kansas on the Chisholm Trail. The cattle brought the state financial recovery from the Civil War far ahead of other Confederate states. And it was the Longhorn herd and the addition of exotic game that also brought the YO Ranch recovery from a devastating drought in the 1950s. Diversification through a Hilton hotel franchise was but another gallop away from the hardship of natural disaster. Conrad Hilton, incidentally, started his chain in Texas, at Cisco.
The Elm Water Hole was the coziest place to get a drink at the Kerrville hotel. Blackbuck antelope and axis deer hides covered stools at the antique bar. The Sam Houston dining room served up those ranch-grown animals at dinner.
The scenic route to the YO Ranch passes the prestigious summer camps on the headwaters of the Guadalupe River. Surface water, however, is another luxury the 100-square-mile YO doesn't possess. Its more than 10,000 animals depend on windmills. One stands sentinel at the entrance. Thirty-two species of exotic game share the spread, but on a winter visit I told foreman Ed Howell I wanted more to see an old-line working ranch. He woke me early the next morning so I could see him run head after head of cattle through a chute. He trapped them momentarily to doctor their ears.
The exotic animals stimulate income from hunting and photography. Tours of their habitat go with ranch visits. Blackbuck antelope, giraffes, zebras, and axis deer are among the imports roaming the hills, which an African chief once compared to his homeland. But the exotics may sometimes produce an incongruous sight for the Texan. I saw an ostrich chase an armadillo one trip. Louis Schreiner said the drought got so bad in the '50s his dad shipped his cattle to Montana. "He tried to figure out some way to supplement income and came up with exotic game. We had started commercial hunting of white-tailed deer, but that's only six weeks out of the year. So we brought these exotics in, turned them loose, and began hunting them five years later. Now we've got thousands."
The shadow of western superstar John Wayne literally hung over the grand opening celebration of the YO Ranch Hilton. So many of the film stars there remembered their work with him. And then I drove to the Cowboy Artists of America Museum in Kerrville where I found his bronze statue under a spotlight.
The museum houses the work of professional artists who focus on the cowboy and related subjects. In the galleries around a courtyard you may find the paintings and sculptures of such artists as John Clymer, who produced some eighty covers for the old Saturday Evening Post, and Mehl Lawson, who got a degree in animal husbandry and for fifteen years bought, sold, trained, rode, and showed horses. CAA artists follow in the footsteps of Frederic Remington and Charles Marion Russell whose art, like film, helped secure a romantic thirst for the West.
And with reason. "Of the twenty-nine eventful decades since the Mayflower ... only one American period produced a unique, enduring symbol of universal recognition ... America's Everyman is ... the cowboy," wrote Southwest author Don Dedera.
Griffiths C. Games, director of the museum, said, "One of its main purposes is to get the art where the public can enjoy it. We had a lot of people say, 'where has this art been? I didn't even know it existed.'"
The Cowboy Artists of America association settled on locating its museum in Texas because of support, meaning money, and in Kerrville because of local interest. The locale, of course, has a heritage of many of the elements in western art.
The building was the last public one bearing direct influence by Texas architect O'Neil Ford, credited with setting forth the principles of southwestern regional style. The ten-acre site crossed by limestone ledges and shaded by oaks and cedars is representative of the Hill Country.
Hand-carved oak doors open into the gallery. The ceiling, a series of brick domes, was constructed by craftsmen from Guanajusto and San Miguel de Ajente, Mexico, using rare and ancient skills. The floor was made of mesquite, a very dense wood found in the area as well as other parts of Texas.
Fritz White, a sculptor from Loveland, Colorado, was teaching a class when I visited. The students came from five states. "The CAA artists have all been very successful," Carnes said, "and they wanted to put something back in with young, serious art students. So in setting this museum up, they insisted as part of the agreement that they teach these classes at no charge. They come here at their own expense."
The museum also is accumulating the records on everything ever done by CAA members. "We want to make this for scholars, dealers, and collectors to research and authenticate art," Carnes said. "Heretofore, there has been that time lag. An artist dies and maybe it is thirty years later before somebody says, hey, he was pretty good, and starts accumulating all this data. In the meantime, phonies show up and people get hurt. They are getting hurt surprisingly enough with forged contemporary art.
"About a year ago a woman in Dallas called a friend of the museum and said, 'I just got the neatest Melvin Warren print you ever saw for $10.' The other woman said, 'There aren't any Melvin Warren prints for $10.' The caller said, 'I got one.' Come to find out it came from a flea market in Garland. And the guy had stacks of them. They were all done in Hong Kong." With records at the museum people can authenticate a work.
"The real United States starts west of the Mississippi," Carnes said. "Everything east emulated Europe. What was west of the Mississippi, the things unique to this country, stands us separate and apart from the rest of the world."
The cowboy was a part of the distinctive cattle industry and the fur trade. A statue of a bucking cowboy on the Capitol grounds in Austin refers to Texas as his native home. Dobie backs this up, saying the cowboy was cradled in South Texas, the product of the coming together of the Anglo-American, the herd-owning Spanish caballero, the Spanish vaquero—a mounted worker with cows—and the open range.
In the roundup of ranches, I encountered an anachronism of sound at the Lyndon B. Johnson National Historical Park where I paid a visit to the working LBJ Ranch of the thirty-sixth president of the United States. Taped remarks of Johnson welcomed visitors to the Hill Country as a tour bus crossed the Pedernales River and passed his one-room school and his grave on the way to the home and fields where he entertained international dignitaries. His widow still lived there. Some 200 head of Hereford cattle roamed the premises.
After the tour I took a short walk to Sauer-Beckman Farmstead for a portrayal of life in the early 1900s. "We raise our own pigs and our own beef," John Matthews, who served as our living history guide, said in a gentle bass voice.
"Yes, sir, we have a smokehouse," Matthews said. "I grew up like this. My folks put up their own meat. In the spring, when the weather starts getting warm, we take a lot of the meat and pack it in lard. I can show you right here. We take the bacon and ham out of the smokehouse, trim it, slice it, and put it in jars and pour lard over it. The lard just keeps the air away from it."
Vegetables from a garden are put up, too, and stored on shelves in a long cabin. I saw cabbage, tomatoes, pole beans, blackeyed peas, and carrots. And canning includes wild grape jelly from an abundance of mustang grapes in this area. The food is prepared on a wood stove in the kitchen of a stone house for park personnel. "The long part is getting the fire going," said guide Denise Abendschein. "Once the stove gets hot enough, it's not bad cooking."
The John Sauers reared their ten children in the house. They built the log cabin first, about 1869, and progressively added the stone house and an attached Victorian one. Today, there are more sounds of the past—a crowing rooster and a creaking windmill.
I MOVE THAT THIS EXHIBIT be admitted," Petrou said, awakening me to further questioning. "Mr. Leather-wood, did you also write editorials?" "Yes, I did." "I want to show you what's been premarked as Exhibit 7-G."
"It is an editorial that was considered the best of the day's. At the top of the page it's entitled 'A System Failed.'"
"And what was this editorial about?"
"It was about the way we as a community in Houston treated mental illness and the people that had it."
"Can you read us the first two paragraphs of that editorial, please?"
"In the shadow of downtown, behind the supermarket, the hungry scavenge what the store doesn't want to sell. And as they claim food for themselves, they break bread with the birds, strewing pieces along a parking lot fence. It is a compassionate city.
"Sometimes, however, compassion here rests behind fences, as it did when Eddie Lee Johnson lost his life in an ugly Christmas story. You may remember. Police gunned down the mentally ill young man in self-defense during the 1981 holiday season. This tragic tale is resurrected now because some details deserve reexamination and because it should not die without forging in heart and soul the will to strengthen this community."
"Okay. Mr. Leatherwood, did anybody approve these editorials?"
"Oveta Gulp Hobby and George Fuerman, the editorial page editor, approved them for publication."
"Just remind the jury, who was Oveta Gulp Hobby again?"
"She was the chairman of the board of The Houston Post [Company]."
"Now let's move on to your illness. Did you call anyone at The Post and ask about your job while you were hospitalized in December 1988?"
"I called Ernie Williamson."
"And what was his response when you asked him about your job?"
"Objection, Your Honor," Bounds spoke up, "This is hearsay."
"What's the exception to the rule?" Gibson asked.
"Admission by a party opponent, Your Honor," Petrou answered.
"Proceed."
I continued: "He said, what are you going to do, and I said, well, I need to work another month or two. I had made the statement when I was manic on the night of the 3rd of December that The Post was racist and therefore I was resigning."
"Did you mean that?"
"I not only didn't mean it, it had never entered my thoughts in the previous twenty-two years or twenty-one years, and Ernie certainly had not been approached on it or anybody else in management. And so I thought, still weak that, well, maybe I did resign myself. I later approached Ernie and I said, what am I being terminated for? And he says, the effects of illness."
"I want to go back and talk about the type of treatment you received by the different owners of The Post as a result of your health condition.
"First of all, do you still suffer from manic depressive illness or bipolar disorder?"
"Yes, I do."
"In the twenty-two years that you worked for The Post, how often did you have to be hospitalized because of your manic depressive condition?"
"Eight episodes."
"After your treatment and after you were stabilized during those eight episodes between 1976 and December of 1988, seven episodes—after each of those seven episodes between 1976 and 1988, were you able to go back and do the work that you did before you were hospitalized?"
"Yes, I was."
"Did you know a writer at The Post by the name of DJ. Wilson?"
"Yes, I did."
"What did Mr. Wilson cover?"
"He covered the medical beat."
"Did you ever talk to Mr. Wilson about your condition or your behavior?"
"Yes. I apologized for sending him a crazy message. He said, well, it was no crazier than what others at The Post had sent him."
"Your mental illness began in '76. In that year you got a raise; isn't that correct?"
"Yes."
"So from 1976 when you were first diagnosed as mentally ill to 1989 when you were terminated, you still kept getting raises all this time; is that correct?"
"That is correct."
"Did your salary more than double from 1976 when you were first diagnosed until you were terminated?"
"Yes, it did."
Bounds took over the questioning of me on the stand: "The reason that you were at The Post in the eight hours daily was to edit copy and write headlines and write cutlines for pictures; isn't that correct?"
"Correct."
"So you weren't employed as a column writer or an editorial writer, were you?"
"No."
"If you did that, it was done on your own time; is that correct?"
"Right."
"Your responsibilities as a business wire editor were to sit and review the wire, the stories coming over the various wires; isn't that correct?"
"Right."
"And it was your judgment and decision to choose which of those stories might be of interest or should go in The Post; isn't that correct?"
"Right."
"Have you been hospitalized since this June 1989 episode, when you were terminated?"
"Yes, I have."
"You were in fact hospitalized in October of 1989, were you not?"
Petrou: "Objection, Your Honor. At this point I would like to approach the bench."
"All right."
"Okay, Your Honor. I object on the basis that this is irrelevant. It's going into—"
"Why is it irrelevant?"
"After his termination—I think it's going to be prejudicial."
"This is a continuation of an ongoing condition that started back in 1976. If that's your objection, it's overruled. Let's proceed."
Bounds continues: "Mr. Leatherwood, you were in fact hospitalized in October of 1989 as well, were you not?"
"Yes."
"You were hospitalized again in December of 1991, weren't you?"
"Right."
"And again in May 1992?"
"Right."
"And again in December of 1992?"
"December of '92?"
"Yes, sir."
"I don't think so."
"We'll look at some records. You were again hospitalized from April through June of 1993; isn't that correct?"
"Right."
"And you were hospitalized again in October of 1993, were you not?"
"Right."
"Was the 1988 hospitalization voluntary?"
"No, it wasn't."
"It was an involuntary commitment to the hospital, wasn't it?"
"Right."
"Was that the first time that you've ever been involuntarily committed to the hospital?"
"Yes, it was."
"Do you know when that particular episode began in 1988?"
"I know when there were hints of it, and that was in late September with paranoia."
"So in fact that particular episode began in September and lasted through almost the end of December? Would that be correct?"
"Right."
"And I believe that when you were in the midst of these episodes, your behavior is irrational?"
"Yes."
"Since that episode in 1988, have you been involuntarily committed to the hospital?"
"Yes, several times."
Judge: "We're going to recess for the day."
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