Business Books — Story Has Right Elements, Wrong Length

Undue Influence: The Epic Battle for the Johnson & Johnson Fortune

By David Margolick

William Morrow & Co. $23

A general rule of thumb with lawyers is that you should consider yourself lucky if subjected to only one or two boring "war stories" per day. Look interested and you may spend the next hour listening to yet another mind-numbing exposition. Call it an occupational hazard.

This appears to be the problem with "Undue Influence," the interminable account of the battle over the last will of Johnson & Johnson magnate Seward Johnson.

The story has all the necessary elements to be fascinating: lots of money, rich middle-aged children fighting their father's young widow for his estate, sordid sex, bungled murder plans, arrogant New York lawyers (the worst kind) and an openly biased judge presiding over it all. In fact, this would make a compelling, fast-paced, 200-page book. It would make an exhaustive, complete account of a complex litigation at 400 pages. Unfortunately, it rambles on for 612 pages.

Margolick writes with flair in the book, but he tells this story twice.

First, in narrative, he tells the story of Seward Johnson - his $500 million fortune, his first two wives and his distant relationship with his children and their families. (Each held a trust fund worth millions). The 76-year-old Johnson then encountered and later married Basia Piasecka, his 34-year-old Polish immigrant maid. The two, apparently happy and content, proceeded to spend lavishly, even building a $25 million home, grandly named "Jasna Polana." When, shortly before his death, he signed his last will, leaving virtually his entire estate to his wife, most readers can see the train wreck approaching.

Then Margolick tells the story again through the testimony at trial.

Both sides hired high-priced, big firm "litigators" who proceeded to bill enormous amounts for overly aggressive and tedious litigation. (One deposition lasted 26 days.) Two of the lawyers even billed the estate for attending the funeral. But none of it stopped Basia's team of lawyers from dining on catered multicourse lunches with expensive wines at their nearby getaway during trial.

Eventually, just before it went to the jury, the parties settled, providing $350 million to Basia, with a few million each to the children. Basia's lead lawyer, dubbed a "sack of potatoes" by the ever-caustic Basia, bought a cow after the settlement, symbolically named it "Basia" and had it slaughtered and made into hamburger. The meat, he announced, was "tough and stringy."

Both before and after the litigation was ultimately settled, it spawned numerous related lawsuits, including one against Basia by her defense firm for her refusal to pay them an additional $5 million beyond their billings. When that case, too, settled (she paid an additional $2.3 million), she sued her other defense firm for malpractice in Florida. They counterclaimed by filing suit in New York. After another year of combative litigation, that case settled, again with Basia paying the lawyers millions.

It's hard to feel sorry for anyone involved in this mess. But it's more than a little ironic that this account of this litigation gone wild is itself overwritten.

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