Ben Riddick was one of the last gentleman lawyers. Ben’s passing on February 26, 2005, deprives those of us in the profession of that which we can’t afford to lose: an honest man who understood that litigation is not about the lawyers but the facts and the law. My own knowledge of these truths was gained years ago.      The third compensation case I filed involved a migrant worker from southernmost Texas who was hired to spray herbicides on saplings in cut-over tracts around Brookhaven. He developed what was basically a bad contact dermatitis. His treating dermatologist said, with some cogency, that my client should get away from herbicides. He was only able to speak Spanish, and that in a way that was unlike the Spanish I took to get out of high school and college. He had no education – I mean none – and had worked on these crews spraying really poisonous chemicals on cut-over land for about 15 years, riding from south Texas to Mississippi in the back of a pickup and living in barns and abandoned school buses while working out of Brookhaven. His inability to move into any other type of gainful employment made me actually read and really learn for the first time the Act and the case law interpreting it. I realized that a lot of the law construing the term “disability” had grown out of contact dermatitis cases, but I knew it would be a fight because of my very brief experience in compensation practice and the undeniable medical fact that my client was not disabled from anything except working with chemicals.      My first two cases had been fistfights. The defense lawyers (who shall remain nameless) had hated my clients, and because I was young and aggressive and pushed the cases hard (I was scared of getting grilled by Danny Cupit), they also hated me. Around the same time I had taken a small settlement on a good case because the defense lawyer lied to me and said his clients had no coverage and were borrowing the $9,500 from their parents; I later found out there was coverage and the lawyers clients were exceedingly wealthy. I was nevertheless stuck. I was sure that the way to do this was never trust the defense lawyer and go after the other side with all the vigor and venom. And that’s what I did.      Then Hartford hired Ben Riddick to defend my dermatitis case. For the first time in my brief lawyer life I got a call from a defense lawyer who was nice, considerate of the plight of my client, and who seriously appreciated the fact that I was trying to help the poor worker. He came over to my office with all his documents, I opened up my file, and we talked seriously about the case for 30 minutes or so, all before we had taken the first deposition. I had a south Texas doctor who Ben agreed to depose by telephone, and he helped me find an interpreter so he could take the telephone deposition of my client. Ben never asked my client to undertake the expense of traveling to Mississippi for a discovery deposition, though I’ve fought through at least three such punitive requests in the last year alone. Ben was working for Jim Napper at Hartford, so settlement was not really an option. We tried the case before Judge Martha Griffin for a day in January 1987, and when it ended Ben walked over to my client and stuck out his hand. My client, through the interpreter, asked Ben and me if we wanted to step out behind the courthouse for a shot of Charcoal Blended whisky, and Ben laughed harder than I did. Judge Griffin awarded three weeks of TTD but no permanency, and Ben called to say he thought my client was entitled to a bit more and offered me ten or fifteen thousand. Cupit told me to appeal (I had to read the Act to figure out how), and we argued the case before Dockey Garmon, Beverly Hogan and Marshall Lusk. Ben started out his argument complimenting the job I’d done, or tried to do, for my client on a tough case, and then pointed out several things I could not refute. I then argued, high-voiced and nervous, and Ben patted me on the back and told me I did a good job and to get a better case so he could pay me. The Commission reversed and awarded permanent total disability, and even then Ben called to congratulate me. A few months later Ben walked over the check for almost $50,000, with my name on it, and I thought I was Johnny … Cochran, at least for a while until I heard again from Cupit. I have been trying worker’s comp cases ever since.     When Ben was considered by a guy in my party, Governor Ray Mabus, for a spot on the Commission, I laid out for Ben with everybody on my side of the fence I could reach. In his brief time on the Commission Ben heard one of my cases, and I got an order in my favor with a sticky note from Ben: “Good job, John. You’ve got a bright future ahead of you. Ben.” I still have that note. A few months later Ben was gone through some wrong-headed political maneuvering, and we lost touch. I only saw him two or three more times, but from time to time I would get a call from some injured worker saying Ben had referred him. My thank-you notes went unanswered, and I regret now that I didn’t do more for him. I’ll try to make up for that with his son Roger, who possesses many of Ben’s better angels.     So I’ll miss Ben. We all will. Now, in Ben’s honor and because he was there when I needed it, I will meet a young lawyer who does the right thing, fights fair, doesn’t confuse a case with a cause, and I’ll write a letter to his/her bosses saying they did a good job and that they have a bright future. I’ve patted many backs and called a few young lawyers who lost with encouragement and some needed perspective. I learned that from Ben, and I remember him whenever I get in a pointless snit over some perceived slight. We are, after all, in a profession that is based on honor and integrity. And when we honor our profession, we honor (or at least I do) Ben Riddick. ~John Griffin Jones