On Moral Grounds

"On Moral Grounds" Documentary Treatment Based on a True Story by Robby Kushner & Josh Levine It is 1999. We are in Los Angeles, California. Adolf Stern, a good humored, gentle man of eighty seven years sits in front of a camera giving a deposition. He is nervous, wringing his hands together. He recalls the following story: The year is 1937 in Uzghorod, Czechoslovakia. A local wine merchant, Mor Stern, is going over paperwork in his office. He is tallying the money owed to him from his customers from around Europe. There is a knock on the office door. It is an insurance salesman from one of the biggest companies in Europe, Generali. Mor is excited to see the man. They have corresponded for some time and Mor is anxious to purchase life insurance policies for his family. We learn that in prewar Europe, insurance policies were like a “poor man’s” Swiss bank account, much more secure then the local banks. The two men shake hands and the salesman leaves with the signed policies. Over the opening credits we follow the policies as they travel all the way to Generali’s head office in Trieste, Italy. They are sent to the filling room and we continue through the office until we enter a board room where a meeting is taking place with the board of directors. They are expressing concern for the political situation in Europe. They are worried about the influx of policies the company has been handling, especially life insurance policies from European Jews. There are rumors that the looming war will play out very poorly for the Jews, bringing their lives to earlier than expected endings. A voice speaks up from the shadows. It is a Nazi Germany representative – obviously the man behind the powerful executives sitting at the table. He comforts the Generali executives, telling them that they have nothing to worry about because there won’t be any Jews left to collect on their policies. Flash forward to Brno, Czechoslovakia: 1938. A well-dressed, handsome twenty-one-year-old Adolf Stern, Mor’s son, drives a pick-up truck along the Czech countryside. He refers to a crudely drawn map on the dashboard. He locates his destination, a small market surrounded by fields of apple trees. As he enters the market, he is nervous. A portly Czech grocer with a cross around his neck notices Adolf walking towards him. Adolf explains to the grocer that he is the son of Mor Stern, the wine merchant. The grocer removes his hat and shakes Adolf's hand again and again. He thanks Adolf profusely and walks to a desk to a satchel filled with money. The grocer asks Adolf to thank his father for allowing him to stall on making payments. As Adolf nods in agreement, the grocer hands him bill after bill until Adolf can't hold any more money. Back in the pick-up truck, Adolf again refers to the map. He looks for signs that will help him find his next destination. He passes by a sign with a swastika on it. Adolf reacts to the sign but continues down the road. This time he enters a restaurant. After a long day driving from location to location, collecting the money clients owe to his father, Adolf realizes he has collected more money than he has ever seen in his entire life. His father will be happy. He drives past a pub and decides to stop in. Nervously he keeps checking his pockets. He walks to a telephone and places a call to his father. Mor Stern is relieved to finally hear from his son. The political climate in Eastern Europe has heated up and he is worried for his son's safety. He instructs Adolf to find the insurance company called Generali and to pay forward on existing claims the entire amount Adolf has collected. Adolf does not often question his father but insists that there is too much money to let go. Maybe they should use it to smuggle themselves out of the country. Mor Stern is adamant. He wants Adolf to pay forward all the premiums for the next five years on all of the family’s insurance policies with Generali. Adolf does as he is told. Three months later. Hitler invades Czechoslovakia. At the Stern winery the family has only moments to react before Hitler's SS army barges through their front door. The family and a few employees hide in the cellar behind large wine barrels but to no avail. The officers see Mor’s cane peaking out from behind a barrel. They are discovered and the Nazi troopers cart the Stern family off. Adolf and his family, including his wife and baby daughter, are stuffed into a train with hordes of other Jews. The smell, the cramped space, the crying is too much to handle. They've been traveling for days. Suddenly the train stops. Mass confusion ensues. German soldiers are instructing men and boys to move to the left, and women and girls, to the right. The elderly and young are put in a line headed towards a building with smoke rising from a large chimney stoop. The Stern family is split apart. Adolf and his wife try to hide their daughter, but a German soldier yanks the child from her mother’s arms. Adolf reaches for the girl, but his father and brothers hold him back for his own safety. His wife grabs the baby from the soldier, choosing to stay with the girl and consequentially sealing her own fate. This is the last time Adolf Stern will ever see his wife and child again. One year later. Adolf has survived Hitler’s concentration camps. One by one he has seen most of his family killed. His brother and sister are transferred to another concentration camp and lose touch with Adolf. Adolf befriends a man named Freddy Jackson at Buchenwald. The two men have much in common and help each other get through their grief. Then on April 11, 1945, American planes are seen flying over Buchenwald. They drop bread and other rations. The German soldiers try to flee but are stopped by American troops headed into the concentration camp. The images in the camp are particularly disturbing. Adolf, on death's bed, frail and sickly, hitches a ride with an American soldier going to Prague. Freddy Jackson is able to hitch a ride to Krakow. The two men part ways. Adolf, still wearing his concentration camp garb, smelling, dirty and absolutely pathetic enters the Generali office and asks for just a little money from his family's policy so that he can get cleaned up and begin a new life. The clerk at the front desk asks for a copy of the policy and a copy of his father's death certificate. Adolf does not have them, explaining to the man that he just 2 came from Buchenwald. The clerk says he cannot help. Adolf becomes irate. The clerk calls for a guard and Adolf is thrown out on the street. It is now 1999, fifty years later. We are in Los Angeles, California. Lisa Stern, her husband Allan, and their two children are late for a funeral. We dive right into their dysfunctional family. We learn that Lisa has recently quit her big corporate law firm job and that Allan is now the sole bread winner of the family. Lisa recently decided that she couldn’t balance both work and her family, and maintain her sanity and happiness so she chose her family over her career, but we get a sense that she is not entirely happy with this decision either. The Stern family is gathered at a funeral home to mourn the death of Bart Stern, youngest brother to Adolf. Adolf is there, so is his sister, Edith, and his old friend Freddy Jackson. Adolf’s niece Lisa Stern and her husband, Allan, arrive with their two children. Adolf is proud of Lisa, the lawyer of the family. Lisa doesn’t want to tell her Uncle she quit her job. Allan asks Bart's widow how she will get by now that Bart is gone. We learn that Bart had life insurance. Edith then recalls an insurance policy their father talked about before the war. Lisa is intrigued by this and interrogates her aunt further. Aunt Edith goes to a drawer and takes out some old papers from a company called Generali. They are rejection letters. Lisa approaches Adolf with the letters, but he becomes angry and does not want to talk about it, obviously this brings back some bad memories. Although the discussion is done for now, Lisa wants to investigate further. But first she has to deal with her family. Allan has to go to work, so the family leaves. Allan and Lisa fight over her decision to leave her law firm. They are having major financial problems resulting in Allan having to put more time in at work. But Lisa keeps reminding him that she needs to spend more time with their kids, that she was unhappy, and that she hated working for a big law firm. They agree to disagree at that point. While her kids are settled in for the night, Lisa, in an office in the back of their modest home in the Valley, starts to investigate the Stern family story. She researches Generali. She looks through the insurance claim rejection letters her Aunt Edith had given her. Something is not sitting right with her. She knows there was an injustice committed and sees that what Generali did, and has done for fifty years, is not right. But where would she start? And how would she take on Generali? To prevent losing complete touch with her old life, Lisa readies herself for an event at the Grand Hotel in downtown Los Angeles. Some of the biggest names in law will be there, including Bill Shernoff, the guru of insurance bad faith law, who is the honored guest. She hopes that if she could just get a few minutes with him he may be able to answer a few questions. As she gets ready, Allan enters and asks what she's all dressed up for. She reminds him that they spoke about the event. Allan insists they did not. Lisa tells him that she has to go. This turns into an argument. Allan leaves to go to work. Her usually reliable babysitter has to cancel and Lisa is stuck with the kids, she has no choice but to take them with her to the event. She grabs Aunt Edith’s papers, her kids, and heads out the door. 3 Bill Shernoff is the guest of honor at the new Grand Hotel in downtown Los Angeles. The entire hotel corporation is brown nosing. We find out that he took on their insurance company after the first Grand Hotel burned down because of faulty wiring; they received a full settlement even though the insurance company had denied their claim. Everybody wants a piece of Bill. Lisa, on the other hand, tries to persuade her kids to sit and behave. She is embarrassed when a former co-worker spots her. She sees Bill Shernoff and decides to approach him with this intriguing story about her family. As Bill works the room, Lisa introduces herself and starts to tell him about what she's learned so far. Bill is mildly interested at this point. He comes across as aloof at first, which infuriates Lisa. She is now determined to get this guy’s attention. Lisa talks very forcefully, and Bill finally accommodates her by turning around to face her. Bill tells her it's a very intriguing story but there is no proof. It will never work. There are a million reasons to give up. Lisa hands Bill the stack of letters from Generali. She tells him that the answer to finding the proof he needs is hidden somewhere in these papers. Bill peruses them and suddenly something clicks. A huge insurance company is trying to take advantage of a paying customer. His ethics get the best of him. He agrees to meet with her the next day. Bill has a huge office. Lisa is humbled. She knows she needs him. He acts as if she should be grateful. But they both respect each other. Bill respects Lisa's passion to help people, and Lisa respects Bill's track record. Bill lays down the bitter truth. There truly are a million reasons not to go forward. Bill says there are three huge roadblocks; •The American courts do not have jurisdiction over an Italian company; •There are no copies of any of the policies; and •To get anything done she'd basically have to write and pass a law extending the statute of limitations, which could take a year or longer. The last one gets Lisa excited. She says she can write a law. Bill laughs at her naiveté. He sends her off thinking he'll never see her again. Lisa spends the next few days dealing with her family troubles while attempting to write a law that will help Survivors fifty years after the fact, a daunting task to say the least. Allan reminds her that the whole reason she left the firm was because she wanted to spend more time with her kids, but she's done nothing but work since she made that decision. She agrees and starts to work at her kitchen table while her kids are in the room coloring. She realizes she can't do this alone, but wouldn’t dare be shown up by Bill. She contacts an old professor of hers named Wally Knox. Professor Knox, now a California Assemblyman, is an eccentric guy. He would do just about anything for someone as passionate about a cause as Lisa. He calls Lisa his best pupil and agrees to help her after she tells him the whole scandalous story. However, he warns her that it usually takes years to pass a law. Professor Knox makes a few calls but realizes most likely nothing will come of it. The two go to Sacramento anyway, figuring that talking face-to-face with the state government might be worthwhile. Lisa is worried about charging her credit card with a flight, but she has no choice. 4 Door after door is slammed in their face. No one claims to have time for a law that seems impossible to pass in such a short time. Assemblyman Knox gets furious. He winks at Lisa, telling her to watch him. He then goes on a rant in the middle of the state capitol, screaming at the closed doors that if only they would listen they would understand how many potential voters this could help, what a key demographic this affects. He is told to keep quiet because the House of Representatives is in session. Assemblyman Knox takes a huge risk. He decides to go to the floor of the Assembly and plead to the House for support. In a passionate speech, he is able to persuade the entire House of Representatives to back Lisa’s bill, something that has never been accomplished in such a short period of time. The law passes just 40 days after Lisa drafted it on her kitchen table. Professor Knox and Lisa celebrate. Lisa calls Bill, who is flabbergasted by the news. Bill starts to trust his new partner and rely on her more heavily. They start to warm up to each other. For now, the case against Generali will go forward. At a press conference Bill announces their intent to file suit in California court. They do so. Generali in Italy reacts to the news. The board of executives and their in-house council convene immediately. Generali’s head council, a man named Guido Pastori, is present. He seems cool and collected. He thinks of this as a minor inconvenience at most. He knows these American lawyers have no jurisdiction and knows there is no proof of any insurance policy. They all consider it ridiculous. Generali is a national institution in Italy, so the Stern case makes the news in Trieste, Italy, where Giuseppe Faldo lives. The old man watches his TV attentively. Something has sparked his interest. Lisa and Bill are at Adolf's home in New York going over paperwork. Lisa gets a call from her son. He tells her the fax machine is going crazy. Several copies of something written in a strange language are piling up in her office. At first she gets angry that her son went into her office, but realizes that her son said something about a strange language. Intrigued, she asks her son to fax the papers to her at Adolf's home. He does so. As the paper comes through a fax machine, Lisa and Bill quickly realize what they are looking at. It's a copy of Mor Stern's Generali insurance policy from 1938 with the words "Hail Hitler!" written on it. Where did this come from and who sent it? Lisa is concerned that if a decent employee of Generali is faxing the important documents to her, then maybe an unscrupulous employee knows about these copies too and the company may shred other evidence. Bill makes a call to California's Insurance Commissioner. He convinces him to send a representative to Trieste, Italy to find the warehouse where these documents apparently came from. Lisa insists she go as well but knows that she cannot afford it. Showing compassion Bill pays for Lisa to go, joking with her not to come back unless she finds the smoking gun because this is an expensive trip. This, of course, is not okay with Allan. But Lisa is determined. She tells Allan that she can’t disappoint Bill. But Allan, again, reminds her about the reasons she quit her firm. She leaves the 5 house without resolving it with her husband. Lisa meets Robert Hagedorn, a representative of the Insurance Commissioner, at the airport. Hagedorn tells her, amazingly, that Generali has offered to give them a tour of the warehouse. Lisa can’t believe it. Meanwhile, Adolf tells his old friend Freddy Jackson of his recent successes and that maybe there is an outside chance that he, Adolf, may get some of the money Generali owes his family. He encourages Freddy Jackson to speak with Lisa about his own family’s unpaid policies. Freddy sees that Adolf is excited and hopeful, so he agrees to speak with her when she gets back from Italy. Lisa and Hagedorn arrive in Trieste, Italy. They are greeted at the airport by mafia-looking thugs who say they are representatives of the Italian government. Are Lisa and Hagedorn supposed to trust them? In a limousine, Lisa and Hagedorn are taken to Generali where they are met by Guido Pastori, who is overtly friendly. They are then driven, the long way, to the warehouse through winding roads which is clearly meant to confuse them. Lisa, Hagedorn, Guido and his entourage are let into the warehouse by Giuseppe Faldo, the security guard. At the warehouse, Guido does not show them anything important and does not even mention old files or copies of insurance policies. Lisa is adamant about finding these files. Hagedorn starts to think that his time is being wasted. Guido is unapologetic and tells them there is nothing more to see. The limousine drops them off at their hotel. That night, while Lisa is downstairs making a phone call back home to Allan and the kids, Giuseppe Faldo, approaches her. He introduces himself as the security guard who let them into Generali’s warehouse earlier that day. He wants to take her back to the warehouse. Lisa is nervous and doesn't know if what she is doing is legal, but does not care at the moment and follows Mr. Faldo. They arrive at the warehouse where Mr. Faldo takes Lisa in through a side door to avoid being seen by the on duty security officers. She is skeptical, but the innocents of this sweet old man makes her trust him. He shows her a room that Guido Pastori did not show her – a room filled with hundreds of thousands of boxes, row after row. The farther back she looks, the older the boxes are. She opens up a box and can't believe what she is looking at: actual carbon copies of old insurance policies dating back to pre-war Europe. Lisa can’t believe that Generali has not destroyed all this evidence. Are they that honest, that stupid, or that arrogant? Lisa brings the information back to Bill. He is pleased with the work she has done. Now they have the proof that these policies exist. They have bypassed the statute of limitations with the law Lisa and Professor Knox passed. But they still don't have any right to sue an Italian insurance company in America. There is no jurisdiction. Freddy Jackson dies before he is able to talk to Lisa. This breaks Lisa’s heart and puts the fire in her belly to really fight this aloof insurance company. Adolf and Lisa attend Freddy’s funeral. We learn that ten percent of Holocaust Survivors die every year. Time is running out, and Generali is waiting for the Survivors to die off. 6 Guido Pastori learns of Lisa’s discovery at the warehouse. This really knocks the board of directors at Generali off balance. They start to panic. They decide to send Guido to Los Angeles to scare Bill off. Bill is not intimidated one bit. He’s been fighting guys like this his whole professional career. Guido is an unsympathetic man who only cares about protecting his client, Generali. He isn’t seeing the big picture. And Bill has something that Guido does not – ethics. Bill tells Guido to go home to Italy and prepare for a beating of a lifetime. Holding back his anger and frustration Guido leaves. In his deposition, Adolf finishes telling his rendition of the story from the beginning of the film. As Adolf exits, a Generali official comes into the room to be deposed. Adolf stops him and tells him about Freddy Jackson. Adolf tells him he hopes that he lives long enough to see Generali crumble to the ground. The official does not look Adolf in the eyes. In his deposition, the official swears under oath that Generali has never been sued in California courts, supporting Generali’s jurisdiction argument. Increasingly worried that this case is getting out of control, Guido Pastori hides his concern as he meets with the Generali board members. They are concerned because representatives from the German government have contacted them. They have been observing the progress of the Stern case and are beginning to fear for their own insurance company’s liability during the war. Guido tells them that they have nothing to worry about. There is no way the Americans can prove jurisdiction. Guido and Generali’s board greatly underestimate their American counterparts. It is the night before the first hearing. The Judge may either set a trial date or throw the case out. Bill is stressed about the jurisdiction dilemma. At the eleventh hour Bill and Lisa are tired, they've been up all night long preparing when Lisa finally says she has to go home. Before she does, Bill has an epiphany. How could he not have thought of this earlier? He tells Lisa to go home and to meet him in court the next morning. Bill picks up the phone and makes a call. “I need a favor.” When Lisa finally comes home, Allan is in the kitchen waiting to have it out with her. Allan actually uses the word divorce. Lisa, shocked, finally takes the time to explain to Allan what she’s been doing. She tells him that this is the most important thing she's ever done, and not only that, this is about her family. She is totally freaking out because they are not able to prove jurisdiction. All her hard work is going to be for nothing. Allan contemplates what she's up against and realizes that he should be supportive of his wife. He apologizes to her. She does the same. Bill arrives at his destination in the middle of the night – the Law Library of downtown Los Angeles. He pulled a favor with an old friend, the on duty security guard, who lets him in after hours. Bill is led to a room filled with rows and rows of filing cabinets. His friend wishes him good luck. Bill begins his search. With renewed confidence from Allan, Lisa heads to court, still unsure of Bill's epiphany, and doubting the judge will set a trial date, Lisa sees Bill who is in a great mood. He got what he was looking for. Lisa sees now that Bill is worth his weight in gold and tells him she couldn’t have done this without him. Bill tells her it’s not over yet. They enter the courthouse. 7 Bill and Lisa sit before a Judge. Guido Pastori has to concede that the law Lisa and Assemblyman Knox wrote renders the statute of limitations a moot point. He also concedes that Generali has, in fact, kept a warehouse filled with old policies and that somehow they got out. But Guido argues fiercely that Lisa and Bill still have no jurisdiction because Generali has done “limited business” in California and that Generali has “never” used the California courts to sue or to defend itself. This is Bill's shining moment in court, the moment he has been waiting for. He goes in for the kill. “Your honor," he says, “the Generali lawyers would have you believe that they have never used the California courts and that as a result there is no jurisdiction. But on a hunch we've recovered evidence that shows not only have they been sued in the California courts twelve times, but they have used our court system here in the state of California to make claims to collect money. Now if what opposing counsel has said is not a blatant lie, and in blatant contempt of this court, then I don't know what is!” Guido looks defeated. The judge is angered by Generali's lie and rules in favor of Bill and Lisa. A trial date is set. The first ever of its kind. The Generali board members storm out of the courtroom furious with its lawyers and its lead counsel. Panic sets in. They realize they’re up shit's creek. Fearing further exposure, they contact Bill’s office and request a meeting with his client. Bill calls Lisa and congratulates her. In the lobby of the courtroom Guido receives a phone call from a representative form the German government. They are eager to here the status of the case. They have as much riding on this as the Italians. Guido goes pale. He gives him the bad news. Generali concedes they have no choice but to settle the case. In a heated negotiation, Adolf is offered $5 million. He accepts. He thanks Lisa and Bill for all their hard work and is happy that justice has finally prevailed. He wishes his friend Freddy Jackson could be there with him to celebrate. The next morning Lisa opens the newspaper. A headline reads “Germans Give $5 Billion to Holocaust Survivors: Out of fear from the success of Stern v. Generali, the German government has set up a $5 billion fund to mend the misdeeds caused by German insurance carriers. It is the largest settlement in the history of litigation.” Lisa feels amazed, empowered and justified considering all the hard work she has put in. Allan finally gets how huge this case actually was. Lisa tells him that it’s like the first domino in a series. Because of the success of the Stern case doors will open for victims who believed there was no hope. Bill reads from the same article in his office, “Because of the success of the Stern case and the perseverance of the lawyers, Lisa Stern and Bill shernoff, the truth has been exposed to the world. Nobody will ever forget the wrongs committed by these insurance companies during the Nazi era.” Bill puts down the news paper. He can’t believe what he just read. Bill invites the Stern family to his house the next day. Bill, Lisa, Allan and their kids celebrate. Bill pulls Lisa aside and hands her a check. He congratulates her, but tells her their job is not done because Generali is not a German insurance carrier, so the company is not affected by the 8 large German settlement, and that the cases against Generali are still open. His firm has received dozens of calls from other Holocaust survivors who all want to take on Generali. Bill offers her a partner position if she wants the job. She thanks Bill, but tells him she’ll have to think about it and discuss it with her family. Allan is happy for Lisa. He tells her that she’d be crazy to stop now. Lisa warns her family that there is still much work to be done. Her kids don’t seem to mind. And Allan wants her to do it. She immediately starts grilling Bill on how much vacation time there will be and that she doesn’t want to work long hours so that she can spend time with her family, and on and on and on… The End Contact: robbykushner@hotmail.com 9