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ALLEN, VIOLA ‘VI' B.
November 24, 2001
Viola "Vi" B. Allen, a retired cook at Archbishop Shaw High School, died Wednesday at West Jefferson Medical Center of a heart attack. She was 78. Ms. Allen was born in St. James and lived in Marrero. She was a member of the Deaconess Board at St. Mary Baptist Church and the church's senior citizens group, feeding ministries and mission department. She was a former choir member. Survivors include two sons, James Walker Sr. and Bennie Allen Jr.; four daughters, Gail Jones, Joyce Woody, Lois Varnado and Gretchen Williams; 14 grandchildren; and nine great-grandchildren. A funeral will be held Saturday at 10 a.m. at St. Mary Baptist Church, 6223 Sixth Ave., Marrero. Visitation will begin at 9 a.m. Burial will be at Christian Social cemetery in Gretna. Davis Mortuary Service is in charge of the arrangements.
ENCALADE, MAMIE AGNES ‘AGADEE'
November 23, 2001
Mamie Agnes "Agadee" Encalade, a retired worker at Violet Packing Co., died Monday at her home. She was 78. Ms. Encalade was born in Plaquemines Parish and lived in Violet for many years. She was a member of Corinne Missionary Baptist Church. Survivors include two sons, James R. Washington Jr. and Oscar C. Ben; three daughters, Carrie W. Williams, Dolores W. Smith and Evelyn B. Thomas; three sisters, Beulah Thomas, Louise Barthelemy and Carrie Miller; 27 grandchildren; 50 great-grandchildren; and a great-great-grandchild. A funeral will be held Saturday at 10 a.m. at Corinne Missionary Baptist Church, 2425 Beachhead Lane, Violet. Visitation will begin at 9 a.m. Burial will be in Promise Land cemetery, Dalcour. D.W. Rhodes Funeral Home is in charge of arrangements.
DERBY, BERTHA SCHOENER
November 23, 2001
Bertha Schoener Derby, a retired stenographer, died Tuesday at her home in Metairie. She was 89. Mrs. Derby was born in New Orleans and lived in Metairie for the past 60 years. She retired from the Carol Jewelry Co. in 1979. She was a charter member of the Jefferson Genealogical Society and a parishioner of St. Angela Merici Church. Survivors include a son, William J. Derby Jr.; a daughter, Jean D. Enzone; a sister, Esmelda Bowles; and two grandchildren. A funeral will be held today at 11 a.m. at Tharp-Sontheimer-Tharp Funeral Home, 1600 N. Causeway Blvd., Metairie. Visitation will begin at 9 a.m. Burial will be in Cypress Grove cemetery.
DAVIS, THE REV. JOHN B. JR.
November 23, 2001
The Rev. John B. Davis Jr. died at his home Saturday. He was 87. Pastor Davis was a lifelong resident of Killona. He attended schools in the St. Charles Parish public school system and graduated from Booker T. Washington High School in New Orleans. Pastor Davis received a bachelor's degree in theology from Union Baptist Theological Seminary. In 1986, he received a master's in theology from the Inter-Baptist Theological Seminary in Houston. In 1992, he received a doctorate degree from Christian Bible College of Louisiana. Pastor Davis was ordained in 1950 by the First District Missionary Baptist Association of New Orleans. He organized Bethaisda Missionary Baptist Church in 1952 and served as pastor for 16 years. In 1956, he returned to Killona to pastor Children of Israel Baptist Church. In 1976, he was installed as pastor of 3rd Emanuel Baptist Church of Bridge City, where he served for 16 years. Survivors include his wife, Yvonne Pierre Davis; a daughter, Evelyn Davis Funches; a sister, Gertrude Hayes; five grandchildren; 17 great-grandchildren; and nine great-great-grandchildren. A wake will be held today at 7 p.m. at Children of Israel Baptist Church, 263 Killona Drive, Killona. A funeral will be held Saturday at 11 a.m. at Children of Israel Baptist Church. Burial will be in Holy Rosary cemetery in Taft. Robottom Mortuary Reserve-Hahnville is in charge of arrangements.
COTTON, MARION MAE JOSEPH
November 23, 2001
Marion Mae Joseph Cotton, a retired nurse's assistant, died Sunday of heart failure. She was 62. Mrs. Cotton was born in Vacherie and lived in New Orleans for 42 years. She previously worked at Montelepre Hospital. She was a member of Jerusalem Baptist Church, where she was a Sunday school teacher, choir member and soloist. Survivors include her husband, Eugene Cotton III; six sons, Anthony Eugene, Allen Eric, the Rev. Alex Evans, the Rev. Aaron Edwin, Adlai Everett and the Rev. Aldon Erwin Cotton; three brothers, Kermit Simoneaux, and George and Alonzo Joseph; eight sisters, Shirley Costley, Cecila Slayton, Leona Gibson, Olivia Smith, Mary Ann Carter, Angeline Treaudo, Ruby Harkless and Tracey Joseph; and 11 grandchildren. Visitation will be today from noon to 5 p.m. at Jerusalem Baptist Church, 3513 Fourth St., New Orleans. Visitation and a wake will be held today at 6 p.m. at New Home Full Gospel Baptist Church, 1616 Carondelet St., New Orleans. A funeral will be held Saturday at 10 a.m. at First Baptist Church in Vacherie. Burial will be in First Baptist Church cemetery. Rhodes Funeral Home is in charge of arrangements.
BORDELON, MARGERY AUGUSTINE
November 23, 2001
Margery Augustine Bordelon, a homemaker, died Wednesday of cancer at Ochsner Foundation Hospital. She was 74. Mrs. Bordelon was a lifelong resident of New Orleans. Survivors include three daughters, Linda France, Patsy Smith and Anne Schiro; a sister, Loretta Guerra; eight grandchildren; and six great-grandchildren. A Mass will be said Saturday at 1:30 p.m. at Jacob Schoen & Son Funeral Home, 3827 Canal St., New Orleans. Visitation will begin at 10 a.m. Burial will be in St. Vincent De Paul cemetery No. 3.
BECNEL, MARY ETHEL OUBRE
November 23, 2001
Mary Ethel Oubre Becnel, a homemaker, died Monday. She was 101. She was born in Vacherie and lived in Plaquemine. Survivors include four sons, Herbert Becnel and Warren Becnel Sr., both of Los Angeles, George Becnel Sr. of Plaquemine, and Richard Becnel Jr.; four daughters, Vera B. Washington of Los Angeles, Ethel B. Davis of Plaquemine, Leborah B. Jessie and Mildred Davis; a sister, Doretha Oubre Jackson of Port Allen; 48 grandchildren; 97 great-grandchildren; and 34 great-great-grandchildren. A Mass will be said Saturday at 11 a.m. at St. John the Evangelist Catholic Church, Plaquemine. Visitation will be today from 1 to 7 p.m. at Hall's Mortuary, 1141 Louisiana Ave., Port Allen, and Saturday at 10 a.m. at the church. Burial will be in St. John cemetery in Plaquemine.
TREAUDO, WELMER SR.
November 23, 2001
Welmer Treaudo Sr., a laborer, died Saturday of cancer. He was 87. Mr. Treaudo was born in St. James Parish and lived in New Orleans. He attended Cedar Grove public school. He served in the Army. He previously worked for New Orleans Linen Service Co. Survivors include his wife, Gennive Treaudo; five sons, Roland, Vernon, Wayne, Darrell and Welmer Treaudo Jr.; three daughters, Regina Treaudo, Carolyn Treaudo Bell and Sybil Treaudo; a brother, Joshua Treaudo Sr.; 19 grandchildren; and 10 great-grandchildren. A funeral will be held today at 11 a.m. at Rhodes Funeral Home, 3933 Washington Ave., New Orleans. Visitation will begin at 9 a.m. Burial will be in Mount Olivet cemetery.
FOIL, KEN JR.
November 23, 2001
Ken Foil Jr., a sales engineer and licensed practical nurse, died Wednesday of renal failure at Metropolitan Hospice. He was 59. Mr. Foil was born in New Orleans and lived in Metairie for 19 years. He was a graduate of Mandeville High School, Jefferson Vo-Tech School and Louisiana State University. Survivors include his wife, Marilyn Meikle Foil; two sons, Scott M. and Kenny Foil III; a stepdaughter, Jill Venezia; two sisters, Karen Jenkins and Kathleen Foil; and two grandchildren. A memorial service will be held Saturday at 10 a.m. at St. John Lutheran Church, 3937 Canal St., New Orleans. Lake Lawn Metairie Funeral Home is in charge of arrangements.
Wendell Gauthier dies at 58
December 12, 2001
Wendell Gauthier, a New Orleans lawyer whose huge class-action lawsuits against the tobacco industry and other corporations furthered the transformation of tort lawyers from ambulance chasers into power brokers with a collective influence rivaling the legislative branches of government, died Tuesday of liver cancer at his home in Metairie. He was 58.
Mr. Gauthier was a former part owner of the New Orleans Saints and an original investor in the group that won a license to operate a casino in downtown New Orleans. But it was litigation that secured his reputation -- and considerable fortune.
During a quarter-century of high-profile cases, Mr. Gauthier won whopping awards for a diverse list of clients, including families of people killed in hotel fires in Las Vegas and Puerto Rico, the 1982 airplane crash that destroyed a section of Kenner, and explosions at oil refineries and grain elevators, as well as the residents of Bhopal, India, where a 1984 chemical leak killed 3, 000 people and injured another 200, 000.
"I'm not a good Samaritan, " Gauthier said in 1993. "I'm in it to make money. But you like to think that you can cure some social ills."
Perhaps his greatest victory was in the legal action he masterminded against Big Tobacco, which, after several twists and turns, resulted in a $206 billion settlement and restrictions on cigarette advertising and marketing.
"We've gotten more than we ever thought possible, " Mr. Gauthier said after a tentative settlement was reached.
"Not many people can say they did something that will affect the world for generations to come, " said Jefferson Parish Council Chairman Aaron Broussard, a friend of Gauthier's since law school. "I think that's his legacy to the world: the leadership role he took against impossible odds."
Though Mr. Gauthier rubbed elbows with some of the most important lawyers in the country, his roots were rural Cajun. He was born in the Ascension Parish town of Iota and graduated from Iota High School. His father, a contractor, was a member of the Iota City Council. When Mr. Gauthier enrolled in what was then the University of Southwestern Louisiana, Lafayette was the largest town he had ever seen.
Cultivating his Cajun roots
In his legal career, Mr. Gauthier used his background to advantage, said Danny Abel, a law partner.
"Everybody underestimated him because he had the appearance of a country guy, " Abel said. "You didn't see him coming."
After Mr. Gauthier and his wife, Anne, graduated from USL, they moved to New Orleans, where they taught for a semester in Orleans Parish public schools before going back to Lafayette so he could get a license to teach driver education.
They returned to New Orleans, and Mr. Gauthier enrolled in Loyola University School of Law in 1965. He attended night classes, taught at East Jefferson High School in the mornings, and ran a driver-education school in the afternoon and on weekends.
After graduating from law school in 1971, he operated a criminal-law practice out of a building on Jefferson Davis Parkway, representing clients, such as college students and small-town residents, so penurious that he once quipped, "It usually amounted to charity work."
Changing directions
In the 1970s, Mr. Gauthier said he gave up criminal law after successfully representing a man accused of a violent crime and realizing the man probably was guilty.
"I felt so much anxiety, I said I'd never do that kind of work again, " Mr. Gauthier said.
The 1977 explosion of a natural-gas line at the Metairie home of one of Mr. Gauthier's friends provided his entry into the realm of plaintiffs' attorneys.
The family won a $1 million judgment, a victory that secured a piece of the action for Mr. Gauthier in an ensuing flurry of cases stemming from explosions traced to gas-line leaks because of soil subsidence.
Mr. Gauthier went on to spearhead increasingly ambitious cases on behalf of ever-larger groups of plaintiffs, both inside and outside the United States. He represented the families of people killed or injured in the 1977 explosion of a grain elevator operated in Westwego by Continental Grain; the 1980 fire at the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas; the 1984 leak at a Union Carbide plant in Bhopal, India; the 1986 fire at the Dupont Plaza Hotel in San Juan, Puerto Rico; and the 1988 Shell Oil refinery explosion in Norco. He won multimillion-dollar judgments in most of them.
Making the top 10 list
With sympathetic juries and favorable liability laws, southeastern Louisiana provided fertile soil for such lawsuits, and Mr. Gauthier helped make New Orleans a national capital of tort law. In 1989, the National Law Journal named him one of the nation's top 10 trial lawyers. He made the publication's list of the 100 most influential lawyers in the country in 1994 and again in 1997.
Phil Wittmann, a prominent New Orleans lawyer who often faced off against Mr. Gauthier, first witnessed his opponent in litigation concerning the fire at the MGM Grand.
"He was always completely ethical and did what he said he was going to do, " said Wittmann, who represented the hotel. "With him, (if) we had a handshake deal, we had a deal. That isn't to say he didn't fight like hell and fight hard; he surely did. But he was a lawyer I enjoyed working with, a consummate professional."
Mr. Gauthier represented families of people killed or injured in 1982 when Pan Am Flight 759 crashed on takeoff from New Orleans International Airport in Kenner, plowing into a nearby neighborhood and killing 146 passengers and crew members and eight residents. He also represented women claiming injuries from silicone-gel breast implants, and families forced to evacuate their Gentilly homes when a railroad tank fire laden with chemicals caught fire in 1987 and burned for 36 hours.
But Mr. Gauthier's biggest victory may have been in a case that he actually lost in court: the fight against American tobacco companies.
Bucking the odds
He had a personal reason for taking part in the case: the death of his best friend, Pete Castano, from smoking-related illnesses at age 47 in 1993. Castano's wife asked Mr. Gauthier if anything could be done, and the litigator decided to buck the odds.
Mr. Gauthier's firm -- Gauthier, Downing, LaBarre, Beiser & Dean -- and more than five dozen other law firms from around the country pitched in $100, 000 to $150, 000 each to build a war chest big enough to take on an industry that had spent millions to defend itself. Gauthier was chairman of the legal juggernaut that came to be known as the Castano Group.
Trying a new tactic
While earlier lawsuits demanded damages for cigarette-related injuries or deaths, this one sought damages for the effects of nicotine addiction, including medical bills and the cost of quitting. The suit, with its novel legal theory, contended that tobacco companies were liable because they knew nicotine was addictive.
When the national class-action lawsuit was thrown out by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Mr. Gauthier and his cohorts filed similar lawsuits on behalf of smokers in state courts across the country and warned tobacco companies that they would have to fight 50 battles instead of one. In many states, attorneys general then filed separate lawsuits seeking to recoup the public money spent treating sick smokers.
Faced with dozens of well-financed lawsuits, five of the nation's tobacco companies agreed by late 1998 to pay 46 states a total of $206 billion by 2025 to end the huge case. Louisiana's share of the total was $4.4 billion.
The settlement did not shield the tobacco companies from all suits filed by smokers; a jury trial will start soon in New Orleans in a statewide class-action suit that seeks to force the tobacco companies to pay for annual medical monitoring to detect smoking-related disease. But the settlement did require the firms to curb advertising practices that critics had claimed targeted young people. Among other things, the settlement banned use of cartoon characters in tobacco ads or promotions.
In 2000, Mr. Gauthier received the "Breath of Life" award from the American Cancer Association for his efforts. He also was chairman of a fund-raising drive at the LSU Stanley S. Scott Cancer Center.
Landing a casino license
In the 1990s, Mr. Gauthier was part of the Jazzville group of investors, who won the state license to operate Louisiana's land casino and eventually were bought out by Harrah's.
Mr. Gauthier also was part of a group of investors with a minority stake in the Saints when Tom Benson purchased the team in 1985. Benson bought out his partners in 1992, but Gauthier resurfaced in 1996 at the head of a group of 70 investors who mounted a short-lived effort to buy the team.
Mr. Gauthier also was a member of the Louisiana Constitutional Convention, which did a landmark rewriting of the state's basic legal document in 1973. In 1975, he was an unsuccessful candidate for an East Jefferson seat in the state House of Representatives.
Survivors include his wife, Anne Barrios Gauthier; three daughters, Cherie Gauthier, Michelle Gauthier Graham and Celeste Gauthier-Balluff; two brothers, Patrick and Neil Gauthier; two sisters, Barbara King and Totsy Brownson; and one grandchild.
A Mass will be said Friday at noon at Our Lady of Good Counsel Catholic Church, 1307 Louisiana Ave., New Orleans. Visitation will be Thursday from 6 to 9 p.m. and Friday from 9 to 11 a.m. at Bultman Funeral Home, 3338 St. Charles Ave., New Orleans. Burial will be in Lake Lawn Metairie cemetery.
