Page 100 - ACTL Journal Win24

ERITAGE OF THE COLLEGE
TERRY WEST
SOME CASES GO HOME WITH YOU.
A number of years ago, Terry West tried a case in Muskogee, Oklahoma with a young associate, Doug Combs. The case involved a tragic death of two young roughnecks working an oil patch in Northern Oklahoma. The first man crawled up the ladder on a frac tank and opened the hatch at the top. He was overcome by methane gas, fell into the tank and died. His coworker, trying to find what happened to his buddy, climbed up the ladder and looked into the hatch. He too was overcome, fell through the opening and died.
They might have lived if there had been any type of screen or bars over the tank hatch. Terry and Doug represented the two widows. They were pleased with how the case went in. It was a terrible loss and the jurors were in tears when they heard the young widows testify.
The widows and their children sat behind Terry and Doug. As the jurors went back and forth through the swinging gate of the jury box, one of the young boys rushed to hold the gate open for the jurors. Earl Mills, a FACTL from Oklahoma City, represented the tank manufacturer. He suspected that the boy did not act on his own, but he was not about to object the young boy’s display of manners, and Terry denied any role. Terry and Earl were good friends.
The jurors came back after a few hours and Terry told Doug, “I think we’ve lost.” Even today, Terry still recalls seeing tears in the jurors’ eyes and thinking “If they had done justice and Terry West was born in 1936 and was raised in Francis, Oklahoma, northeast of Ada, Oklahoma. His father was a railway worker and ran some cattle. His mother was an elementary school teacher – Terry’s teacher. Francis was an extremely small town, with only nine students graduating in his class. He humbly points out that he graduated at the top of that class, but the town was too small for football. Terry proudly claims he was one of the two best marble shooters in Francis.
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