The final time Edward Badiu despatched me an out-of-the-blue textual content message, it was about two hours after the Champlain Towers collapsed. This time, it was concerning the passing of John Pepper.
I’ve many recollections of John Pepper. One of many longest-lasting was on April 19, 1995. I used to be taking one other Hurricane Andrew deposition of John. Invoice Berk and Berk’s purchasers gave the impression to be retaining John Pepper on all of their instances. The Oklahoma Metropolis Bombing occurred that morning throughout the deposition. After a break, Pepper introduced that the deposition was over as a result of he had been summoned to an emergency process drive relating to the bombing. He needed to get to Oklahoma Metropolis instantly.
My thought was, “Nice, now the federal authorities has my arch-enemy professional pegged as an professional amongst specialists going to analyze structural facets of the highest-profile loss since Andrew. The place did Invoice Berk discover this man?”
Over the following decade till early 2005, John Pepper and I had quite a few depositions and debates. He was powerful. I attempted every kind of various deposition strategies to entice, catch or in any other case destroy no matter John’s opinion was a few loss.
Following Hurricane Ivan, which struck Pensacola, John gave me a cellphone name. He defined {that a} girl who lived near downtown Pensacola had her dwelling destroyed. She confronted enormous protection denial points and was in any other case not being paid correctly. He requested if I might be prepared to assist her.
After all of the battles and debates, I used to be shocked by this invitation. I accepted this complicated flood harm versus wind harm case.
The powerful John Pepper modified throughout this engagement. The reality is that I did as nicely. We frolicked collectively on the loss and mentioned different specialists that have been wanted. He instructed how we might start to place collectively a cohesive case for the flood and wind carriers. I nonetheless bear in mind saying one thing to the impact of, ‘John, let’s simply rent whomever we have to show a sound level. I’ll determine the protection later. It have to be one protection or one other. If it’s neither, that’s simply the best way it’s.’
The nice angle and tone we shared in the direction of one another throughout that case by no means modified anytime thereafter. Our shopper’s case was resolved efficiently. She would often attain out to 1 or the opposite of us through the years. I all the time had a smile once I would see him on the Windstorm Convention. We all the time talked cheerfully about that one time when cats and canines acquired alongside.
In preparation for this weblog, I requested our regulation librarians, Jennifer Dabbs and Ruck DeMinico, to search out an professional CV that John had filed. Once I opened it and began going by means of it, my higher half, Donice Krueger, stated, “Wow, now that’s an professional resumé!” Please take a second simply to have a look at what John achieved in his profession.
John Pepper liked being a consulting architectural engineer. I do know he liked the architectural half as a result of he was truthfully susceptible throughout my questioning, and John was inherently a inventive particular person with ardour about design, magnificence, construction, perform, and security. He appeared to like what he did for a residing.
An legal professional in our agency, Etienne Font, as soon as managed a significant unbiased claims workplace and knew John Pepper from that perspective. Etienne wrote this about John on LinkedIn:
I met John 34 years in the past at a home in Coconut Grove, inspecting the ground framing from the crawlspace. We discovered that we had each been members of a navy fraternity Pershing Rifles after we attended school and been a part of ROTC. We grew to become superb buddies. I’ll miss him. To paraphrase a Pershing Rifles dedication to Normal Pershing: John Pepper wants no eulogy; his achievements are his eulogy. Relaxation in Peace, previous pal.
John Pepper was really a drive within the engineering discipline and the insurance coverage protection litigation enviornment. Individuals will discover his absence. I’ll miss seeing him and his pleasant smile, realizing how we shared one thing very particular after being adversaries for thus lengthy.
Thought For The Day
“Regardless that we fought like enemies within the ring, we grew to become buddies exterior it. I’ll all the time respect Joe Frazier.”
—Mohammad Ali
