MR William O Bonin

The Cane Fields Are Burning MR William O Bonin

New Iberia lawyer Jennifer Carter, who usually handles insurance defense litigation, reluctantly agrees to file suit for Dr. David Livingston to attack a Louisiana law that allows the long-standing practice of burning sugar cane in the fields during harvest time. Dr. Livingston, a pulmonologist who suffers from asthma, is determined to end this harmful practice. As anticipated, the suit against the DEQ, the State, and a large local sugar cane farmer generates a lot of controversy between those who support Livingston's quest for clean air and the sugar farmers and their supporters who fear that stopping the practice will harm the farmers and the local economy. On the day when the case was to be argued in court, Jennifer finds herself sitting in church for Livingston's funeral, wondering whether his death two days earlier was the result of just an accident. Whether his car being hit head-on by a cane truck owned by the farmer he sued was a coincidence or whether he was killed to end his lawsuit. She files suit to recover damages for Livingston's widow and children and locks horns with an unpleasant, arrogant lawyer who represents the insurer of the truck. As that case and the cane burning case advance, she can't shake the thought that Livingston didn't die in what was considered to be an accident - that he was killed. Rumors surface of death threats against Jennifer and her clients to get them to drop the cane burning case, but they decide to see it through. Jennifer balances trying the death case and the cane burning case while obsessed with bringing to justice whoever killed her client.