Members Mourn the Death of Bob Mayes

Members of the ESRBA Mourn the Death of Bob Mayes by Stephen H. Echsner

“Bob Mayes was my friend, a great person and a superb lawyer.” Stephen H. Echsner

I learned many years ago that the word “Hoosier” in the South is sometimes pejorative but Bob and I were real Hoosiers. We grew up ten blocks from each other in the small town of Columbus, Indiana. Bob came from a family of six children. There were four boys and two girls. The family lived in a very modest home. His mother, Violet, was a stay at home mom and his father, Melvin, worked at Cummins Engine Company. Bob began working at age fourteen in 1959 when I was only four years old. One of first jobs was working as a helper for my father. He needed help around his office and my family’s home because my mother was busy with kids, having had four in six years, and my siblings and I were too young then to cut the grass, rake, trim bushes, clean gutters, wash windows, sweep the garage and other miscellaneous chores. For four years, Bob’s work then set the standard against which the work of all other high school workers who succeeded him was measured. Nobody who worked the same job after Bob had a chance of success because Bob worked all of his tasks thoroughly and to perfection just as he did later in his life as a lawyer. Upon high school graduation, Bob obtained a B.S. Degree from Indiana University and in 1969 received a J.D. Degree from Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law. From 1969 until 1973 he served in the U.S. Air Force as a JAG Officer and attained the rank of Captain. He was stationed at Keesler AFB in Biloxi and his service required him to travel to Tyndall AFB in Panama City to try cases and it was during those back and forth trips that he discovered Pensacola. He applied for a job at the Levin firm and began working there on January 1, 1974.

Four years later, during the summer of 1978, I had just completed my first year of law school and was working for a legal aid organization in Columbus. I came home from work one day and Bob was there. His father had suffered a coronary and Bob traveled from Pensacola to Columbus to see his father and to talk with my father, his father’s physician, about his father’s condition. Incidentally, his father lived for at least twenty or more years but Bob’s presence that day was contemporaneous with the mail delivery of the report card from my first year of law school. I felt certain that I had flunked at least one course so I stealthily snuck up the stairs to my room to open the envelope. Lo and behold, I aced Torts and won the book award! I immediately shared my success with Bob and he then described the nature of his practice in Pensacola and the firm with which he was associated and I was immediately interested and attracted. Bob returned to Pensacola, one thing led to another, and within a week or so Bob called and extended an offer to me to work as a law clerk for the firm for the rest of the summer, an offer that I declined because of other commitments. Imagine being a single, twenty-three-year-old law student turning down an offer to work for a summer in Florida at the Levin firm! But Bob was responsible for extending an offer again the following summer and so I came to Pensacola and worked for the firm as a law clerk between my second and third year of law school and, upon graduation in June, 1980, loaded all of my earthly possessions into the back of my 1969 Ford and drove to Pensacola to join the Levin firm where I practiced for thirty years. Bob and I were law partners for seventeen of those years. Bob left the firm in March, 1997 to pursue bad faith insurance practice on his own and then later his son, Jon, joined.

From a personal standpoint, many of the good traits observed about Bob as a kid more than sixty years ago carried over into his life as an attorney. He was always prepared and on time. Bob always produced an excellent work product, was never a quitter, was self-motivated and he always accepted responsibility for his own mistakes. He was even keeled and good natured even in the face of adversity and defeat. Bob maintained his youthful appearance, mental happiness and emotional stability his entire life. He was well adjusted, well balanced and happy with who he was. He was consistent. He loved to tell a good joke and had an infectious laugh. He was humble and never sought to be the center of attention. When the conversation turned to him, he would always deflect to a different topic for continued non-disruptive conversation. He always strived to do the right thing. Bob never spoke bad or ill of anyone and if he did utter unpleasant words it was just a sudden emotional burst of excitement or disbelief that was quickly forgiven and forgotten. Bob was honest; he would not deceive or trick anyone even if there was no risk that anyone would find out. Like most all of us, Bob was motivated by money but money was not the end all of his professional life. Doing the right thing at the right time for the right reason was his primary motivation. I knew him from early on in his life and know that his values and personality remained constant and consistent throughout his entire life. Bob’s voice had a special quality about it that was comforting and non-threatening and at the same time was full of confidence and authority. Writing a tribute about the life of Bob Mayes is easy because he was a great human being and it would be difficult to find

one person with a bad or negative thing to say or comment about him. Bob was fun to be with. He was genuine. In the courtroom he was serious. Jurors identified with Bob because he was able to take a complicated problem, admit to difficulty understanding the complication himself, and explain the problem in simple ordinary language so that both he and the jury came to the same conclusion.

Bob immediately became my mentor as he was to many other young lawyers. He taught young lawyers how to practice law by example. He taught me how to be a lawyer and how to conduct myself as a lawyer both by his example and substantive teaching. Although I handled family law cases at the beginning, I simply could not resist joining forces with my partners who were achieving great results in injury jury cases and so I quickly made the transition to personal injury practice. During selection of my first jury, Bob told me at break: “Look, I know you do not feel like you know what you are doing but you are doing a great job and I know you are nervous but keep your hands away from each other because when they are together you fidget and the fidgeting is more distracting than your quivering voice. Once you quit fidgeting, the voice quiver will go away.” And so both annoying distractions ended. We worked together on all kind of tort cases. Some with crazy facts. We worked on car crashes, defective products, premises liability, medical malpractice, bad faith and battery cases. He was always generous with his time and division of fees that were earned on cases. Beginning lawyers know nothing about how to try a case but Bob sure did. He was a master jury trial expert. He taught me not only how to try a case but, just as important, how to prepare to try a case. Trial outline, witness lists, direct and redirect questions, directed verdict argument, opening statement, closing argument and rebuttal all had to be written out and he believed that notes should not be used during opening, closing or rebuttal. If you had to read your notes while talking to the jury then you were not prepared. I learned from Bob the importance of talking with colleagues about my cases and of presenting a case to a focus group and learning about the strengths and weaknesses of the case before being told by the jury. An especially difficult dispute arose with one of the firm’s clients over the amount of money distributed to her after a jury trial and appeal all of the way to the Florida Supreme Court. Her complaint was against one of the firm’s senior partners who pointed the finger at me. My response to the grievance filed by the client with The Florida Bar required me to direct a serious counter accusation against him. I sought counsel from Bob about the delicate dilemma and, as usual, Bob had a very practical solution to what appeared to be an insurmountable problem: do the right thing and don’t worry about it. Several of Bob’s favorite expressions were, “Like my grandmother used to say, no one will care in 87 years” and “You do not have to remember what you said if you tell the truth.”

From a professional standpoint, Bob’s conduct was always within the bounds of ethics and he had excellent judgment and great instinct. In delicate situations, he would sometimes tiptoe right up close to and brush the line but never breach it. He never cheated or exploited anyone, he lived and practiced by The Golden Rule. He loved to win and he did win most of his jury trials, but he accepted defeat with grace. He was a worker. Bob was once involved in two jury trials during the same week and even though defense lawyers consented to a continuance, Bob proceeded. He finished argument in one case on Wednesday mid-morning, left the courtroom and went across the hall to a different courtroom and gave opening statement in another case and started presenting evidence while the jury in the first case deliberated and was on a plane for a deposition in South Florida in yet a third case while the second jury continued its deliberation. Both cases were verdicts for his clients. Every single one of Bob’s cases was just as important as all of his other cases and he treated all of his clients the same. The three-time slip and fall client with aggravation of a pre-existing back condition who slipped and fell in the same fast food restaurant but on different pieces of chicken was just as important to him as a case involving clear liability of a quadriplegic. Bob was enterprising. In the mid-80s, the firm explored the idea of buying audio visual equipment for recording depositions but decided not to purchase the equipment because it was expensive and would probably not be used. Instead, Bob bought the equipment and rented it out to lawyers in and out of the firm on a case by case basis and it was paid in full in about three weeks. Bob achieved much success in his professional life by refining and practicing the law of third party insurance bad faith. This practice consisted of representing individuals against insurance companies who failed to do the right thing in not protecting their insureds. After an excess judgment was obtained against an insured, Bob specialized in finding out why the insurance company left its insured hanging out to dry and making the insurance company pay for its mistake. He did not keep count but Bob probably tried over 200 civil jury trials to verdict. He obtained collective verdicts in excess of $100 million dollars in single event cases for his clients who had bad faith acts committed against them by their insurance companies. Bob was a leader. He served as President of the Escambia-Santa Rosa Bar Association during 1985-86. He lectured on trial law throughout Florida for over twentyfive years. Bob was a good friend to many of his law partners and with lawyers on the other side of the table as well. Bob was respected by all judges and all lawyers on both sides.

The coronavirus pandemic has changed the legal profession’s way of doing business and the way in which we interact with others. We are no longer required to be physically present at events, even in the courtroom. I never expected to attend a memorial service for Bob while watching from my laptop computer on Facebook. I felt bad that, under the circumstances, I could not even be in St. Ann Church Gulf Breeze to say goodbye but I am comforted with Bob’s belief that he has gone to his eternal reward and that we will someday be reunited. Paula, Bob’s wife of 34 years, two sons, Steven and Jon; five grandchildren, Gavin, Ryan, Abigail, Bella and Johnny, Jr.; and brother, Jim (Caroline), survive.

My life as a lawyer was profoundly enhanced by Bob Mayes. I am grateful for his friendship and influence on my life and career in Pensacola and, although he is gone, my vivid memory of and love for him lives on.