The Montana Standard from Butte, Montana • 3

The Montana Standard, Butte, Saturday, December 29, 19843, People liWIe miintpH nmonff his achievements: PHILADELPHIA (AP) -Attorney David Berger has recovered billions of dollars from the government, the nation's biggest oil companies and utilities for tens of thousands of small clients. fee-. I- lv i A 2-billion settlement from the government on behalf of the bankrupt Penn' Central railroad and thousands of its shareholders. A $25-million settlement for area residents against General Public Utilities, owner of the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant. The award included an unprecedented $5-million public health fund to study the effect of low-level radiation exposure on the plant's neighbors.

A f25-million settlement from 13 of the biggest U.S. oil companies on behalf of some 30,000 gasoline station operators. The settlement also allowed the station operators to buy gas from competitors that could save consumers money. A suit against the nation's asbestos firms on behalf of every public and private elementary and secondary school in the United States, seeking funds for removal of cancer-causing asbestos from walls, ceilings, pipes and heating systems. A suit against more than 90 electricity utilities in Ohio, Mirhicran.

Indiana. New York, that corporation and its directors for failing to disclose true information about the firm." Berger's firm employs 30 lawyers who are assisted by 70 other employees. Berger said he benefits only when he -wins. "No individual pays me," he said. "What I get is absolutely determined on what the judge decides." Berger, while declining to discuss his financial status, said he knows many top-flight lawyers who have forsaken class-action cases for a more lucrative legal practice.

"My professional goal is to try to universalize the lessons I have learned from Penn Central, from Three Mile Island, from the asbestos and gasoline station cases, and trim the lengthy procedures which have become utterly exorbitant in time and money," he said. Berger was born in Archbald, near Scranton, where his father operated a small department store. He said his first ambition was to be a major league baseball player, but he decided to become a lawyer after his father had some legal problems. He came to Philadelphia as a student at the University of Pennsylvania, where he earned his bachelor and law degrees, and never left. laws in construction of nuclear power plants.

Recovery of more than SI billion in numerous antitrust cases involving such products as rock salt, electrical equipment, copper tubing, water heaters and corrugated paper. Recovery of about $25 million from a major cereal firm for damages caused by a sewer explosion in Louisville, Ky. "IN ALL of these cases, we are always up against the toughest, best and richest lawyers in the country," he said. "When we were fighting the oil companies, in a case now 13 years old and almost over, our opposition consisted of at least 300 lawyers who were determinedwe would not get a single penny, and it was a forced-march, scorched-earth battle all the way." Berger, who sits alone behind a big leathertop desk in a 20-by-85 foot office that also includes a huge con- ference table and comfortable sofas, said he is motivated "to use the law as an instrument of necessary change." "Over the years, I've come to the decision that the class action is a very fine basis for doing that," he said. "There's no way in the world v.

He calls himself a "people's lawyer." Berger, at 72 a dapper dresser who often wears-red suspenders under his blue or gray pinstripe suite, is one of the nation's leading advocates of class-action cases that bring together a group of similar plaintiffs and make it easier, and cheaper, for them to sue. Peter Liacouras, Temple University president and former dean of its law school, said Berger "is one of the premier antitrust lawyers in a city which is renowned for exceptional antitrust lawyers. He is resourceful and effective." Berger said his antitrust career began when he was the city solicitor of Philadelphia in the 1960s and filed what he said was the first antitrust suit for non-governmental agencies, a case involving burglar alarms. "It was amazing how many very small businessmen were involved in that, businessmen with claims of $100 and $200 who couldn't possibly bring their own cases," he said. SINCE THEN, Berger has ATTORNEY David Berger gestures during an interview in his Philadelphia office earlier this year.

For decades, he's been a big lawyer concerned about the problems of the little guy, and he has recovered billions of dollars for tens of thousands of small clients all over the United States. (AP Laserphoto) Oregon, Washington and other states seeking to recover, on behalf of stockholders and bondholders, hundreds of millions of dollars because of violations of security Homeess hero mourned "Here is a human being who at one point in his life risked everything to get others to safety, who needed help and later in life was shut out by too many in our society," Harwell said. Carpenter, who entered the Army in September 1943 in Indiana, was decorated in 1944 in Brittany, France. According to the award certificate, the Army private made three trips carrying the wounded to an aid station 400 yards from the fighting, "braving the unabated fire." "(Carpenter's) is the story of a personal tragedy, of a life disrupted by war never to fully recover," Harwell said. "It is the tragedy of an honored hero soon forgotten." WASHINGTON (AP) The government saluted Jesse Carpenter on Friday and laid him to rest with military honors, three weeks after the World War II hero and homeless drifter froze to death in the shadow of the White House.

"Our society chose to treat Jesse as invisible," the Rev. Vin Harwell of the Mount Vernon Presbyterian Church said in the eulogy. "Yet (he) risked not only disability but vulnerability to care for others." Carpenter, 61, a Bronze Star winner in World War II, froze to death Dec. 5 in Lafayette Square, a park across the street from the White House that has become a gathering place for the homeless in the nation's capital. XT' The funeral was attended by some 100 people on a sunny and unusually warm winter's day, including Carpenter's son and daughter, James Carpenter and Mildred Hamilton, and a busload of mourners organized by the Community for Creative Non-Violence, a Washington-based homeless rights group.

The military honors ceremony included six servicemen escorting the remains, a group of seven riflemen firing three volleys, and a bugler sounding taps. Following the eulogy, Carpenter's son and daughter entered the rectangular, gray-stone columbarium where their father's ashes were inumed along with the cremated remains of some 3,300 other service personnel. On the night Carpenter died, the only protection he had from the cold, aside from his clothing, was the warmth of his friend and fellow street person, wheelchair-bound John Lam, 59, who was huddled near the veteran's body. Lam, who attended the funeral of his longtime friend, told reporters in the park Thursday that Carpenter took care of him, pushing his wheelchair to soup kitchens, shelters and public restrooms. "I knew him (Carpenter) 20 years," Lam said.

"I met him drinking (on the streets)." Mitch Snyder, who heads the CCNV homeless shelter and who knew Carpenter for several years, said the veteran apparently began drinking heavily after the war, a condition that worsened in later years. Carpenter's former wife, who learned of his death by reading a newspaper account, told the CCNV that he became an alcoholic and left his family in 1962, according to Carol Fennelly, a spokeswoman for the group. Snyder called the conditions surrounding Carpenter's death "unconscionable" and said it dramatized the need for homeless shelters. "Jesse shows you that the people we step over on the streets every day are people with histories," Snyder said. "They just weren't born on the streets." SATURDAY SMI These items will go on sale Saturday, December 29.

Hurry in while selection and quantities last. Sorry no phone calls, COD's or layaways on these special items. Men's Sweaters Men's Boxed or Vests Western Shirts Now 13.99 Now 9.99 O- $24 Orig. $28 9- Boxed shirtmatching stockings Children's Ladle! Outerwear Heavyweight on7 cno Outerwear Save 30 to 50 nnir, Save 30 to 50 All Ladies' Ladies' Selected Slippers Shoes Save 50 se 20 to 40 Choose from a selection of over 200 pr. Selected All Selected Men's Shoes Housewares nreSses Save 20 Save 20 Save 50 Children's Ladies' Holiday Selected Rubber Packs Uok Ladies' SNaVei503 Save30 Savea30 IMOW IU.TT Orig $18 to $30 mftfty Orig.

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Reductions from originally priced merchandise rtacttva untt stock la daptete. 3939 Harrison Butte, Ml MILDRED Hamilton, daughter of decorated World War 1 1 hero Jesse Carpenter, 61, who froze to death three weeks ago in Lafayette Park across the street from the White House, holds the American flag Friday at Arlington National Cemetery after the burial ceremony for her dad. Carpenter spent the last 20 years on the street as a homeless wanderer. (AP Laserphoto) People file Naval cadet at the 30th International Debutante Ball at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. Miss Meese, one of 47 young women honored at the ball Thursday night, was escorted by Michael Rockefeller, grandson of Nelson Rockefeller, and Christopher Ryan, a cadet at the U.S.

Naval Academy. Andy Griffith WINSTON-SALEM, N.C Andy Griffith, who drew on his North Carolina memories to help create the TV town of Mayberry, says he's "embarrassed" that a fan club is looking for a town to adopt its name. The Andy Griffith Show Appreciation Society is seeking a town willing to change its name to May-berry in tribute to Griffith's television shows set in the bucolic but imaginary locale. John Meroney, 14, the society's president, has said the 500-member group wants to create a real May-berry, N.C, to mark the 25th anniversary of the "Andy Griffith Show." Griffith, a Mount Airy native now living in Manteo, learned about the idea and was so upset that he called the Winston-Salem Sentinel. "I just wanted you to know that I had nothing to do with this," Griffith said.

"This all came out of his (Mer oney's) head. I have asked him not to pursue it any further." Meroney said Thursday that he had talked with Griffith, but hadn't abandoned his idea. Marvin Haglr BOSTON (AP) Middleweight boxing champion Marvin Hagler, TV star Ted Danson and rock singer Bruce Springsteen have teamed up to promote the home of the baked bean as a great place to live, work and study. They will appear in a $l-million advertising campaign with the theme "Boston Bright from the Start." The ads are to begin airing on local television Tuesday, and creators hope to broadcast the spots nationwide if they can raise enough money from local businesses, Robert E. Cummings, of the Greater Boston Convention and Visitors Bureau, said.

Mary ivam CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. (AP) Mary Evans, a former lawyer who was convicted of helping a client escape from prison, has landed a new job, but state officials won't say what it is because she is disturbed by the media's interest in her life. Evans, 28, is living at the Chattanooga Community Service Center as part of a work-release program until her scheduled Feb. 4 parole date. John Patterson, warden at the Community Service Center, would say only that Evans new job is in Chattanooga.

Evans pleaded guilty in March to helping convicted armed robber William Timothy Kirk escape from Brushy Mountain Penitentiary in March 1983.The two spent 139 days on the run and were captured in Florida. Evans was sentenced to three years in prison and forced to surrender her law license. Kirk, 37, was sentenced to 40 years for escape and armed robbery, and later received a life sentence on the prison murder charges. frank OePoneht BRIGHTON, Mich. (AP) Postman Frank DePlanche has been released from the hospital after recovering from stress brought on when he nearly lost his job for delivering his own unstamped Christmas cards to route customers.

DePlanche, 47, was discharged Thursday from McPherson Community Health Center, said a hospital switchboard operator who refused to give her name. Postal officials initially planned to fire DePlanche, a 29-year postal veteran, after one of his customers complained that he delivered 540 unstamped Christmas cards to people on his route. But DePlanche's superiors reconsidered after the case caused public outcry. DePlanche instead was suspened without pay for five days and was required to pay 70 postage due on his cards. Dana Mf NEW YORK (AP) Dana Meese, the 18-year-old daughter of White House aide Edwin Meese HI, was flanked by a Rockefeller and a.