Comments on: NY Times on Ky. fen-phen scandal

By: David Wilson

David Wilson — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 12:18:53 +0000

Meanwhile, no word on the merit of the underlying suit! Plaintiffs really shoot themselves in the foot here: it’s hard enough defending the questionable causation of so many product liability suits (I don’t know about the merits of fen-fen), but here, they’ve thrown some apparently outright fraud on top. Corruption begets corruption, I guess.

By: Deoxy

Deoxy — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 10:52:41 +0000

“Somehow just being made to give back the money doesn’t seem like the proper penalty.”

A slight understatement, I would think. And the Grand Canyon is a bit a hole in a ground.

By: Walter Olson

Walter Olson — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 10:33:58 +0000

Do note that the Kentucky fen-phen suit was not a class action as usually defined, but what I’ve elsewhere described as a batch settlement: The clients knowingly chose to sue (as opposed to simply failing to opt out of someone else’s suit) and their individually claimed damages were not trivially small. Batch settlements do overlap with class settlements in some of the temptations they pose for lawyers to behave contrary to their clients’ best interests.

By: Richard Nieporent

Richard Nieporent — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 10:18:02 +0000

To us non-lawyers, class action lawsuits seem to be nothing but a legal scam that makes use of some “injured” class to extract money from companies. I still have my check for 12 cents that I received from a settlement from a class action lawsuit that I of course did not know I was a member of. Since judges are not stupid they clearly know that any settlement that provides such a ridiculously small amount of money has nothing to do with compensating the injured class and everything to do with making money for the lawyers. It seemed to me that no honest judge would allow such a settlement to take place. I always wondered whether in these egregious settlements money was being passed back to the judge under the table. In the case of the fen-phen class action lawsuit I got my answer. There was a quid pro quo. What I want to know is why that judge (and the lawyers) are not going to jail for stealing. Somehow just being made to give back the money doesn’t seem like the proper penalty.