Overlawyered: Chronicling The High Cost Of Our Legal System

Posts Tagged ‘Illinois’

The ad that trial lawyers don’t want Illinois voters to hear

Operating Engineers Local 318 sued to stop Illinois Lawsuit Abuse Watch from broadcasting the following ad about the Illinois Supreme Court race (Sep. 13, Mar. 20):

“We’ve all seen the headlines about how the flood of frivolous lawsuits in the Metro East is closing doctors’ offices and driving many of our finest physicians away. Greedy personal injury lawyers have turned the Metro East into a haven for bad lawsuits. But lawsuit abuse doesn’t just hurt doctors – it hurts all of us. Frivolous lawsuits, many without scientific merit, limit access to health care and drive up prescription drug costs. And lawsuit abuse slows down the development of new lifesaving medical devices.

“Now we all have a chance to cure the lawsuit epidemic. Personal injury lawyers have given over $2 million to Illinois Supreme Court candidates because they want their friends on our court. But we want our justices to be unbiased and fair. To find out if your state Supreme Court candidate takes money from personal injury lawyers, contact Illinois Lawsuit Abuse Watch at www.I-LAW.org. Together we can make sure justice is no longer for sale in the Metro East. Paid for by Illinois Lawsuit Abuse Watch.”

Circuit Judge Phillip Palmer of Williamson County issued a temporary restraining order to forbid the broadcast of the ad, even though it doesn’t mention any candidates by name, as a supposed violation of Illinois campaign finance law. Once again, “campaign finance reform” Oct. 17) becomes speech regulation and censorship. (Paul Hampel, “Tort reform group is ordered to pull ad”, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Oct. 19).

Read On…

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Tobacco class action update

Plaintiffs defending the insane $10.1 billion class action judgment (Feb. 8; Mar. 24, 2003) have retained as co-counsel a law firm associated with a Republican Illinois Supreme Court justice in an effort to have him disqualified from the case. (Paul Hampel, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, “Smaller court may hear tobacco case in Madison County”, Oct. 3; Ameet Sachdev, “Philip Morris seeks removal of law firm”, Chicago Tribune, Sep. 1 (no longer online)). The Edwardsville Intelligencer (in a strange story whose math seems to be wrong in other particulars) reports that Madison County has received a $1.7 million windfall in interest from Philip Morris from the bond (Apr. 4, 2003) it posted to appeal that judgment. (Steve Horrell, “County is cashing in”, Oct. 8).

The Seattle Times has a retrospective look back at the comprehensive tobacco settlement (Feb. 28 and links therein) negotiated in large part by Washington state Attorney General Christine Gregoire, and notes the irony that it forced the state to ally itself with Philip Morris to protest the amount of the bond (see also Apr. 30, 2003). (Andrew Garber, “Tobacco settlement Gregoire negotiated not popular with all”, Oct. 4). But the bad news for Altria shareholders, states hoping to continue receiving tobacco funds, and the ability of Americans to conduct business is that plaintiffs continue to pile on with similarly meritless class action lawsuits, waiting to find the combination of judges who dislike tobacco companies enough to expand class action law rather than rule in their favor. Plaintiffs’ lawyers will bring dozens of these lawsuits, and need win only one multi-billion dollar judgment to become the new owners of the enterprise. The Massachusetts Supreme Court recently signed off on a class action against Philip Morris, and lower courts in Missouri and Ohio have followed suit. (AP, Sep. 17; Theo Emery, AP, Aug. 16).

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Update: Hollins v. Jordan

American Medical News has additional details on the Ohio cerebral palsy medical malpractice case of Hollins v. Jordan, which we covered Aug. 31. Interesting new and previously unreported details include: Hollins was an intrauterine growth-retarded baby, yet the plaintiff sought to blame his medical problems on a decision to hold a C-section in two hours instead of one; plaintiffs asked for triple the damages they had disclosed in an expert report; Geoffrey Fieger would regularly interrupt lawyers for the other side as if “to emulate TV trials in which lawyers can do and say whatever comes to mind.” Though Fieger wouldn’t talk to the American Medical News, the two lawyers gave an interview to an Illinois newspaper that seems to be unaware that the judge overturned the May verdict. (Tanya Albert, “Judge: Mega-verdict spawned by passion”, Oct. 11; Mark Samuels, “Difficult Questions: Who Should Pay And How Much?”, The Southern Illinoisan, Sep. 2; James F. McCarty, “Disabled boy gets $30 million”, Cleveland Plain Dealer, May 25). You may or may not be disturbed to learn that there is a Geoffrey Fieger fan club that was unhappy with the Ohio court’s decision, though don’t expect to find much in the way of reasoned analysis there. (Update, Nov. 20: verdict reinstated.)

In other cerebral palsy litigation news, the Wall Street Journal tells the tale of Brenda Stoltz. The lawyers she retained were excited about the prospect of a multi-million-dollar case involving future lifetime medical care of a brain-damaged baby, but when the child died shortly after, the attorneys dropped the case. (Rachel Zimmerman and Joseph T. Hallinan, “As Malpractice Caps Spread, Lawyers Turn Away Some Cases”, Oct. 8 ($), reprint; Grunt Doc blog, Oct. 8; Brad Parker, Galen’s Log blog, Oct. 8). The Journal article notes one side effect with non-economic damages caps; people without income–the elderly, the young, homemakers–who suffer wrongful death can be left without real recourse, though this is true for many types of untimely death.

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New at Point of Law

Dozens of new posts at our sister site, including: plagiarism on the Harvard Law faculty; bill to revive Rule 11 sanctions for meritless litigation moving through House; more coverage of a lawyer’s attempt to collect “referral fee” of more than $140,000 from Illinois widow; Steve Bainbridge on attorney campaign donations and scoundrel Joe Kennedy; a sonnet on scientific evidence; class action fees in the InfoSpace and Ameritech cases, plus a paper on coupon settlements and an in-production Madison County movie; in praise of the Michigan Supreme Court; big fees in the really old days; public environmental suits, including the one on global warming; and Home Depot co-founder Bernard Marcus urges philanthropists to support legal reform.

For employment-law buffs, there are new posts on legal protection for messages on employee T-shirts, California and federal overtime regulations, and the Wal-Mart class action. For those who follow product liability there’s coverage of fen-phen fraud arrests, firearms liability and asbestos bankruptcies. Plus election-year politics, including Jim Copland, Ted Frank and more. Shouldn’t you bookmark it today?

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Illinois court race: what it takes to win?

Careful about crossing the Litigation Lobby, cont’d: Dwight Kay, the finance chairman of Republican Lloyd Karmeier’s campaign in the hotly contested race for a seat on the Illinois Supreme Court (see Aug. 29, etc.), is crying foul and suing two political consultants over a visit the two paid to the home of Kay’s ex-wife in which Kay says the two falsely represented themselves as disability investigators and sought to elicit information from her about the couple’s divorce. One of the two consultants, Doug Wojcieszak, heads up a group called Victims and Families United, which is backed by trial lawyers in Illinois’s famed Madison County and promotes their interests. Wojcieszak and co-defendant Tom Denton of Tactical Consulting in Carbondale deny the charges and call the suit politically motivated and an example of hypocrisy (Jim Muir, “Two local men accused of Constitutional rights violations”, Southern Illinoisan, Aug. 12; “Defendants say lawsuit politically motivated”, same date).

Per AP, “Wojcieszak admits visiting Diane Kay on July 13. He said he was looking into Dwight Kay’s legal past since the candidate Kay supports, Karmeier, ‘wants to limit others’ access to the courts. …Wojcieszak also denies allegations he was behind an incident of garbage rifling last spring outside the Okawville office of Sen. David Luechtefeld, a longtime friend of Karmeier’s and chairman of his campaign.” (Susan Skiles Luke, “Lawyers group to watch judicial election ads”, AP/Chicago Sun-Times, no longer online). Curiously, Wojcieszak “served for a year as the executive director of Illinois Lawsuit Abuse Watch, a tort-reform group” and later switched sides. (Illinois Times, May 27).

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Malpractice insurance: around the country

In West Virginia, insurer NCRIC was paying out $1.07 in claims for every $1 in premiums collected; it almost left the state until regulators allowed them to raise rates to make up the difference. Of course, some doctors can’t afford the new rates, and have had to stop practicing at hospitals and nursing homes that require insurance. ATLA once again blames the insurance companies for failing to invest premiums in such a way to pay the rising claims. The insurer’s problems were exacerbated when a D.C. jury levied a $18 million countersuit verdict against NCRIC when it tried to collect $3 million in unpaid premiums from the defunct Columbia Hospital for Women Medical Center. (Dina ElBoghdady, “D.C. Malpractice Insurer Feels Squeeze”, Washington Post, Sep. 6).

In Illinois, the political debate continues over the need for tort reform, as doctors continue to flee the state. Ed Murnane, of the Illinois Civil Justice League, notes that 40% of the doctors in St. Clair and Madison Counties have been named as defendants in lawsuits between 2000 and 2003; even though the overwhelming majority of plaintiffs collect nothing from such cases, the costs of defense are high. (Mark Samuels, “Group: Tort Reform Can Stop Malpractice Crisis”, The Southern, Sep. 3; Rob Stroud and Herb Meeker, “Illinois physicians say insurance rates are driving them out of state”, Journal Gazette/Times-Courier, Sep. 3).

An editorial signed by 25 Washington County, Maryland doctors protests the legislature’s failure to reform the medical malpractice system. (“Lawsuits will drive doctors away”, The Herald-Mail, Sep. 5).

In Nevada, the trial lawyers groups are trying to obstruct reform by putting forward faux reform measures on the initiative ballot that would wipe out the real reform measure, Question 3. For example, Question 5, proposes penalties for filing or defending “frivolous” lawsuits–but redefines “frivolous” to narrow the classification as to be meaningless. At the same time, it bars the legislature from ever implementing caps. An earlier attempt to stop Question 3 with a last-minute lawsuit failed. (Tanya Albert, “Nevada tort reform ballot fight now brewing”, American Medical News, Sep. 13; AP, Aug. 25; No on 4 and 5 website).

Washington state doctors are traditionally politics-free, but the medical malpractice crisis could change that and force them to lobby for the reform Initiative 330. “‘Physicians in the main have an aversion to mixing politics with their professional medical practice,’ said Dr. Kevin Ware, president of the county medical society. ‘But under the current circumstances, the need for malpractice insurance reform is so desperate that physicians are having to look seriously at departing from that custom.'” (Sharon Salyer, “Doctors may lift ban on politics”, The Herald, Sep. 6; Wallace blog, Aug. 31).

Wyoming has lost 10 percent of its doctors in the last eighteen months, and the state’s largest malpractice carrier will stop renewing policies October 1. A constitutional amendment is necessary for reform there. (Lee Lockhart, “Lawmaker predicts heated debate over damage caps”, Casper Star Tribune, Aug. 27).

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Cash for pols and judges: like curing cancer, sort of

From another article on the extraordinary role played by trial lawyers in Illinois Democratic fundraising (see Aug. 29):

Chicago trial attorney Myron Cherry said political fund raising is another aspect of his charitable work.

“I view politics the same way as eradicating cancer,” Cherry said.

— Dennis Conrad, “Illinoisans among Kerry’s top fundraisers”, AP/Daily Southtown, Jul. 29. The article goes on to note that trial attorneys’ extensive involvement in politics frequently focuses on issues of litigation reform that “could affect their legal income”.

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Update: Illinois Democratic fundraising

Here’s an arresting statistic: “Of the $695,400 in [individual] donations to the Democratic Party of Illinois this year, all but $6,900 has come from lawyers or law firms.” (Brian Brueggemann, “Law firms give big to Illinois Democrats”, Belleville (Ill.) News-Democrat, Jul. 27; Trisha Howard, “Lawyers dominate in donations to Democrats”, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Jul. 26). Five big plaintiff’s firms contributed $100,000 each, and there is reason to believe that the donations were intended at least in part to assist the campaign for Gordon Maag, the Democratic candidate for Illinois Supreme Court in a district that includes famed litigation hotspot Madison County. (Maag is turning down direct donations of more than $2,000). A report last month for the Illinois Civil Justice League and Illinois Lawsuit Abuse Watch has details (“Justice for Sale II”, Jul. 26 — PDF). Maag is facing Republican candidate Lloyd Karmeier, who’s being backed by business groups, in what is shaping up as a hard-fought campaign (see Mar. 20).

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Contingency fee discussion begins today at PointOfLaw.com

Two of the nation’s most prominent experts on the ethics of contingency fees, Prof. Lester Brickman of Cardozo School of Law and Prof. Richard Painter of the University of Illinois College of Law, are the guests in the second monthly “Featured Discussion” at Point Of Law, which gets started later today. Jim Copland sets the stage here and David Giacalone, whose site is another key resource for those interested in the ethics of fees, explains why you should care. Update: discussion has started.

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