Madison County: Gordon Maag, the trial-lawyer-backed candidate who last month was defeated in a race for the Illinois Supreme Court in what is said to have been the most expensive judicial race in American history, has filed a $100 million defamation suit against an arm of the Illinois Chamber of Commerce for saying bad things about him during the recent campaign. (St. Louis Post-Dispatch/Edwardsville Intelligencer/Southern Illinoisan/Illinois Leader). Jim Copland comments at Point Of Law. For two other widely noted efforts by Madison County lawyers to silence or intimidate their critics, see Nov. 4 and Nov. 30, 1999 and Feb. 29, 2000 (class action lawyers sue Post-Dispatch columnist Bill McClellan for making fun of them) and Jun. 9, Jul. 12, Jul. 26, 2003 (dragging national tort reform groups to court). For efforts to suppress the airing of ads affecting the Maag-Karmeier race, see Oct. 27. For other watch-what-you-say-about-lawyers cases, see Mar. 16 and Nov. 15, 2004, Nov. 30, 2003, and earlier posts; and Point of Law, Oct. 25 and Dec. 22, 2004.
Posts Tagged ‘Madison County’
Madison County update: James Blair Down
Elsewhere in Madison County, there was another hearing in the James Blair Down (Sep. 11 and links therein) settlement. The Belleville News-Democrat covers the hearing seriously (albeit focusing on a collateral procedural question, rather than the hearing’s debate over the fairness of the settlement), while a columnist for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch decides to settle for ridicule. (Brian Brueggeman, Belleville News-Democrat, “N.Y. attorney denied access to local suit”, Dec. 16; Bill McClellan, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, “Madison County has a court system made for a TV sitcom”, Dec. 17). Previous columns poking fun at Madison County class action attorneys had resulted in McClellan being sued (Feb. 29, 2000).
Madison County suit: pharmacy’s fault plaintiff overdosed from stolen drugs
Jode L. Sandbach recently pleaded guilty to a February theft of Oxycontin and Xanax from pharmacist Michael J. Cleary and his pharmacy, The Medicine Shoppe in Wood River, Illinois. She (again illegally, of course) gave the drugs to her boyfriend, Justin Stalcup, who promptly overdosed and died. The death was ruled an accident. Stalcup’s estate isn’t just suing Sandbach, but also Cleary and the pharmacy–notwithstanding the three intervening criminal acts, and the decedent’s own negligence (if not intentional suicide). (Brian Brueggemann, “Man’s estate sues pharmacy where drugs stolen”, Belleville News-Democrat, Dec. 17; Brian Brueggemann, “Woman charged after pal dies from drug overdose”, Belleville News-Democrat, Mar. 20).
More Madison County forum shopping follies
Luke Lindau lives in a Chicago suburb and suffers from mesothelioma. He sued 59 different defendants for his personal injuries in Madison County; many defendants, expecting to be railroaded, don’t even bother to litigate asbestos cases once they’ve been sued in Madison County (Point of Law Oct. 5 and links therein), so he became a millionaire from the settlements–not bad for a retired 78-year-old who has already exceeded average life expectancy. However, Lindau made his way into Madison County by claiming that he was exposed to asbestos during the construction of Southern Illinois University Edwardsville in 1959-1962. Unfortunately for this theory, it was SIU-Carbondale that was being built then; ground wasn’t broken on the Edwardsville campus until 1963. So the two remaining deep pocket defendants actually insisted on protecting their rights and appealed the venue decision. The plaintiff settled–either to get money immediately or to avoid an adverse precedent for future plaintiffs, though his lawyer, Scott Hendler, has the chutzpah to complain about the “abuse of process” of the appeal. It’s not clear whether the two last settling defendants paid more than nuisance sums, as Hendler elides the issue in his discussion with the reporter. (Brian Brueggeman, “Man reaches $4 million deal in asbestos lawsuit”, Belleville News-Democrat, Dec. 8).
Madison County Record
We’ve had occasion to praise the story-digging prowess of this recently launched southern Illinois publication. Now the Washington Post is reporting (Jeffrey H. Birnbaum, “Advocacy Groups Blur Media Lines”, Dec. 6) that it’s being backed by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which is eager to shed light on the county’s peculiar legal culture. Hmmm. Maybe they’re following the advice Irving Kristol used to dispense: “Got a problem? Start a magazine.” More: Paul Hampel, “New newspaper is partly owned by U.S. Chamber of Commerce”, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Dec. 8; “Journalism: Do you believe it?” (editorial), Dec. 10.
Supported by a Reid
New Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada) is sounding conciliatory toward the Republican majority on some issues, but not on litigation reform, where he’s hinting at a Daschle-like line of hard-core resistance. Reid appears to have plenty of friends in the Litigation Lobby: OpenSecrets.org reports that of his top seven contributors, five are casino companies that operate in his home state of Nevada, while the other two are plaintiffs’ law firms SimmonsCooper (Madison County, Ill.) and Baron & Budd (Dallas) (more). The increasingly invaluable Madison County Record has more, quoting unnamed sources who tell it that Reid “has long been a regular on the SimmonsCooper corporate jet”. (“Follow the Leader: East Alton Clout”, Nov. 21). Update Dec. 7: more on Madison County Record.
Madison County judge nixes tracking class payouts
After a class-action settlement in Madison County, Ill. between Ameritech and class action lawyers Korein Tillery over alleged unfairness in the giant phone company’s SimpliFive rate program, the Citizens Utility Board, a consumer advocacy group, petitioned the court to keep track of how much of the ostensible $12.4 million in refunds for customers actually got paid out. (Korein Tillery, for its part, is slated to get $1.9 million in fees). Last month, following opposition to the motion by both the Korein firm and Ameritech parent Southwestern Bell, “Madison County Circuit Judge Nicholas G. Byron rejected the Citizens Utility Board motion, ruling that the board had no standing in the case. Byron’s ruling means that the public will never know how much will be paid out.” “You would have to wonder why the plaintiff attorney would be so adamantly opposed to making this information public,” said Terryl Francis, a retired attorney representing the Citizens Utility Board. “After all, he’s supposed to be fighting for the class.” More:
Lester Brickman, a law professor at Cardozo Law School in New York and a critic of the Madison County Circuit Court, said Byron, Korein Tillery and SBC had a “mutual interest in suppressing the actual number of people who claim the benefits secured for them.”
Brickman said: “It’s not a surprising outcome, because the information the Citizens Utility Board was requesting would prove embarrassing to the court. It’s a sad comment on the state of class actions that a judge joins forces with both the plaintiff lawyer and the defendant to suppress this information.”
(Paul Hampel, “Judge’s ruling keeps payout in Ameritech case under wraps”, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Oct. 17).
Madison County: let the joyous news be spread…
Tuesday’s judicial election results in the notorious Illinois county amounted to a “cataclysmic” defeat for the county’s powerful personal-injury lawyers: “I feel like a Munchkin who just came out and saw the house drop on the witch,” said [longtime prosecutor Don] Weber, who ran unsuccessfully as a Republican for the Supreme Court in 1992. “A lot of us are going around today saying, ‘Did the house really drop on the witch?'” (Paul Hampel, “Karmeier win means big changes in Madison County, prosecutor says”, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Nov. 3). For others who might wish to celebrate, here’s a song page. (& see PointOfLaw coverage, here, here, here, here, and here). More: Madison County Record, Nov. 5, Nov. 7.
Bank error not in your favor, collect $250,000
Illinois: “A Madison County woman hopes that at least $250,000 will sufficiently relieve emotional distress she suffered when Bank One allegedly failed to remove unauthorized charges from her account.” Marsha Eubanks is “[r]epresented by Lakin Law Firm attorney Thomas Maag, son of Illinois Supreme Court Justice candidate Gordon E. Maag”. (Steve Gonzalez, “Woman hopes $250k will bring peace of mind”, Madison County Record, Oct. 19).
Asbestos: new at Point of Law
Over at Point of Law, which has an entire category devoted to asbestos litigation, there are several new posts on the subject. Ted Frank reports on a potentially major turnaround in Madison County, Ill. handling of asbestos suits, occasioned by the arrival of a new judge. Guest blogger Michael DeBow links to a substantial Houston Chronicle article on the crisis. As for me, I’ve got posts on how an Australian court has approved a claim for psychological injury from asbestos, on how Dallas tort czar Fred Baron is allegedly retired from the asbestos business (well, sort of), and on the “rocket docket” operation of court schedules in, again, Madison County.