Overlawyered: Chronicling The High Cost Of Our Legal System

Posts Tagged ‘Madison County’

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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New at Point of Law

If you’re not reading our sister site PointOfLaw.com, you’re missing out on a lot. I’ve been doing about half my blog writing over there, on topics that include: a powerful new St. Louis Post-Dispatch investigation of asbestos litigation in Madison County, Ill. (here, here and here, with more to come, and note this too); the busy borrowings of Harvard’s Larry Tribe; when “not-for-profits” organize employment suits; Erin Brockovich’s respectability; crime without intent; experts and the CBS scandal; stay open through a hurricane, go to jail; suits over failure to put warnings on sand (yes, sand); West Virginia legal reform; Merrill Lynch/Enron trial; Hayek and the common law, reconsidered; getting creative about tapping homeowners’ policies; AdBusters sues to have its ads run; plaintiff’s lawyers represent criminal defendants to put drugmakers behind the eight ball; update on the law firm that competes on price; Spitzer and investors; Ohio med-mal crisis (and more); a welcome Schwarzenegger veto; dangers of firing your lawyer; ephedra retailer litigation; churchruptcies (if banks can do it…); and hardball in nonprofit hospital litigation.

Plus Ted Frank on tort reform in Mississippi and Jim Copland on California’s Proposition 64 (which would reform the notorious s. 17200 statute); the federal tobacco trial and Boeken; gender bias at work; and Rule 11 revival.

Better bookmark PointOfLaw.com now, before you forget.

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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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Update: James Blair Down case

More developments in the Madison County case (Mar. 25, etc.) that Prof. Lester Brickman called “the most abusive class-action settlement of the decade, if not the century.” “Circuit Judge Phillip J. Kardis approved on Thursday a plan to notify potential claimants in the suit against Canadian con man James Blair Down.” However, New York attorney Jody Pope, representing objectors, says class members are not receiving proper notification of their right to make claims. The case involves prominent plaintiff’s firms Ness Motley (now Motley Rice) and Korein Tillery. (Paul Hampel, “Suit against con man nears settlement”, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Sept. 9).

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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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Lawyer ads: clip, post, help someone sue

Evan Schaeffer, who’s poked fun before at the way plaintiff’s lawyers from elsewhere in the country endeavor to solicit business in his own Madison County, has some thoughts (Aug. 23) prompted by a Minnesota lawyer’s advertisement which includes a LOT OF CAPITAL LETTERING and which lays out a “Chinese menu” of potential complaints which might entitle the prospective client to money damages. Touchingly, the ad in the Alton, Ill. Telegraph addresses the danger that some local residents might be so unfortunate as not to be exposed to its message: “CLIP AND SAVE. Please take this notice and post it in your nursing home, church, community center or anywhere that it may reach people who are suffering and need help.”

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Madison County medical malpractice numbers

Madison County has its deserved reputation as a “judicial hellhole” because plaintiffs recognize that its judges are friendlier to questionable class actions and asbestos cases, leading it to become a magnet jurisdiction for these actions. (See Apr. 15; Apr. 5; Jan. 5 and links therein; John Stockinger, “Advocates call for reform of Madison County legal system”, Alton Telegraph, Jun. 9.) Now, the Astroturf trial lawyers’ group “Victims and Families United” (Feb. 20) tries to defeat that perception by trumpeting some statistics about medical malpractice in the region. Previously, the group had tried to suggest there was no medical malpractice crisis, despite the fact doctors were leaving the area by the dozens, by pointing out the low number of verdicts in the area; of course, verdicts are a small fraction of payouts to lawyers in settlements. So the trial lawyers have responded by making up some numbers, and trusting that the press won’t delve too deeply into the claims.

By manipulating a couple of denominators, the trial lawyers’ group purports to show that settlement payouts are average for the state. The Madison-St. Clair region has 4.2% of ISMIE’s $270 million in payouts in 2003, they say, and 4.2% of the population; therefore, payouts are supposedly in line with the rest of Illinois. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch uncritically reports these numbers, as well as uncritically calling the trial lawyers’ group a “victims’ rights group.” (William Lamb, “Data do not justify Metro East’s malpractice reputation, group says”, Jun. 10).

But the numbers are bogus. ISMIE doesn’t insure “population”, it insures doctors, and doctors per capita are lower in Madison and St. Clair Counties than elsewhere in the state; off the bat, one would expect lower payout rates for these counties if they were typical for Illinois. Worse: the $270 million denominator is fictional. Using the actual denominator of $226 million (see 2003 ISMIE Annual Report at 25) or $234 million (John Stockinger, “Victims group disputes claims of insurance crisis”, Alton Telegraph, Jun. 11), and the Madison/St. Clair per capita number (a number that already understates the extent of the problem) turns out actually to be 116% to 120% of the statewide average–a number that can be found nowhere in the press coverage. (Patrick J. Powers, “Claims here mirror state”, Belleville News-Democrat, Jun. 12).

At least the Alton Telegraph balances it with other statistics that tend to show the fiction: average payment to plaintiffs in the area jumped from $276,000 to $495,000 between 2002 and 2003. In the past five years, ISMIE has paid out $33.5 million in verdicts, settlements and expenses, while earning only $29.6 million from Madison/St. Clair County-area premiums.

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Madison County: Ms. Howell’s two hats

In an article about the controversial Lucent class action settlement ($84 million for the lawyers, $8 million for the class; see Apr. 5) the St. Louis Post-Dispatch talks with Joy Howell, spokeswoman for lead class counsel Stephen Tillery, who’s among Madison County’s most prominent class-action lawyers. Later in the piece it emerges that Ms. Howell “also serves as a spokeswoman for the Coalition to Preserve Access to Justice”, a group that vehemently opposes the reform-minded Class Action Fairness Act on behalf of “more than 80 national consumer, environmental and civil rights groups”. Hmmm. (Trisha L. Howard, “Nixon backs state role in class action suits”, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Apr. 3). And the local press is casting a skeptical eye on what the Post-Dispatch calls “the strange little courthouse in Edwardsville” (Illinois) and the doings of Judge Nicholas C. Byron in particular (see “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad Madison County”, Apr. 22) (“Madison County: What’s the judge hiding?” (editorial), St. Louis Post-Dispatch, May 1; Brian Brueggemann, “Judge Byron endures hot seat”, Belleville News-Democrat, May 3; “‘Judicial hellhole’ deepens with law firm’s banishment” (editorial), Bloomington Pantagraph, Apr. 27). Last month “Byron ordered a newspaper reporter to leave the courtroom Monday when [attorney Rex] Carr and Tillery began arguing about the apparently sensitive issue of how much money the firm has earned.” (Brian Brueggemann, “Class-action lawyers fight over money”, Belleville News-Democrat, Apr. 11, and how’s that for a quotidian headline?). Finally, visions of sugar plums seem to have gone a-glimmering for class action attorney Judy Cates, of columnist-suing fame, when a Belleville jury rejected her lawsuit demanding $300 million from Allstate because it does not reimburse its auto policyholders after crashes for the decline in the resale value of their fully repaired cars. According to defense attorney H. Sinclair “Rod” Kerr, the lead plaintiffs, Michael and Tiffany Sims of East St. Louis, Ill., “decided to sue only after a relative called their attention to a newspaper ad placed by Cates’ law firm seeking plaintiffs against Allstate.” (Robert Goodrich, “Jury rejects class-action suit over car repairs”, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Apr. 29).

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