On Apr. 10 of last year Ted introduced readers to the far-flung class actions and other lawsuits filed by mother-daughter team Armettia Peach and Ashley Peach of Madison County, Ill., as represented by the Lakin Law Firm of that celebrated county. Now Steve Korris reports in the Madison County Record that the various Peach family lawsuits have not been faring well of late — the details get so intricate that we won’t even try to summarize them, so just go check out the piece (“Dynamic suing duo fizzling in court”, Aug. 24).
Posts Tagged ‘Madison County’
Chutzpah files: Madison County judge-shopping
Illinois, like some other states, allows parties to request a single change of judge as of right. That statute is questionable enough public policy as it is, but Madison County judges had interpreted the rule to permit class action plaintiffs to obtain automatic changes for each plaintiff in the case—thus effectively permitting a class action attorney to pick his judge. Madison County Chief Judge Ann Callis has changed the rule so that it limits substitution of judge to only one time as a right, and the Korein Tillery law firm is now challenging that rule’s constitutionality, which could delay its implementation for a couple of years if they get the right judges to hear the case. (Steve Gonzalez, “‘Judge shopping’ rule challenged by Tillery firm”, Madison County Record, Aug. 31; Brian Brueggeman, “Law firm set to challenge court ban on automatic judge change”, Belleville News-Democrat, Sep. 1). (Cross-posted at Point of Law.)
Dead man suing
Madison County, Illinois, inimitable as ever: “For two-and-a-half years the Lakin Law Firm has carried on a Madison County class action lawsuit with a dead plaintiff,” reports the Madison Record, which says Lakin lawyer Jeffrey Millar did not inform Circuit Judge Daniel Stack about his client’s having assumed room temperature. The defendant, American Family Insurance, eventually twigged to it, and now the Lakin firm plans to switch to a live plaintiff from Ohio so as to keep the suit going. “Millar has confirmed the death of [client Manuel Hernandez of Granite City], but he has not answered questions that American Family Insurance submitted about his knowledge of it. Millar objected to the questions, arguing to Stack that American Family Insurance should submit them not to Hernandez’s attorney but to Hernandez himself.” (Steve Korris, “Dead plaintiff should answer questions, class counsel argues”, Jul. 20)(via Insurance Coverage Blog).
Update: “Victims and Families United”
Judy Buckles, one of the “founders” of the Astroturf group Victims and Families United (Feb. 20, 2004, Sep. 13, 2004) has suddenly discovered that the prominent plaintiffs’ firms of Madison County may not have plaintiffs’ best interests at heart, and is suing prominent asbestos firm SimmonsCooper for allegedly shortchanging her in its representation of her and her late husband. That she’s represented by the Lakin Law Firm suggests interesting machinations afoot in the county. (Steve Gonzalez, “Victims’ advocate sues asbestos attorneys for gypping her”, Madison County Record, Jul. 13; “Pawn Shop”, Madison County Record, Jul. 16).
Update: Judy Cates heads ITLA
The Illinois Trial Lawyers Association has installed as its president none other than Swansea, Ill. class action lawyer Judy Cates, known to longtime Overlawyered readers for her venture into columnist-suing (Feb. 29, 2000) following the controversial Publisher’s Clearing House settlement. For one of Cates’s more recent suits, see May 4, 2004. (“She’s our poster-lawyer”, St. Clair Record, Jun. 18).
On Hellholes
Madison County plaintiffs’ lawyer Evan Schaeffer writes, partially tongue in cheek:
Meanwhile, I’m working on a propaganda campaign of my own. I’m going to take ATRA’s term and turn it on its head. Rather than “judicial hellholes,” I’ll be focusing on those jurisdictions in which the playing field is tilted in favor of big business. I’m calling them “consumer hellholes.” What do you think?
Unfortunately for Evan, there will never be a proper analogue; in these hypothetical “hellholes”, even if they exist, consumers that prefer a court system unfairly biased towards plaintiffs can completely avoid the effects of reform by moving to such a jurisdiction. If tort reform really makes people worse off, then people will leave the states with reform for the states where the plaintiffs’ bar controls one of the three branches. In contrast, businesses have very little power to avoid being sued in judicial hellholes; and consumers who don’t live in the judicial hellhole have little ability to escape the detrimental effects that the hellhole has in crafting nationwide liability. The $500 “tort tax” on automobiles that covers the cost of the liability system has to be paid whereever a car is sold because the manufacturer can’t bar the buyer from taking the car into the hellhole forum.
What bothers the ATLA-ites is that consumers have shown that they prefer tort reform, and the benefits tort reform brings: judicial hellholes are consumer hellholes, because we all bear the costs of runaway litigation and its effect on the economy.
Philip Morris gets (some of) its money back
AP reports that the Illinois Supreme Court has released $2.15 billion of the gigantic, and almost bankrupting, appeal bond (Oct. 11, 2004; Apr. 2003) Philip Morris posted for the right to successfully appeal an absurd $10.1 billion Madison County judgment. (Dec. 15, 2005 and links therein.) Another $6 billion note awaits the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision on the certiorari appeal.
Madison County asbestos: one for the books (O’Connell v. Georgia-Pacific)
Even Madison County juries have their limits it seems.
Anita O’Connell claimed that her mesothelioma came from asbestos from washing her husband’s and children’s laundry. Perhaps. But none of her three sons who worked for her father whose clothing she washed would testify in support of that. Instead, a fourth son, Michael O’Connell, who didn’t work for her husband’s plastering business, sought to blame Bondex International and Georgia-Pacific.
The plaintiff claimed the joint compound caused Anita O’Connell’s asbestos exposure because she shook her son’s clothes before laundering them.
The supplier for the O’Connell plastering business testified that only plaster was sold to the O’Connell business, not joint compound. The supplier also testified that he never carried the Bondex brand.
Michael O’Connell testified he remembered seeing silver Georgia-Pacific cans of joint compound, but that company’s cans were not silver during the period O’Connell claimed to have worked with drywall.
Adding chutzpah upon chutzpah, plaintiffs’ attorney Charla Aldous of Baron & Budd asked for $10 million in damages for the 84-year-old plaintiff. The jury awarded nothing. (Brian Brueggemann, “Madison County jury rejects woman’s plea”, Belleville News-Democrat, Mar. 2; Steve Gonzalez, “Jury reaches defense verdict in Madison County trial”, Madison County Record, Mar. 2; Friable Thoughts blog, Mar. 2).
Long-time readers may nod knowingly and think of the infamous Baron & Budd witness-coaching memo, which I have posted in full on the Liability Project’s “Documents in the News” page.
Many many more links after the jump.
Update: “Maag’s defamation suit is dismissed again”
Watch what you say about judges, yet again: For the second time, Illinois circuit court judge Patrick Kelley has dismissed a $110 million defamation lawsuit filed by former Madison County appellate judge Gordon Maag against groups that criticized him during his unsuccessful 2004 double run for a seat on the Illinois Supreme Court and for retention in his existing seat. Maag’s attorney, Rex Carr, vowed to appeal. (Paul Hampel, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Jan. 9; Steve Gonzalez, “Maag’s defamation suit dismissed, again”, St. Clair Record, Jan. 9; “That’s two strikes, now spare us” (editorial), Madison Record, Jan. 15). Since losing the races, Maag has aimed defamation suits at a wide range of local and national groups that include the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce, the American Tort Reform Association and even the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, with which I’m affiliated (no, I don’t know what his theory for including it was, and I haven’t asked). For more on the controversy, see Dec. 23, 2004, as well as PoL Jun. 10, 2005 and assorted links there.
As usual, the funniest piece on the controversy came from the wonderful (and brave) columnist for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Bill McClellan, who explains that he is not among Judge Maag’s critics (after all, who likes getting sued?) but notices that “there seems to be some question as to whether he is a resident of Illinois, as he stated in one of his suits, or a resident of Alabama, as he stated in another.” (“With confusion over residency, lawyer’s critics feel vindicated”, Nov. 25).
Madison County judge without a docket
In Madison County, Illinois, all of the circuit judges have been elected to the bench with the significant help of the plaintiffs’ bar, often going straight from a career at a plaintiffs’ firm (and then later retiring to a plaintiffs’ firm). Except one: Judge Don Weber was appointed to replace a retired judge in October 2005, and won’t stand for election until November.
Illinois law permits a party to move once as a matter of right for substitution of a different judge, and plaintiffs in at least thirty-five cases have done so in Weber’s case. “All the stars of the plaintiff’s bar – the Lakin Law Firm, SimmonsCooper, Stephen Tillery and Rex Carr – have joined the substitution blitz.” The Madison County Record quotes Jack Joseph of Chicago, a member of the civil practice committee of the Chicago Bar Association, as finding the practice “unfair to Judge Weber without giving him a chance to see if he is going to violate his oath in some way.” (Steve Korris, “Weber’s caseload yanked by plaintiff’s attorneys”, Jan. 25). But one might be suspicious that the true fear motivating the motions to substitute other judges is that Weber will uphold his oath.
Update: Belleville News-Democrat counts 53 plaintiffs and two defendants who’ve asked for substitution.