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ARCHIVE -- APRIL 2003
(II & III)
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April 30 -- "Lawyers
who won $10 bil. verdict had donated to judge". Okay,
so it's among the year's least surprising headlines: "Illinois campaign
records show 19 lawyers or relatives connected to a law firm [Korein Tillery]
that recently won a record tobacco judgment gave almost $10,000 in political
donations to the presiding state judge last year, according to a published
report". Perhaps a bit more surprising: Judge Nicholas Byron's campaign
had also gotten $6,000 from the law firm that represented the defendant,
Philip Morris. "Illinois law doesn't prevent judges from accepting
money from attorneys who argue cases in their courts, and there are no
limits on the number or amount of contributions that politicians and judges
can accept." (AP/Chicago Sun-Times, Apr.
14; "Tobacco Case Judge Got Campaign Funds From Lawyers: Report", Wall
Street Journal, Apr.
11). An analysis for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch "found
that judges running for election or retention in Madison County last year
averaged more than $100,000 each in campaign receipts. That's three times
the roughly $29,000 average the newspaper found for judges statewide and
10 times the $10,000 average in Cook County's crowded judicial system.
The average take for Madison County judges is about four times more than
for judges in neighboring St. Clair County, which has roughly the same
population." Most of the donations came from practicing lawyers.
(Kevin McDermott, $218,000 for one judge", St. Louis Post-Dispatch,
Apr.
27)(see Mar. 24, Apr.
2, Apr. 4).
State governments -- and the municipal-finance lawyers that have helped
them "securitize" streams of future tobacco booty -- heaved a sigh of relief
when Judge Byron earlier this month agreed to reduce Philip Morris's appeals
bond (to a still extraordinarily onerous level), thus averting a possible
bankruptcy filing and interruption of payments to the states (Brenda Sandburg,
"Tobacco Decision Gives Bond Lawyers Breathing Room", The Recorder,
Apr.
15). Judge Byron also decreed in the original verdict that the
tobacco company should pay the plaintiff's team legal fees approaching
$1.8 billion, which works out to $13,100 per hour even if you swallow the
lawyers' contention that they spent a staggering 135,500 hours of work
on the case over the past three years. If you're curious to see the
audit trail documenting those hours, your curiosity may be in vain.
"Charles W. Chapman, a retired Illinois appellate court judge who testified
in support of such fees for the plaintiffs' attorneys, "said that it was
not his duty to verify the hours Tillery worked. 'It's basically an honor
system,' Chapman said. 'I don't have any way of knowing if he worked
those hours.'" (Trisha L. Howard and Paul Hampe, "Record legal fee averages
to $13,100 an hour", St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Apr.
6). (DURABLE LINK)
April 28-29 -- Latest
Rule
of Lawyers publicity. At Forbes.com, reviewer
Robert Lenzner pens a rave for our editor's new book: "Anyone in the market
for a truly gripping read about tort lawyers should skip [John] Grisham's
[latest] novel and instead pick up Walter K. Olson's nonfiction book The
Rule of Lawyers, a brilliant expose of the way courts are being overwhelmed
by mass tort actions. ... Grisham's indictment of the tort bar can't hold
a candle to Olson's thorough journalistic impeachment of the dangers posed
by these lawyers." (Robert Lenzner, "The Rule of Lawyers", Forbes.com,
Apr.
21). The blurb/summary
for the review provided by the Forbes.com editors is reasonably flattering
as well. In Paris, meanwhile, Le Monde discusses our editor's
"dernier livre" and also provides a link to this website, which it describes
as "très documenté". (Claire Ané, "Dommages
et intérêts collatéraux de la justice américaine",
Le
Monde, Apr.
22). The March/April issue of the American Spectator features
a substantial excerpt from the book's chapter on trial lawyers and politics
(Walter Olson, "The Lawsuit Lobby", not online). In the print version
of National Review, the book is favorably reviewed by Doug Bandow
("Shyster Heaven", Apr.
21). And the Boston Globe's Charles Stein mentioned the
book and quoted our editor in a recent column on the states' interest in
preventing tobacco companies from going under ("States confront a necessity:
'evil'", Apr.
13). (DURABLE LINK)
April 28-29 --
Had no idea you can't launder campaign contributions.
"A lawyer for Tab Turner, the head of a Little Rock law firm under investigation
by the U.S. Department of Justice, suggested Thursday that his client had
not been aware of an election law that prevents him from reimbursing employees
who contribute to U.S. Sen. John Edwards' presidential campaign."
(John Wagner, "Edwards donor will cooperate", Raleigh News & Observer,
Apr.
25). "Twenty people who were identified on Edwards's report as
'paralegal' employees each gave $2,000, as did nine persons described as
'legal assistants.'" Most of those contacted by the Washington Post
claimed that they had chosen to donate their own money, but two employees
at Turner's firm indicated that they expected to be reimbursed by their
employer. "Federal election laws prohibit a person from funneling
donations through someone else to conceal their source. Such practices
would enable the reimburser to exceed the legal contribution limit for
individuals, recently raised to $2,000 from $1,000 per election."
Turner is among the best-known attorneys specializing in product liability
suits against automakers. (Thomas B. Edsall and Dan Balz, "Edwards
Returns Law Firm's Donations", Washington Post, Apr.
18). (DURABLE LINK)
April 28-29 --
"Solicitor billed for 81-hour day". Pennsylvania: "The
lawyer for Upper Darby's financially pressed schools paid back $19,361
in fees after The Inquirer showed him evidence that he had billed the district
for more than 24 hours' work on each of four days. ...Barry Van Rensler,
who was paid $421,327 last year and more than $2.8 million in his last
14 years as district solicitor, said the billings in question were innocent
mistakes involving misplaced decimal points. ... District officials say
they are satisfied that the errors in Van Rensler's billings were innocent."
One bill was for an 81-hour day. (Barbara Boyer and Tina Moore, Philadelphia
Inquirer,
Apr.
27). (DURABLE LINK)
April 28-29 --
Wouldn't want to look unsafe. City officials in Oakland,
Calif. would like to crack down on businesses' right to use "exterior security
devices" to protect their premises. Aside from unsightliness, "It
gives a sense that our community is not a very safe city," said City Manager
Robert Bobb. Last month a City Council committee "backed a plan ...
to prohibit barbed wire fences in commercial districts but stopped short
of supporting a more far-reaching proposal to eliminate burglar bars, roll-down
doors and retractable security gates, common fixtures throughout the city."
Many small business owners aren't impressed: "'There is a lot of crime
in Oakland. Who's trying to kid who?' Josefina Lopez, owner of Corazon
Del Pueblo, said at her Mexican imports store and art gallery on International
Boulevard, near High Street. ... When riots broke out after the Super Bowl
in January, Lopez watched from her store as vandals and looters broke nearly
every window of the Kelly-Moore Paint store across the street. Her shop,
with a wrought-iron gate in front of its doors and metal roll-down doors
over the windows, escaped unharmed." (Janine DeFao, "Oakland trying to
avoid that 'war zone' look: Ban on metal bars, roll-down doors considered",
San Francisco Chronicle, Mar.
26). (DURABLE LINK)
April 25-27 --
Price of bad hairdo: $6,000. "The bad hairdo blamed by
a woman for her emotional tailspin was worth $6,000, a St. Louis County
jury decided Wednesday in a verdict that delivered far less than she sought."
Geremie Hoff sued the local Elizabeth Arden salon after an Aug. 2001 hair
straightening job was followed by brittleness and fall-outs. Hoff's
attorney had said "his client was so distressed that she retired early
from the University of Missouri at St. Louis, where she taught, and also
stopped guiding tours to Italy." A defense lawyer, however, "noted
that Hoff didn't retire until nearly a year later, after her hair returned.
He said her tour business would have suffered anyway, in the aftermath
of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001." (William C. Lhotka,
"Jury awards Creve Coeur woman $6,000 in suit over hairdo", St. Louis Post-Dispatch,
Apr.
9; Cynthia Billhartz, "What's the price of a really bad hair day?",
Apr.
14). (DURABLE LINK)
April 25-27 --
Gun lawsuit columns. Did the U.S. House of Representatives
ignore proper principles of federalism when it recently passed a bill that
would pre-empt some lawsuits in state
court seeking to saddle gun manufacturers with the costs of crimes?
Columnist Jacob Sullum takes up the question, quoting our editor's recent
Capitol Hill testimony on the subject ("Federalist Case", syndicated/Reason,
Apr.
18). Also citing our work on gun lawsuits recently have been
columnists Chuck Colson ("Standing on Dangerous Ground", syndicated/TownHall,
Apr.
16); Wayne LaPierre of the National Rifle Association, in his second
monthly column in a row ("Standing Guard", American Hunter, May,
not online); and Paul Craig Roberts ("Gun control: the criminal lobby",
syndicated/Town Hall, Apr.
23). (DURABLE LINK)
April 25-27 --
"Reforming Class-Action Suits". "[C]ompanies operating
nationwide get haled into local courts that plaintiffs' lawyers have found
particularly willing to accept class
actions -- and to hit out-of-state firms with costly judgments.
This situation allows state judges at the county level to issue rulings
that 'federalize' their decisions -- effectively writing rules for the
whole country. In recent years, for example, an Illinois court imposed
Illinois law on the insurance laws or regulations of New York, Massachusetts,
and Hawaii. Class-action suits have also become an ATM for unscrupulous
lawyers, who win millions of dollars for themselves but sometimes leave
clients empty-handed." The Christian Science Monitor lends
its editorial endorsement to the Class Action Fairness Act, which has passed
the House and is now pending in the Senate (Apr.
17). And Baseball Crank,
which we have been tardy in thanking for its kind link to us, has a highly
recommended post (Apr.
16) on "Federalism’s Edge: the point at which an exercise of state
power (by a state or group of states) infringes on the right to self-government
of the citizens of the other states", an issue that underlies both the
CAFA and gun-suit-preemption controversies. (DURABLE
LINK)
April 25-27 --
Manufacturer sued after bullet fails to take down lion.
Professional big-game hunter Rolf Rohwer is suing bullet manufacturers
after an unfortunate occurrence on safari in Africa in which he shot a
charging lion from about 30 yards away but was mauled anyway. According
to his lawyer's allegations, the Federal Cartridge Co.'s Trophy Bonded
Bear Claw bullet, even if suitable for hunting such big game animals as
rhinoceros, elephant, buffalo and hippopotamus, was insufficiently lethal
when aimed at a lion because the smaller animal's thinner skin permitted
the bullet to pass through with minimal damage. (Howie Padilla, "Injured
big-game hunter takes aim at bullet manufacturers", Minneapolis Star
Tribune, Apr.
16). Update Jan.
15, 2005: judge dismisses complaint. (DURABLE
LINK)
April 24 -- Posting
to resume tomorrow. Following two weeks in which our editor,
called away by a death in his family, was without web-posting capability,
we expect to pick up where we left off momentarily.
April 14-23 -- (On
hiatus).
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