A Florida cardiologist has been sentenced to six years in federal prison and ordered to pay $4.5 million in restitution after serving to review the echocardiograms of more than 1,100 prospective claimants on a fen-phen settlement trust fund; many of the claimants he diagnosed were not in fact ill. “The physician was also to be compensated $1,500 for each claimant who qualified for benefits when that person’s claim was paid, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, which prosecuted the case.” At trial, he testified “that his medical reports had been forged by the mass tort lawyer who had hired him on a contingency fee basis, the record states.” As I observed in The Litigation Explosion, medicine, like law, is a profession in which the prohibition of contingency or success fees developed early, in large part because it was expected that such fees would work to the benefit of dishonest practice. [Penn Record]
Posts tagged as:
contingent fee
“A Circuit Court judge has ruled that Baltimore County’s contract with its speed camera vendor is illegal, because it pays the company a cut of each citation issued…. Maryland law says that ‘if a contractor operates a speed camera system on behalf of a local jurisdiction, the contractor’s fee may not be contingent on the number of citations issued or paid.’ But several jurisdictions, including Baltimore County and Baltimore City, pay their vendors a cut of each ticket, arguing that the jurisdiction, not the company, operates the cameras.” Judge Susan Souder ruled that Xerox State and Local Solutions, which currently “receives about $19 from every $40 ticket,” is indeed involved in the operation of the cameras. Del. Michael Smigiel, an Eastern Shore Republican, has introduced a bill to repeal the camera program: “We specifically said we’re not going to allow this to happen, and it happened,” he said. [Baltimore Sun, auto-plays video]
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- UK: “Premiums to soar as accident claims lawyers push up cost of motor insurance, MPs hear” [Telegraph]
- John Stossel on death by FDA [Reason] Disapproving stance on e-cigarettes might cost lives [Balko] Company abandons pioneering stem-cell research after running up $45 million in costs to win FDA approval of initial safety tests [Technology Review] NYT can be obtuse about regulatory costs [Cowen]
- No, we’re not allowed to let you out of the van to relieve the call of nature [Ted at PoL]
- “Economic Damages Are Affirmed Though Plaintiff’s Earnings Rose After Accident” [NJLJ]
- A shame about the business climate in Hawaii [Inverse Condemnation]
- “Massachusetts Lawyer Loses License for a Year for Charging $93.8K Contingent Fee, Absent a Contingency” [Martha Neil, ABA Journal]
- Movement “rapidly gaining steam” in U.S. to prohibit anonymous sperm donation [Glenn Cohen, Prawfs]
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Although not conducted through the legal system, some battles in China over alleged injury from medical malpractice make for an interesting compare-and-contrast exercise, right down to the role of contingent fees:
Medical personnel advocates complain that the more violent incidents are staged by hired thugs, paid by families of the deceased in hopes of winning compensation from the hospitals. … The Chinese have even coined a word for the paid protesters: yinao, meaning “medical disturbance.”
“It has become a very sophisticated system for chasing profits. Whenever somebody dies in a hospital, the yinao will get in touch with the family and offer their services in exchange for 30% to 40%,” said Liu Di, who is setting up a social network for medical professionals.
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Kathryn Johnson, 92, “was shot and killed by police during a botched drug raid in 2006,” resulting in a payout of millions of dollars by the city. Now Rev. Markel Hutchins, who made public appearances as spokesperson for Johnston’s family, is suing her estate, saying he had an understanding to receive 10 percent of any recovery. [Atlanta Journal-Constitution, WABE] (& note commented controversy over whether “botched raid” is accurate.)
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In the new issue of the Federalist Society’s Engage, Margaret Little reviews Lester Brickman’s Lawyer Barons: What Their Contingency Fees Really Cost America, one of the most important new books on tort law in years (review, PDF). Excerpt:
No scholar has studied the role of the contingency fee in America more comprehensively than Professor Lester Brickman. He has now published a definitive book that examines the historic, economic, and political legacy of this American means of financing the always elusive quest for justice. …
Litigation, while public in name, takes place out of the public eye. … the defense bar is up to its elbows in preserving these arrangements because of the mirror image benefits they derive from the expansion and complexity of tort liability.
A House of Commons select committee “identified the principal cause as ‘a rapid growth in the number of personal injury claims management firms, which are using direct cold-call marketing techniques to encourage people to make claims who otherwise would not have done so’”. [Philip Johnston, Telegraph]
England has been experimenting in recent years with versions of contingent and conditional fees previously barred by ethical rules; following widespread discontent about the results, including high insurance rates, the Cameron government plans a new wave of tinkering. [BBC]
More thoughts on why bonuses tied to prosecutors’ measured “accomplishments” — in this case, conviction rates at a Colorado prosecutor’s office — are such a bad idea. Very similar logic helps explain the historically prevailing ban on contingency fees for lawyers in most Western legal systems. [Tim Lynch, Cato; WSJ Law Blog; related earlier (Harris County, Tex.)](& welcome Above the Law, Truth on the Market visitors)
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“The tree trunks, exposed banks and other hazards whizzing past represent a cornucopia of potential tort suits under U.S. law, yet somehow the Swiss manage to operate these runs without being sued into oblivion.” Dan Fisher at Forbes has a go at explaining why. More: Bill Childs, TortsProf (many U.S. states relatively protective of winter sports providers).
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Like other variations on contingency pay for those charged with enforcing the law, they sound like a really bad idea [Greenfield]
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- When naming a new law, please, no acronyms, no victim names, and no assumptions about what it will accomplish [WSJ Law Blog on Brian Christopher Jones's recommendations] More: Wood.
- America’s Most Irresponsible Public Figure® — that would be RFK Jr. — sounds off on Tucson massacre [Hemingway, Examiner]
- More press attention for CPSC’s dubious consumer complaint database [Washington Post; my take last month]
- An appellate win for Internet anonymity in Pennsylvania [Levy, CL&P]
- Santa Clara lead paint case: Supreme Court won’t review government misuse of contingency lawyers [Wood, ShopFloor]
- DC cops’ “post and forfeit” policy deserves scrutiny [Greenfield]
- “Philosophy Explains How Legal Ethics Turn Lawyers Into Liars” [Kennerly]
- “Marshall, Texas: Patent Central” [six years ago on Overlawyered]
That’s the way to help ‘em out!
While such an approach is sometimes used in commercial litigation, this is a first for consumer cases, said Lester Brickman, a professor at Cardozo Law School in New York.
“For a lawyer to supplement or replace the banks as a long-term mortgage creditor of homeowners leaves me a little queasy,” said Mr. Brickman, an expert on contingency fees. “It’s an invitation for the public to say, ‘There go the lawyers again.’ ”
OK, we’ll say it: There go the lawyers again. [New York Times via Ribstein/TotM and Knake/LEF]
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Ted at Point of Law has a post mortem on a decision that’s pretty bad, but not as bad as it might have been. More: Legal Ethics Forum, John Sullivan/Civil Justice Association of California, Wood/ShopFloor. Thanks, by the way, to CJAC for citing my writing in their amicus brief (PDF, see p. 10).
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- Charged $21K at purported “gentleman’s” club: “Plaintiff Has No Recollection of What Transpired in the Private Room” [Lowering the Bar]
- Census Bureau sued for discriminating against applicants based on criminal, arrest records [Clegg, NRO] Class action against Accenture for screening job applicants based on criminal records [Jon Hyman]
- Virtual indeed: “Virtual Freedom” author wants government to regulate Google’s search engine [ConcurOp]
- Contingency fees for public sector lawyering could take California down dangerous path [CJAC]
- “Harvard Law vs. free inquiry: Dean Martha Minow flunks the test” [Peter Berkowitz, Weekly Standard]
- There’ll always be an AAJ: seminar for trial lawyers on “Injuries Without Evidence” [ShopFloor] More: The Briefcase.
- Congress may expand law to enable more age-bias suits [BLT]
- “FTC Closes First Blogger Endorsement Investigation” [Balasubramani, Spam Notes; Citizen Media Law]
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The trial will consider whether the law firm is entitled to a $42 million contingency fee under circumstances criticized by Ted in this space two years ago and David Giacalone more recently. [NYLJ]
