Overlawyered: Chronicling The High Cost Of Our Legal System

Corzine vetoes unlimited noneconomic damages

Who says we never praise Democrats? Via Scheuerman, New Jersey’s Democratic governor Jon Corzine has vetoed a law that would have created unlimited noneconomic damages in wrongful death cases:

“[U]nlimited damages … could have a significant impact on state and local budgets, since government entities are not infrequently named as defendants in wrongful death suits, and there are similar concerns as the State undertakes efforts to attract and grow businesses here.”

“Unfortunately, I do not believe that this bill in its current form strikes a fair balance that would avoid using a strict monetary valuation of a person’s life while also addressing the adverse effect of allowing unlimited and unpredictable damages.”

He urged the Legislature to consider alternatives “granting more flexibility for courts to reduce excessive non-pecuniary damage awards and defining non-pecuniary damages less expansively.”

[NJ Law Journal/law.com; earlier: Jan. 9]

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More about Joseph (“Joey”) Langston, part II

As a number of commentators have noted (e.g. Brett Kittredge @ Majority in Mississippi, Alan Lange @ YallPolitics), Booneville attorney Joey Langston, who just entered a guilty plea on charges of judicial corruption, is someone accustomed to throwing the weight of his pocketbook around in Mississippi politics. In particular, he has been among the biggest donors to incumbent Mississippi attorney general Jim Hood, even as Hood employed Langston and partner Tim Balducci on contract to handle the controversial MCI tax bill negotiations, with their resulting $14 million legal fees payable to Langston et al, and the potentially very lucrative Zyprexa litigation.

Equally interesting in some ways, however, are Langston’s activities on the national political scene. To take just one example: this CampaignMoney.com listing tabulates the top “527” contributions to a group called the Democratic Attorneys General Association, whose political and electoral mission is implied by its name. In the listing, two donors are tied for first place, with contributions of $100,000 apiece. One is the large Cincinnati law firm of Waite Schneider Bayless Chesley, associated with one of the country’s best-known plaintiff’s lawyers, Stanley Chesley. The other $100,000 contribution is from Joey Langston.

In presidential politics, Langston has recently been a repeat donor to the quixotic (and, since Iowa, defunct) campaign of Sen. Joseph Biden (D-Del.), a lawmaker whose high degree of seniority on the Senate Judiciary Committee makes him important to ambitious lawyers whether or not he ever attains the White House. When the Scruggs scandal was still in its early stages, the WSJ law blog (Dec. 10) noted that two key figures in the affair, Tim Balducci and Steve Patterson, were strong backers of the Biden campaign: “Their bet on Biden was that he wouldn’t win the presidency but would become Secretary of State under a Hillary Clinton administration, according to two people familiar with their thinking.” The Journal reprinted (PDF) an invitation to an Aug. 10, 2007 fundraising reception for Biden at the Oxford (Miss.) University Club, sent out above the names of six hosts, three of whom (Scruggs, Balducci and Patterson) were soon indicted. Scruggs, of course, is better known for his support of Mrs. Clinton, a fundraiser for whom he had to cancel after the scandal broke.

Campaign-contributions databases such as OpenSecrets.org and NewsMeat indicate that Langston has been a prolific and generous donor to incumbent and aspiring Senators across the country, mostly Democrats (Murray, Cantwell, Daschle, Nelson, etc.) but also including a number of Republicans who might be perceived as swing votes or reachable, such as Sen. Lindsey Graham (S.C.), Susan Collins (Me.), and Arlen Specter (Penn.)

Incidentally, some critics have intimated that Langston’s generous support to DAGA, the Democratic Attorneys General Association, should actually be interpreted as a roundabout gift to Hood, who was the beneficiary of interestingly timed largesse from DAGA. It does not appear, however, that any of the parties involved — Langston, Hood or DAGA — have acknowledged any connection between the timing of the donations (& welcome Michelle Malkin, David Rossmiller, YallPolitics readers).

[Second of a two-part post. The first part is here.]

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More about Joseph (“Joey”) Langston, part I

Yesterday’s guilty plea by Booneville, Miss. attorney Joseph (“Joey”) Langston in the attempted improper influencing of a Mississippi state judge would be major news even if it had nothing to do with the state’s most famous attorney, Richard (“Dickie”) Scruggs. That’s because Langston and his Langston Law Firm have themselves for years been important players on the national mass tort scene. The firm’s own website, along with search engines, can furnish some details:

  • Per the firm’s website, it has represented thousands of persons claiming injury from pharmaceuticals, including fen-phen (Pondimin/Redux), Baycol, Rezulin, Lotronex, Propulsid and Vioxx. It was heavily involved in the actions against Bausch & Lomb over ReNu contact lens solution (and its former #2 Timothy Balducci, the first to plead in the widening round of corruption scandals, won appointment to the steering committee of that litigation.)
  • The Langston firm has represented thousands of asbestos claimants and says it has “significant” experience in the emerging field of manganese welding-rod litigation, also a specialty of the Scruggs law firm. The website AsbestosCrisis.com includes the Langston law firm in its listing of about thirty law firms deemed notable players on the plaintiff’s side of asbestos litigation (“Tiny firm founded by Joe Ray Langston powerhouse in Mississippi with 50-year roots in state political circles.”)
  • Langston appeared to play a sensitive insider role for Scruggs in the largest and most lucrative legal settlement in history, the tobacco-Medicaid deal between state attorneys general and cigarette companies, the ethical squalor of which was a central topic of my 2003 book The Rule of Lawyers; as mentioned previously, when Dickie Scruggs routed mysterious and extremely large tobacco payments to P.L. Blake, he used attorney Langston as intermediary.
  • Langston has repeatedly taken a high profile in the same fields of litigation as has Scruggs, including not only suits over asbestos, tobacco and welding rods but also two of Scruggs’s “signature” campaigns, those against HMOs/managed care companies and not-for-profit hospitals.
  • Though the firm is better known for its plaintiff’s-side work, the Langston firm’s “national practice” page asserts: “The Langston Law Firm virtually defined the role of ‘Resolution Counsel’ in the modern era of jurisprudence. Prominent domestic and foreign companies facing massive litigation have turned to The Langston Law Firm to create winning strategies to save their companies.”

Many commenters (as at David Rossmiller’s) have noted that Langston appears to have drawn an unusually favorable plea deal from federal investigators, who are granting him remarkably broad immunity as to uncharged offenses, and not even stipulating that he give up all ill-gotten funds. Presumably this signals that they expect Langston’s cooperation to be unusually extensive and valuable. One hopes that this cooperation will include the full and frank disclosure of any earlier corruption and misconduct there may have been in all the past litigation in which Langston has been involved. In particular, tobacco, asbestos, and pharmaceutical litigation have all raised suspicions in the past because of instances in which forum-shopping lawyers took lawsuits of national significance to relatively obscure local courts — quite often in Mississippi — and proceeded to get unusually favorable results which paved the way for the changing hands of very large sums in settlement nationally. Were all these results achieved honestly?

Incidentally, and because it may confuse those researching the matter on the web, it should be noted that there is a second prominent Mississippi plaintiff’s lawyer who bears the same surname but has not been involved in the recent Scruggs scandals, that being Joey’s brother Shane Langston, formerly of Jackson-based Langston, Sweet & Freese. Shane Langston, whose name turned up often in connection with the “hot spots” of pharmaceutical litigation of Southwest Mississippi, has more recently been in the news over client complaints regarding alleged mishandling of expenses related to the Kentucky fen-phen litigation scandals. [Family relationship between the two confirmed 1/16 on the strength of emails from several readers.] (& welcome WSJ Law Blog readers)

[First of a two-part post. The second part is here.]

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Suit: You kept me from jumping off the Empire State Building

Jeb Corliss is a professional stuntman and BASE jumper who has parachuted from the Eiffel Tower, the Golden Gate Bridge and the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, but apparently none of his stunts compared to the trauma of being forbidden from jumping off the Empire State Building in 2006: he’s sued for $30 million, complaining that the stress of being handcuffed to the railing (after security officers pulled him down as he was climbing over the safety railing) has caused “emotional distress” and “adrenal fatigue.” The suit is a counterclaim to a suit the building filed against Corliss (for an only slightly less implausible $12 million) meant to deter other jumpers from endangering third parties; a judge had dismissed reckless endangerment criminal charges on grounds that Corliss wouldn’t actually endanger anyone by jumping, a ruling the city is appealing. [NY Times City Room Blog]

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“Ex-Milberg Weiss honcho to head NYC Bar”

Patricia Hynes, who spent 24 years at now-disgraced Milberg Weiss Bershad Hynes & Lerach and more than ten on its executive committee, is now slated to become the next president of the New York City bar association. The favorable assumption is that Hynes, a former prosecutor who became a name partner in the firm, was systematically duped by her former colleagues, as Roger Parloff at Fortune notes:

While being a dupe is not unethical, and certainly not illegal, it’s no badge of honor, either. For idealistic young law students making their career choices, it must have been reassuring if not inspirational to see former Manhattan executive assistant U.S. attorney Pat Hynes’s name so prominently displayed on Milberg’s letterhead. It vouched for the integrity of the whole operation. Whether she knew it or not, part of what she was being paid to do there for 24 years was to lend the firm an aura of integrity that, judging from three top partners’ guilty pleas, it didn’t deserve.

Before assuming the high professional honor of a bar presidency, Parloff wonders, shouldn’t Hynes be more willing to answer questions about her time at Milberg? (cross-posted from Point of Law).

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Update: millionaire spankee verdict tossed

On Point News reports that Janet Orlando’s $1.7 million victory (May 2006) has been tossed by an appellate court that noted that it wasn’t sex discrimination when the employer was spanking everyone (along with other questionable motivational techniques as diaper-wearing and pies in the face) and the jury instructions failed to make clear that conduct not aimed on grounds of sex was not sexually discriminatory. The opinion is “unpublished” so it will not be precedential.

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January 15 roundup

  • Client’s suit against Houston tort lawyer George Fleming alleges that cost of echocardiograms done on other prospective clients was deducted as expenses from her fen-phen settlement [Texas Lawyer]

  • Preparing to administer bar exam, New York Board of Law Examiners isn’t taking any chances, will require hopefuls to sign liability waivers [ABA Journal]

  • Thanks to Steven Erickson for guestblogging last week, check out his blogging elsewhere [Crime & Consequences, e.g.]

  • “Freedom of speech” regarded as Yankee concept at Canadian tribunal? [Steyn @ NRO Corner; reactions]

  • Court rules Dan Rather suit against CBS can go to discovery [NYMag; earlier here, here]

  • Served seventeen years in prison on conviction for murdering his parents, till doubts on his guilt grew too loud to ignore [Martin Tankleff case]

  • Orin Kerr and commenters discuss Gomez v. Pueblo County, the recent case where inmate sued jail for (among other things) making it too easy for him to escape [Volokh]

  • New at Point of Law: Cleveland’s suit against subprime lending is even worse than Baltimore’s; Massachusetts takes our advice and adopts payee notification; law firm websites often promote medical misinformation; lawyer for skier suing 8-year-old boy wants court to stop family from talking to the press; Ted rounds up developments in Vioxx litigation once and then again; guess where you’ll find a handsome statue of Adam Smith; and much more;

  • Good news for “resourceful cuckolds” as courts let stand $750,000 alienation of affection award to wronged Mississippi husband [The Line Is Here; ABCNews.com]

  • Kimball County, Nebraska cops don’t know whether that $69,040 in cash they seized from a car is going to be traceable to drug traffickers, but plan to keep it in any case [Omaha World-Herald via The Line Is Here]

  • Hunter falls out of tree, and Geoffrey Fieger finds someone for him to sue [seven years ago on Overlawyered]

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DC to fire six child-welfare workers in Banita Jacks case

Banita Jacks, a high-school dropout with four children by at least three different men (not including a fourth man she incorrectly accused in a paternity suit), was found living with the corpses of those four children (whom she is accused of murdering) in Southeast Washington DC. The city has responded by announcing that it will fire several workers who, it is said with 20/20 hindsight, failed to adequately respond to warnings that the children were in danger. [WaPo]

And, several months from now, if there is an incident where parents are having their children unjustly taken from them at the drop of a hat, it is because city officials now know that their jobs are more at risk for possibly under-reacting than they ever would be if they over-react.

Update, January 16: A surprising number of commenters are taking the side of the scapegoaters, where one seizes a single particular warning, and says “You should have known”—a frequent tactic of the trial lawyer seeking deep-pocket blame. Richard Wexler has a good summary:

But when a police officer arrives, he finds four children “well and healthy.” Mom claims she’s home-schooling the children. The officer sees the books mom says she is using.

What do you do?

The police officer saw no evidence of abuse or neglect. Yes, mom wouldn’t let him in without a warrant, but in America, that is her right. The school social worker suspects mental illness — but she’s also the one who said the daughter was being held hostage, something apparently contradicted by the police.

If you happen to be psychic, know that the mother is Banita Jacks and know what will be discovered more than eight months later, presumably you drop everything and find a way to get into that home.

But if you are simply a typical D.C. caseworker — juggling many other cases — then you move on to all those situations that, on the surface, look far worse than a home-schooler with “well and healthy” children. …

Because there’s nothing like yelling “Off with their heads!” to fuel a foster-care panic.

Every CFSA worker is now terrified of having the next Banita Jacks on his or her caseload. So agency personnel will rush to tear large numbers of children from their parents. Those children will suffer the trauma of needless separation from everyone loving and familiar, and they’ll be placed at risk of abuse in foster care itself — several studies suggest that one in three children are abused while in foster care. Worst of all, a deeply troubled child-welfare system will be further overwhelmed, making it even more likely that some child in real danger will be overlooked.

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Scruggs scandal update: Information in Langston plea

Folo has posted (PDF) the information on which Joseph (Joey) Langston entered a guilty plea. A sample:

5. Between on or about July of 2006 and July of 2007, JOSEPH C. LANGSTON, Steven A. Patterson and the close personal friend of Robert “Bobby” DeLaughter split $3,000,000, representing the savings to Scruggs as a result of rulings in favor of Scruggs by Judge DeLaughter resulting in a settlement of the case.

A couple of points:

* The identity of the unnamed “close personal friend” of Judge DeLaughter was not revealed in the information, but it is widely assumed that that friend is a reasonably prominent former prosecutor in the state and that that figure may be cooperating with the feds. Since Patterson is also reported to be cooperating with the feds, and presumably will be asked to tell what he knows about this episode as well as the original Judge Lackey bribery attempt, that would make three principals in the DeLaughter/Wilson affair prepared to cooperate with prosecutors. The splitting of $3 million from Scruggs would also presumably leave the sort of paper trail that could not easily be disguised as lunch expense reimbursements and the like.

* The alleged quid pro quo that was to be offered to Judge DeLaughter — who has at all times firmly denied improper influence — is not money, but consideration for promotion to the federal bench. Judge DeLaughter was in fact considered for a recommendation to such appointment by the office of Scruggs’s brother-in-law, Sen. Trent Lott, but was not in the event appointed. It can be anticipated that the circumstances of that non-appointment — his brush with appointment, as it were — will come under close scrutiny.

Earlier here.

P.S. YallPolitics has a PDF link of the Patterson plea and David Rossmiller has a lengthy array of documents from PACER.

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Police more likely to sleep with than arrest prostitutes

The Venkatesh-Levitt paper on the economics of prostitution in Chicago shows that prostitutes are arrested about one out of every 450 tricks—but are forced to give “freebies” to police for about 3% of their tricks to avoid arrest.

On the one hand, I’m appalled at the utter corruption exhibited by law enforcement here, and wonder to what extent this illegal “perk” acts as a public-choice rationale for law enforcement to oppose legalization and regulation of brothels.

On the other hand, that 3% of labor extorted by the police is a heck of a better rate than the 30% or so tax rate various governments make me pay…

See also: Howley @ Reason; Balko @ Reason.

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