What percent of the dollar value demanded in asbestos litigation these days is grounded in deceitful or duplicative claims practices? Would 90 percent be an unreasonable guess? “A bankruptcy judge slashed by 90 percent the amount gasket manufacturer Garlock Sealing Technologies owes asbestos plaintiffs. … The judge cited the practice of plaintiff lawyers [of hiding] evidence their clients were exposed to products made by other companies, both by coaching their clients to deny exposure and by failing to disclose claims they made in other cases.” [Daniel Fisher/Forbes and followup and related, Joe Nocera/New York Times, Paul Barrett, Bloomberg Business Week, Charlotte Observer, order at TortsProf] On the patterns of multiple dipping exposed by Judge Janis Graham Jack in 2005 litigation, see Jim Copland’s summary here. I wrote about the coaching of asbestos claimants to “remember” working with certain products and not others in my 2004 book The Rule of Lawyers and in this earlier Reason column. More: Richard Faulk, WLF.
Posts Tagged ‘asbestos’
Ethics roundup
- Wilkes-Barre, Pa.: “one of the most egregious cases of attorney theft of clients’ escrow funds that I have seen” [ABA Journal]
- Chamber cheers Wisconsin for enacting strongest sunshine law for state hiring of outside contingency-fee lawyers [U.S. Chamber/Business Wire]
- Justice Sandra Day O’Connor’s contributions on professional responsibility and the role of the legal profession [Steven Hobbs, SSRN]
- “Mississippi Supreme Court sanctions judge for refusing to step aside in asbestos suit” [ Walter L. Cofer, Greg Fowler and Simon Castley, Lexology]
- Alameda County ex-judge gets 5 years of probation in theft from elderly neighbor [ABA Journal, earlier here, etc.]
- Study: Wisconsin high court justices tend to side with attorney donors [Fed Soc Blog]
- Suit by Garlock claims misconduct by opposing asbestos lawyers including concealment of exposure and implantation of memories [Chamber-backed Legal NewsLine, related] A Lone Star State asbestos litigation revival? [Eric Lasker and Richard Faulk, WLF]
Nocera on the “asbestos scam”
Perhaps it was overreach for a prominent New York City plaintiff’s law firm to file asbestos litigation on behalf of Rep. Carolyn McCarthy, the famously fond-of-smoking Long Island Congresswoman now fighting lung cancer, against General Electric, Pfizer and more than 70 other companies. The high-profile case is focusing public attention on the legal fictions by which lawyers have been lassoing seemingly conventional lung cancer cases and bringing them into the asbestos litigation system [Joe Nocera, New York Times; Daniel Fisher; earlier]
P.S. Patterns of filing non-mesothelioma cancer cases reflect asbestos lawyers’ economic incentives [Daniel Fisher]
November 20 roundup
- KlearGear and the consumer non-disparagement clause that ate (or tried to eat) Chicago [Popehat and followup]
- “House Passes Bill That Would Open Asbestos Trusts To Scrutiny” [Daniel Fisher/Forbes, Chamber-backed Legal NewsLine]
- Randy Maniloff interviews Judge Richard Posner on his new book Reflections on Judging [Coverage Opinions]
- In a custody fight, anything can happen: “Dad Accused of ‘Unfit Parenting’ for Refusing to Take His Son to McDonalds” [TIME]
- “Released after serving 10 years on false rape accusation –then wrongly arrested for not registering as sex offender” [Chicago Tribune via @radleybalko]
- Institute for Justice launches campaign to challenge local restrictions on food with suits over sale of cottage baked goods, front-yard vegetable gardens, advertising of raw milk [AP/Yahoo, “National Food Freedom Initiative“]
- Alabama regulators add hassle factor when business tries to move into the state [Coyote]
“The Smoking Congresswoman and Her Asbestos Lawsuit”
Paul Barrett at Business Week:
…even a politically moderate, law school-educated guy like me, someone who’s perfectly prepared to root for a suit against a dishonest insurance company or an exploitative landlord, finds himself increasingly dismayed by the uses to which our civil justice system is put.
That’s by way of introducing the lawsuit filed by 69-year-old Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-N.Y.), known as a big-time smoker, attributing her lung cancer to asbestos products made by more than 40 companies. Did we mention that representing her is the politically well-connected New York firm of Weitz & Luxenberg?
Liability and torts roundup
- Struggling with a new-design gas can? There’s a reason for that [Scott Reeder, earlier on Blitz bankruptcy]
- NYT video retrospective on Stella Liebeck-McDonald’s (hot coffee spill) case is getting a lot of attention;
- Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway has made itself the biggest name in asbestos defense, and some trial lawyers hope to make hay with that [Scripps/WPTV]
- California trial lawyers chief: yes, we’re going to partner up more with elected officials as in lead paint case [Chamber-backed Legal NewsLine]
- It’s differences in procedure, more than in substantive law, that mostly explain why the U.S. has hundreds of times as many product liability suits as Japan [J. Mark Ramseyer via Point of Law]
- “Injured by big government? Call: 717-671-1901 [promotion for Commonwealth Foundation, a Pennsylvania free-market-oriented outfit]
- How litigation finance might remake the lawsuit landscape [Nora Freeman Engstrom via TortsProf]
California court: malicious prosecution suit can go forward
It’s against a law firm for allegedly wrongly naming a car dealership as a defendant in an asbestos case. The (unpublished) decision, denying a SLAPP-law motion, is here (Tulare SAG, Inc. v. Keller, Fishback, and Jackson LLP). Note: Link is a document download, not a page, and may not work for all browsers or users.
“Judge triples fraud verdict against asbestos attorneys, radiologist”
“A federal judge has tripled the damages awarded against two former members of a Pittsburgh law firm and the radiologist they were found to have conspired with to fabricate asbestos claims in West Virginia.” [Chamber-backed WV Record] Many claims based on medical evidence supplied by the radiologist, Dr. Ray Herron, were among those dismissed in 2005 by federal judge Janis Graham Jack in an opinion in which she wrote, “These diagnoses were driven by neither health nor justice – they were manufactured for money.” In June 2013 the editorialists of the New York Times hilariously wrote that “there is no persuasive evidence of any significant fraud or abuse” in asbestos claiming.
Ethics roundup
- “Did law firm use paralegal as honeypot to ensnare opposing counsel in DUI?” [Tampa Bay Times, Fox 13 Tampa Bay, via @tedfrank; ABA Journal (DUI case against lawyer dropped)]
- Bridgeport attorney charged with insurance claims fraud scheme [Connecticut Law Tribune, Courant/INN] Does law firm’s obligation to supervise staff extend to case of legal secretary with gambling habit who made off with $1 million? [Connecticut Law Tribune; Waterbury, Ct.]
- More on the Lorna Brown case [Ted Frank, earlier]
- “Officials: New Mexico DWI attorney came to court drunk” [KOAT, KRWG]
- “Litigation funder feared Chevron case would taint fledgling industry” [Alison Frankel/Reuters, Tom Folkman/Letters Blogatory] Roger Parloff on plaintiffs’ latest try to oust Judge Kaplan from case [Fortune]
- Complaint by ousted attorney alleges lapses at California asbestos law firm Brayton Purcell [Legal NewsLine, NLJ]
- “Case sparked by plaintiffs lawyer? Nothing wrong with that: 7th Circuit” [Alison Frankel]
- “Ten Ways Lawyers Rip Off Clients” [Business Insider]
- Canada: Should an applicant with at least 38 fraud convictions be admitted to practice law? [Windsor Star]
“Billion-dollar asbestos fight underway in Charlotte court”
An expert witness testifying on behalf of Garlock Sealing Technologies, a maker of gaskets and seals, says the company has already paid at least $1.3 billion in damages to asbestos claimants. The company is telling a bankruptcy court that its remaining liability amounts to a mere $125 million, but lawyers for claimants say that’s a pipe dream and that the actual figure is ten times that or more. The case offers a window into some economic dimensions of asbestos litigation. [Charlotte Observer, Chamber-backed Legal NewsLine] A judge has declined to allow reporters access to some of the proceedings, including portions of testimony by Cardozo professor Lester Brickman outlining the role of what he says is pervasive fraud and double-claiming in asbestos claims. [LNL]