Updating our Jul. 30 item from Alaska: “A Superior Court judge has given preliminary approval to a plan to divide $40 million in settlements created by the Bristol Bay salmon price-fixing lawsuit. … Under the plan to divide it, the fishermen would share $9.7 million, receiving an average of $2,145 apiece. The fishermen’s lawyers would get $16.5 million, and the seafood companies and their lawyers would get $13.8 million.” (“Alaska Digest”, Juneau Empire, Dec. 7) Further update Feb. 22: judge approves plan.
Posts Tagged ‘class actions’
NBC News coverage
The NBC Nightly News with Tom Brokaw is running stories on excesses in the U.S. litigation system all week. (Pete Williams, “Civil wars: Class actions”, NBC News, Dec. 9; Jeannie Ohm, “Small town on the brink”, NBC News, Dec. 7 (Reeds Spring, Mo., brought to brink of bankruptcy by slip-and-fall verdict)).
S. 17200 horror stories
Tim Sandefur collects them, too: “[I]n another currently pending case, a trial court hearing a class action lawsuit with class members from across the nation — but suing in California — held that it could simply ignore the choice of law clauses of the contracts from 48 other states, because ?17200 is more broadly written than any other ‘consumer protection’ law, and therefore it violated public policy to require litigants from other states to litigate there even though the contracts they signed required them to do so.” (Dec. 3). See also Oct. 26; Nov. 24; Steven Greenhut, “How California’s Consumer Laws Legalize Extortion”, Foundation for Economic Education, May.
Trying too few cases = legal malpractice?
Two legal malpractice lawsuits against the Madison County, Ill. firm of Goldenberg, Miller, Heller and Antognoli claim that the firm settled injury cases for too small a sum and in particular allege that it lacked credibility among defense counsel because it too seldom took cases to trial. Although the Goldenberg firm was one of two major plaintiff’s firms handling asbestos claims in Madison County, for example, one rival lawyer contends that it had not taken an asbestos case to trial in ten years. (Paul Hampel, “Madison County law firm is sued again”, St. Louis Post Dispatch, Nov. 29, via Lori Patel, Law.com). The article is noteworthy for the way it sheds light on longtime feuds among plaintiff’s lawyers in the notorious county (see Dec. 3 and many others).
The case also draws comment (Dec.3) from David Giacalone, who we are delighted to say has resumed limited posting at his website. Giacalone has further information about the tale (see Jun. 17-18, 2002) of Rochester, N.Y. attorney Jim (“The Hammer”) Shapiro, who advertised that “I want to get YOU the biggest, fattest cash award I can, as fast as I can, from as many defendants as I can find. Just call me! Day or night, I’ll talk to you free.” but who later admitted in a deposition that he lived in Florida and had never tried a case. See Jeff Williams, “Lawyer ads get loud”, PrairieLaw, undated.
CAFA compromise contemplated
Reports from Capitol Hill indicate that Congress may be ready to pass a version of the filibustered Class Action Fairness Act (Oct. 21, Sept. 28, etc.) early next year after alterations to bring aboard three Democratic Senators who had supported the filibuster, Chris Dodd of Connecticut, Mary Landrieu of Louisiana and Chuck Schumer of New York. We haven’t had a chance to check the details of how good the resulting bill is, but one circumstance speaks strongly in its favor: Ralph Nader is really upset. (Charles Hurt, “Revised lawsuit-reform bill wins Democratic converts”, Washington Times, Nov. 27; Joseph Straw, “Nader slams Dodd?s class action reform act”, New Haven Register, Dec. 3; Bruce Alpert, “House, Senate avoid gridlock” (Landrieu), New Orleans Times-Picayune, Dec. 1). See also John Godfrey, “US Senate Democrats Seek To Revive Class-Action Bill”, Dow Jones/Yahoo, Nov. 17 (Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., also said to be open to compromise).
Madison County: “We’re number one!”
When word arrived that the American Tort Reform Association had named Madison County, Ill. (Oct. 7, Jul. 12, etc.) the worst of its “judicial hellholes” nationwide (Nov. 20) and the least fair in according due process to accused defendants, “Randy Bono, a plaintiffs’ attorney with The Simmons Firm in East Alton, led a group of lawyers in his office in a mock cheer of the announcement Wednesday afternoon. ‘We’re number one! We’re number one!’ chanted the lawyers, who were preparing for asbestos lawsuit trials next week.” (Paul Hampel, “Report rips Madison County as top ‘judicial hellhole'”, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Nov. 6). More on Madison County: David Bailey, “Illinois county court a corporate ‘hellhole'”, Reuters/Forbes, Oct. 5; Jon Sawyer and Eric Morath, “Senate debate on class actions spotlights Madison County”, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Oct. 21 (county is a place “near and dear to me”, says Sen. Dick Durbin — we’ll bet).
California’s antispam law
I’ve got an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal this morning on the remarkably bad legislation that California passed this year ostensibly banning spam, which in fact creates a right to sue unwary businesses for $1000 per email over all sorts of communications that aren’t regarded as spam by most recipients. Fortunately, the pending federal SPAM-CON bill, whatever its other merits or demerits, would override the California law, which otherwise is due to go into effect Jan. 1. (Walter Olson, “Spamifornia”, Wall Street Journal, Dec. 3) (sub). I’ll probably be returning to this subject in print again, since the space available in the WSJ didn’t permit me to explore some of the pertinent litigation precedents that make the California bill so scary, notably the antispam law passed by Utah last year and the record of class action suits under the federal “junk fax” law (Jul. 19 and links from there).
Latest 17200 targets: drugmakers
Trial lawyers are hoping to turn California’s endlessly abused and abusive s. 17200 “unfair competition” law (Oct. 26, etc.) to rich new account by using it to sue pharmaceutical companies over a variety of marketing practices that the U.S. Congress and Food and Drug Administration have not seen fit to ban. The Ralph Nader operation is helping out, while the litigation effort is being handled by Seattle trial lawyer and tobacco-caper veteran Steve Berman of Hagens & Berman (see Sept. 9-10, 2002 and links from there). (Bernadette Tansey, “Citizens use law to pursue drug firms”, San Francisco Chronicle, Nov. 23; plaintiff’s site (“Prescription Access Litigation”). Update: see Point of Law, Nov. 8, 2004.
Sorry, wrong (class-action) number
Maryland state judge Steven I. Platt “has knocked down a class-action settlement involving late fees on telephone bills, saying the attorneys’ request for $13 million in legal fees was excessive”. Under the terms of settlement of the four-year-old lawsuit, Verizon Maryland had agreed to set aside an impressive-sounding $51.9 million for refunds, but in fact only 18,000 of the 2-million-plus eligible customers submitted claims for their refund of (in most cases) $6, “making the settlement worth less than $200,000.” “Virtually all of the money on the table would have gone to the lawyers, and only a very small share would have gone to the class members themselves,” said Michael J. Quirk, a staff attorney for Trial Lawyers for Public Justice, which opposed the settlement. (Caroline E. Mayer, “Md. Judge Cites Legal Fees In Rejecting Phone Accord”, Washington Post, Nov. 18).
Phony class action nabs alleged murderer
See? Class actions do have social value! Seattle police tied a suspect to a murder by sending him a solicitation to obtain money in a class action over parking tickets–thus obtaining DNA from saliva on the return envelope. The National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers asked unsuccessfully for the evidence to be thrown out. (Tracy Johnson, “Judge upholds police trickery”, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Nov. 18; Christine Clarridge, “Ruse police used to get DNA was legal, judge declares”, Seattle Times, Nov. 18; Tracy Johnson, “Police ruse illegal, lawyer says”, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Oct. 25; Richard Willing, “Police dupe suspects into giving up DNA”, USA Today, Sep. 10; AP, May 30). (via Daily Legal Newswire)