BL1Y wonders whether the numbers add up, though (via Above the Law, Courthouse News). The class action firm filing the case is Lakin Chapman; it and its predecessor firm are well-known to longtime Overlawyered readers. More: Lowering the Bar.
Posts Tagged ‘Madison County’
“Posner Blasts ‘Out of Control’ Class-Action Lawyer in Fee Fight”
Rex Carr of East St. Louis is fighting his former partners at Korein Tillery. [ABA Journal]
Update: “Pizza Hut and cop prevail in door injury claim”
Possibly bringing to an end an odd door-swing case that we last blogged two years ago [Madison County, Ill. Record]
Update: Armettia Peach leaky-roof suit
Readers may remember the extensive litigation in and around Granite City, Illinois, involving the frequently aggrieved Peach family. Now Armettia Peach has settled with the last defendant, Kevin Link, in the suit described here, here, and here. (Madison County Record).
Unrelatedly, the Lakin Law Firm, which has represented the Peach family in numerous cases, has changed its name to LakinChapman LLC.
ATRA’s “Judicial Hellholes 2008”
The American Tort Reform Association is out with its annual ranking of the jurisdictions where it thinks civil defendants are farthest from being assured a fair trial, and they are:
- West Virginia
- South Florida
- Cook County, Ill.
- Atlantic County, NJ
- Montgomery and Macon Counties, Ala.
- Los Angeles County, CA
- Clark County (Las Vegas), Nev.
The list reflects the views of big-company managers and lawyers as to tort lawsuits; a poll of, say, doctors might result in different nominations (Brooklyn, Bronx, Long Island*, Philadelphia) and one of class-action or patent-infringement defendants would likely produce yet other lists.
ATRA has a supplementary “Watch List”, nicknamed by some of us “Heckholes”, of toasty but not quite infernal jurisdictions, on which it places the Rio Grande Valley and Gulf Coast of Texas, Madison County, Ill., Baltimore, Md., and St. Louis city and county and Jackson County, Mo. It also offers side essays on notable scandals among high-rolling lawyers, trial lawyer-AG alliances, and pro-plaintiff’s-bar lobbying efforts.
Some coverage of the report: Pero, ShopFloor (with this and this on AG alliances), Ambrogi, Genova, CalBizLit (“We’re Number 6! We’re Number 6!), TortsProf, Miller (Baltimore), and Turkewitz (cross-posted from Point of Law; also note this recent post).
* Commenter VMS makes a case that Long Island does not belong on such a list.
Microblog 2008-12-13
- Holman Jenkins on auto bailout [WSJ] Bush’s willingness to use TARP helped the unions scuttle a reasonable deal with Corker; and why exactly did CEO Wagoner commit GM to the (dubious and self-injuring) position that buyers’d abandon the company in the event of a Chapter 11? [Hodak Value h/t Ted] So that’s what dragging Detroit down — domestic partner benefits [Brayton] And Ted wonders if it might be cheaper in the long run for the government just to buy a Senate seat from Gov. Blagojevich for every auto worker;
- Where’d Gov. Blagojevich pick up idea it was OK to sell official acts for $$$? Can’t imagine [Ribstein] Who is Advisor B? [Byron York] Sing, Rod, sing! [Coleman] “Blago’s decision to let SEIU and not AFSCME organize Ill. child-care workers” Hmmm [Freedom-at-Work, NRTW] “How do they think Chi pols talk in private when muscling some guy for cash? Like Helen Mirren playing the queen?” [John Kass, Tribune] A look at AG Lisa Madigan [PoL] Illinois pols have shaken down hospitals before, state’s “certificate of need” (permission-to-build) law is one culprit [StateHouseCall]
- J.K. Galbraith’s best bon mot: “bezzle” = inventory of unexposed embezzlement, revealed as tide of boom recedes [Cox, Breaking Views] Fascinating memoir of why Madoff had been giving off fishy smell for years [Tokyo Cassandra] So sleazy! “Many” investors put $ with Madoff because they suspected he was crooked — but cheating someone else [Blodget] “Madoff didn’t run one of these much-maligned, unregistered hedge funds. He was registered with the SEC. Here’s his latest 13-F, which looks perfectly normal.” [Weisenthal]
- Daily downer for media folk [@themediaisdying h/t @amyfeldman] “Remember, America, you can’t wrap a fish in satellite radio” — P.J. O’Rourke wants bailout for print [The Australian]
- Jurors’ political leanings predict whether they’re pro-plaintiff or defendant? Not as simple as that [Wisconsin Lawyer h/t @juryvox]
- Asbestos rise in Madison County, Illinois could signal return to “old school” tactics [MC Record h/t @icjl]
- Sue me harder, don’t stop now: competing Fla. fetish clubs feud in court, which’ll get whipped? [ABA Journal]
- Russian patent office grants trademark for 😉 emoticon, businessman asking royalties [BBC h/t @bodhi1 @mediadonis]
- Arnold Kling: loan modification way oversold as remedy for housing ills [EconLog h/t @tedfrank]
- Best line: “the goose was not our employee or our agent” [CKA Mediation h/t @vpynchon, earlier]
Scooping up police crash reports, cont’d
Two Milwaukee-based law firms, Hupy & Abraham and the McNally Law Offices, have been gathering up vehicle-crash police reports in the famously litigation-friendly Illinois counties east of St. Louis, and then soliciting persons named in the reports to file injury claims. “Some local police departments, including Belleville, Edwardsville, O’Fallon and the Madison County Sheriff’s Department,” have resisted the demands, based on worries about citizen privacy and identity theft, or have sought to charge for per-report access, which would discourage mass scooping up of names. The McNally firm, however, “sends a copy of a letter from Attorney General Lisa Madigan’s office, which states the police have to allow viewing of the reports, at no charge.” (Brian Bruegemann, “Ambulance chasing? Lawyers zero in on metro-east clients”, Belleville News-Democrat, Sept. 28). Ron Miller at Maryland Injury Lawyer says the practice contributes toward giving the plaintiff’s bar a bad name, and corresponds with attorney Michael Hupy whose firm figures in the story. We covered the phenomenon earlier here and here.
September 30 roundup
- Trips over firefighter’s bag at rescue scene, now wants cash from city [Salem, Mass., News]
- Oh, my: “Bidens owe SimmonsCooper [huge mass tort firm in Madison County, Ill.] $1 million in hedge fund deal” [MC Record, earlier] Update: plenty more in a Wednesday WSJ editorial.
- Florida Supreme Court rejects latest attempt by attorney Montgomery Blair Sibley to resist discipline [North Country Gazette]
- “Women’s advocacy groups have persuaded Congress to begin intensive Title IX equity reviews of science programs.” Bad news for American academic science [Sommers, AEI/Teachers College Record]
- You may have run into everyone’s favorite fashion law blog. But did you know there’s also a furniture law blog? [Womble Carlyle; via Blawg Review #179 at Securing Innovation]
- Eavesdrop on jury deliberations, get wind of defense verdict, move quick to settle case? That would be a very naughty thing for a lawyer to do [American Justice Partnership]
- Myrhvold the last straw: “Up until now I have been criticized in many corners for taking the side of so-called patent trolls. …No tax policy could ever do as much damage to an economy.” [Gene Quinn, PatentFools.com, also via above]
- Okay, towns, build sidewalks or else [four years ago on Overlawyered]
Joe Biden and the trial lawyers redux
Add the August 28 LA Times to the list of newspapers looking askance at Joe Biden and his family’s cozy relationship to judicial-hellhole asbestos attorneys, in this case Madison County’s SimmonsCooper. (Chuck Neubauer and Tom Hamburger, “Business dealings of Biden family could be problematic for him”, Aug. 28). Unfortunately, the article somehow manages to miss the rationale for creating the trust fund, which was the degree to which so much asbestos litigation in the country is abusive.
Update: also, Am Law Daily.
Tippy-stove class action, cont’d
Does class actioneer Stephen Tillery really want to call renewed public attention to his settlement with Sears, in which the settling lawyers made out so well ($17 million) given the somewhat elusive benefits to the class of consumers? (Madison County Record, Jul. 30, and editorial, Aug. 2). Our earlier coverage of the case appeared Jan. 31.