Overlawyered: Chronicling The High Cost Of Our Legal System

Posts Tagged ‘politics’

Hot Illinois Supreme Court race

Expect a hard-fought battle over the vacant seat on the Illinois Supreme Court for the Fifth District, which includes fabled Madison County (Jan. 5 and links from there) as well as 36 other counties in the southern part of the state. The race pits Democratic candidate Gordon Maag, heavily backed by trial lawyers and himself formerly of the Lakin Law Firm of Wood River, against Republican Lloyd Karmeier (site), who’s garnering support from business and lawsuit-reform backers such as the Illinois Civil Justice League. (Sanford J. Schmidt, “Tort reform takes on political edge”, Alton Telegraph, Feb. 28; Kevin McDermott, “Tort reform is key issue in race”, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Feb. 2). Both men currently serve as judges; the Illinois State Bar Association deems Karmeier “highly qualified” and Maag “qualified” for the high court post. (Jeff Smyth, “State Bar Releases Supreme Court Candidate Evaluations”, The Southern Illinoisan, Jan. 29).

One reason the race will be closely watched: under Illinois’s unusual system of judicial selection, the supreme court justice for the district appoints judges to vacancies on the lower courts within the 37 counties. Karmeier starts as an underdog: “No Republican has won the 5th District seat since 1969. Since then, every occupant has been a resident of Madison County. Karmeier lives in Washington County.” (Michael J. Berens, “Business running in judicial contest”, Chicago Tribune, Mar. 8). In the 1997 case of Best v. Taylor Machine Works, the Illinois Supreme Court struck down what had been one of the most wide-ranging liability reform measures enacted by a state legislature. (Richard E. Anderson, “When Judges Run Amok”, at Doctor’s Company site).

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Tort reform opponents play race card

Apparently lacking in meritorious arguments, opponents of tort reform have resorted to a strategy of accusing tort reform advocates of racism. According to the “Center for Justice and Democracy,” “racial prejudice lurks behind the ‘tort reform’ movement.” Among the out-and-out lies in the press release: “‘Tort reform’ laws weaken the only available forum, in some cases, for holding perpetrators of hate groups and hate groups accountable.” But not even the scare paper supports this.

The report suggests that volunteer immunity laws are really a Trojan horse to provide protection for “volunteers for the Ku Klux Klan.” (You may recall that the American Trial Lawyers Association recently falsely suggested that those very same volunteer immunity laws refuted the premise of a recent Newsweek cover story. (see Jan. 9; Dec. 12).)

Evidence? Well, none whatsoever. The CJD cites successful lawsuits against the Klan and Aryan Nations for assaults, a murder, and a church burning, but no tort reformer has suggested that civil liability be limited for those who commit violent crimes or intentional torts. Certainly, the Volunteer Protection Act of 1997 does not; aside from the exclusion in the law for hate groups, the supposed “loophole” that permits states to provide additional protections for volunteers would have no effect on a federal suit for deprivation of civil rights.

Read On…

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Update: Class action reform

Recent news in class action reform (see Dec. 5 and links therein): Fox News on ATLA attempts to defeat the Class Action Fairness Act (Kelley Beaucar Vlahos, “Class-Action Lawsuit Reform Near but No Cigar Yet”, Feb. 18); the failings of coupon settlements, including of a coupon-trading service, to protect consumers (Ameet Sachdev, “Class-Action Coupon Settlements Draw Ire in Congress, Courts”, Knight-Ridder/Tribune, Feb. 29); the Kansas House of Representatives decide whether to join the federal courts in permitting interlocutory appeals of class certification decisions (Dan Margolies, “Proposed change in class-action law moves ahead”, Kansas City Star, Mar. 2).

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On Pa. court sleaze, a kind of hush

Profile of a maverick attorney who after decades of fighting machine corruption and courthouse politics in Pennsylvania is now working for malpractice reform in the state: “[Bob] Surrick is upset about the silencing of the print media because of the fear of libel suits. He said that during the 18 years that Gene Roberts was the Philadelphia Inquirer’s executive editor, the newspaper won 17 Pulitzers, which was unheard of for a newspaper. But during the 1980s (while Roberts was still editor) Surrick said that the judges and justices started the business of suing their critics, particularly the print media critics, for libel, effectively silencing the Inquirer; after Roberts left, the newspaper no longer did investigative reporting on the judiciary. ‘If the media — the guardian of the truth about what is going on in government — does not tell you, who is going to tell you?’ Surrick asks.” (Eileen Laskas, “Whatever Happened to Bob Surrick?”, CountyPressOnline (Phila. suburbs), Jan. 28) (via Donna Rovito’s Liability Update Information Network). For more on the kinds of legal trouble you can get into by criticizing Pennsylvania judges, see Oct. 24-25, 2001.

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Trial lawyers flex muscle in Tex. races

The plaintiff’s bar had reason to crow after Tuesday’s Texas primaries: it knocked off several incumbent Democratic lawmakers who had backed tort reform or cooperated with GOP leadership on other issues. (“Tort reform, redistricting created challenges for incumbents”, AP/News 8 Austin, Mar. 10)(see Feb. 3). Tort lawyers poured more than $100,000 into the campaign of Alma Allen, who upset State Rep. Ron Wilson for the Democratic nomination in Houston’s District 131, and similar amounts into Abel Herrero’s successful challenge to incumbent state Rep. Jaime Capelo in Corpus Christi. (Lori Rodriguez, “Wilson challenge points up Democrats’ divisions”, Houston Chronicle, Mar. 6; Tim Eaton, “Politics draws doctors, lawyers”, Corpus Christi Caller-Times, Mar. 3). Their most important vehicle was a PAC called “Texans for Insurance Reform”. Texas political observer David Guenthner writes to National Review Online (Mar. 10) that the trial lawyers have “consolidated their control” over the state Democratic party and “sent a message that minority Democrats who don?t toe their line can kiss their careers goodbye.”

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“Edwards gave loan to a federal judge”

“In 1994, when Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.) was still the biggest tort lawyer in North Carolina, he lent $30,000 to a federal bankruptcy judge who was then overseeing a case on which Edwards?s wife, Elizabeth, did much of the legal work. The judge, J. Rich Leonard, is a longtime friend of Edwards?s. … Jonathan Turley, a professor of law at George Washington University who has brought ethics charges against judges before, said the arrangement presented a ‘compelling case of conflict of interest. It is hard to imagine a judge could rationalize presiding in a case where he holds a loan from a couple,’ he said.” Both Judge Leonard and the Edwards campaign deny impropriety and say the loan was fully disclosed and was repaid. Although Elizabeth Edwards’s law firm received a $1 million contingency fee for its work in the case she handled before Leonard, the fee was paid after she had already left the firm and she has said that she did not receive any of the proceeds. (Geoff Earle, The Hill, Mar. 2). Plus: instant retrospectives on the Edwards campaign (Chris Suellentrop, “The Pretender”, Slate, Mar. 2; Michael Graham, “The littlest candidate”, National Review Online, Mar. 3).

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“Make you Ralph”

“The qualities that liberals have observed in him of late — the monomania, the vindictiveness, the rage against pragmatic liberalism — have been present all along. Indeed, an un-blinkered look at Nader’s public life shows that his presidential campaigns represent not a betrayal of his earlier career but its apotheosis.” (Jonathan Chait, The New Republic, Mar. 8). And Peter Brimelow, who with Leslie Spencer wrote a noteworthy piece of investigative journalism on Nader for Forbes more than a decade ago (“Ralph Nader Inc.”, Forbes, Sept. 17, 1990) has now reprinted that article at his VDare.com site. For more on Nader, see Feb. 22; Jun. 13, 2000; etc.

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Fla. docs petition to curb malpractice fees

Citizens for a Fair Share, a group backed by the Florida Medical Association, is seeking to put a state constitutional amendment on the ballot in the Sunshine State to limit attorneys’ fees in medical malpractice cases; it’ll need to collect 450,000 verified signatures (Donna Wright, “Doctors petition for tighter cap on fees”, Bradenton Herald, Nov. 4; Gary Fineout, “A Crisis Or Battle Of Special Interests”, Lakeland Ledger, Nov. 24; Patrick Danner, “Lawyers’ fees come under fire”, Miami Herald, Jan. 4; “Sunshine, Ballots and Lawyers”, Center for Individual Freedom, Feb. 12). But Associated Industries of Florida, the state’s leading business group, is opposing the measure (Diane Hirth, “Lobby groups disagree on drive”, Tallahassee Democrat, Jan. 31)(FMA statement).

As for the state’s trial lawyers, they have already prepared revenge initiatives against the doctors. A group calling itself Floridians for Patient Protection, a political action committee of the Academy of Florida Trial Attorneys, is collecting signatures for three constitutional amendment proposals of its own. One of its proposals “would require physicians to charge the same fee for the same service to all patients.” (Liz Freeman, “Supporters of cap on attorney fees collect enough signatures for review”, Naples Daily News, Feb. 11). The executive director of the Academy of Florida Trial Lawyers describes the initiatives as “countermeasures to ensure that the FMA must play defense first and offense second” (Scott Carruthers, “Pressing Forward”, Jan. 1, likely to rotate off URL). (Update Jul. 20: both doctors’ and lawyers’ measures qualify for ballot.) The revenge-initiative technique has served the litigation lobby well in California ballot battles. After insurance companies were so rash as to support efforts to obtain liability reform through the initiative process, trial lawyers struck back in 1988 with the rate-slashing Proposition 103, which inflicted huge losses on the industry. And when high-tech execs stepped to the plate with a batch of initiatives aimed at curbing litigation, the trial lawyers’ riposte was a counter-initiative that would have put the executives’ personal homes and assets at risk in a much broader range of securities cases. Both groups got the message, and abandoned the California initiative game.

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Stuart Taylor, Jr. on Sen. Edwards

He reviews Edwards’s autobiography, Four Trials, which “provides a window into the faux-populist pretenses and other flaws of the system that made this millworker’s son into a multimillionaire.” Aside from Edwards’s cerebral palsy wins, much discussed in this space, there was the punitive damages award he obtained after a truck crash, against the trucking company for having paid its drivers by the mile: the justice of this $4 million award is open to much question as a matter of blame-fixing, aside from which it “ultimately came out of the pockets of the same ordinary, hardworking Americans whose champion he purports to be — and a big chunk of it went into the pockets of John Edwards. … Edwards’s business-bashing, anti-free-trade, us-against-them campaign rhetoric, unlike John Kerry’s, seems sincere. Edwards sounds as if he believes in his bones that behind every misfortune there must be a wealthy villain.” (Stuart Taylor, Jr., “John Edwards: The Lawsuit Industry Puts Its Best Face Forward”, National Journal/The Atlantic, Feb. 25).

Steve Bainbridge, noting Edwards’s jobs-jobs-jobs economic rhetoric, wonders whether the Senator pauses to worry about certain jobs destroyed by some of his main backers (Feb. 25). Edwards’s latest fund-raiser in Houston was hosted by John O’Quinn, who as the impresario of the breast implant litigation that bankrupted Dow Corning knows a thing or two about destroying jobs (Rachel Graves, “Fund-raisers bring Edwards to town”, Houston Chronicle, Feb. 24; Ken Herman, “The 2004 Election”, Cox/Palm Beach Post, Feb. 25). And on the Edwards-and-cerebral-palsy controversy that we and several other webloggers were pursuing earlier this month, Franco Castalone (The LitiGator) has added a pair of posts clarifying and extending his earlier comments, the first of which (Feb. 15) relays a wealth of information about no-fault birth injury compensation programs and the litigation they would replace, and the second of which (Feb. 16) makes some valuable points about civility in disagreement, and also says generous things about this site.

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Connecticut scandal: the tobacco-fee angle

Four years ago (Feb. 16, 2000) we noted that the state of Connecticut had chosen three politically connected law firms to handle the state’s role in the multistate tobacco litigation, a bit of business that yielded a very handsome $65 million in fees. (Other firms that wanted to be considered for the work were cut out.) The three firms included two linked to Attorney General Richard Blumenthal and one, Carmody & Torrance of Waterbury, whose managing partner, James Robertson, was personal counsel to Republican Gov. John Rowland.

Now the firm of Carmody & Torrance has turned up amid the ethical storm swirling around Gov. Rowland, who may face impeachment over various personal financial irregularities. After Rowland nominated Robertson for a Superior Court judgeship, it developed that the Carmody firm had not only performed extensive free services for Rowland but had also agreed to defer payment of some $100,000 worth of paid services. In recent weeks the Connecticut press has had a lot to say about the (relatively small) amounts of conventional legal work that the state government has awarded to Carmody & Torrance in recent years, but (unless we’ve missed something) has expressed little curiosity about the selection of the firm for tobacco work, perhaps having swallowed the fiction by which the $65 million fee supposedly did not come at the state’s expense. (“Rowland lawyer says governor owes firm $100,000”, AP/Stamford Advocate, Feb. 13; Tobin A. Coleman, “Judges asked about gifts for Rowland”, Stamford Advocate, Feb. 14; Gregory B. Hladky, “Rowland?s ethics scandal snowballing”, New Haven Register, Feb. 16; “State ethics law loophole doesn?t exist, Plofsky says”, AP/New Haven Register, Feb. 22).

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