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How important are judges?
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Sometimes, liability lawyers become quite candid about how they believe they have gained an advantage with particular judges.
WASHINGTON (Map, News) - Judges chosen via partisan elections tend to be more likely to favor plaintiffs and liability lawyers than those who are appointed or selected via non-partisan processes, according to research noted by Forbes.com.
The research pointed especially to relationships between elected judges and liability lawyers in Alabama, Texas and West Virginia.
“In research published in the Journal of Law and Economics ... [the researchers] found that awards against out-of-state defendants were 42 percent higher in states that use partisan elections to select their judges than in states that appoint judges,” to the tune of $363,000 per case, Forbes.com reported.
How can that be? Both Forbes and a 2006 Judicial Hellholes report from the American Tort Reform Association offer the same possibility, by way of a quote from a former West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals justice.
“As long as I am allowed to redistribute wealth from out-of-state companies to in-state plaintiffs, I shall continue to do so,” Judge Richard Neely reportedly said.
Sometimes, liability lawyers become quite candid about how they believe they have gained an advantage with particular judges. The Houston Chronicle reported earlier this month on a 2001 letter from Texas plaintiff lawyer Mikal Watts to his opposing counsel with American Electric Power, an out-of-state firm named as a defendant in a suit stemming from an auto accident.
Watts was encouraging the opposing side to settle for $60 million by describing what he believed to be for it the unfamiliar lay of the legal land in South Texas courts. “Politely put, south Texas venue by itself makes this a very dangerous lawsuit,” he said in his letter.
Then he pointed out that if American Electric Power did take the case to court and lose, its appeal would go to the 13th Court of Appeals in the Texas judiciary. “This court is comprised of six justices, all of whom are good Democrats. The Chief Justice, Hon. Rogelio Valdez, was recently elected with our firm’s heavy support, and is a man who believes in the sanctity of jury verdicts.”
Watts wasn’t kidding, either, because his firm had contributed more than $80,000 to several of the appeals judges’ campaigns in previous years. And he went on to note that his firm was involved in the re-election effort of one of the judges even as he composed his letter.
Such threats don’t always work, however, as Watts told the Chronicle that the appeals court subsequently overturned a $122 million judgment against AEP.
"Lawyers Gone Wild" is a series of special reports by The Examiner looking at the cost and consequences of class action lawsuit abuse in the United States. Read the latest articles in the series.
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Nancy Wallace said:
Joe Biden loves Lawyers and Lawsuits and keeping the poor in bankrupcty. Biden supports birds of prey, they prey on the weak.
1 agree | 0 disagree
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Lawsuit Victim said:
Biden has turned this country into a million lawsuits. Biden lawsuits, biden lawsuits, biden lawsuits, biden lawsuits, biden lawsuits Biden costs all american money, to line lawyers pockets. This has killed jobs
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Joe said:
Hillary Clinton is only honest when she gets caught, and then, not always.
11 agree | 3 disagree
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Examiner Reader said:
My attorney did not to help my case against a city in RI, no investigation, no interviews, no discovery.How do I sue him for not doing the job I hired him to do? Swansong
8 agree | 9 disagree
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Steve White said:
I'm glad to read this series, but I also think there should be a lot more attention paid, not to how big companies get screwed over by the legal system, but how normal people without big money get abused in civil lawsuits, divorce cases, child custody, etc. The Constitution says you have a right to represent yourself in court, maybe the courts should facilitate that, rather than trying to make it hard.
173 agree | 167 disagree
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Examiner Reader said:
Why is the Judicial Hellholes report making such a big deal about a quote that is from a book that was 8 years old at the time of the report? Why are you making such a big deal about that quote, and why do you seem to be blindly relying on a report that so blatantly misuses and misunderstands the quote?
168 agree | 180 disagree
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Examiner Reader said:
So this Judicial Hellholes report seems to be where you got the Judge Neely quote, and they do the same thing with it. They ignore the fact that Neely's book supports at least some of their points, and twist the quote to support their cause. This tells me that maybe the Judicial Hellholes report that you seem to have fallen in love with is probably not very accurate or reliable.
192 agree | 157 disagree
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Examiner Reader said:
Your quote from Judge Neely is ridiculous. It is totally out of context. It was taken from a 1998 book in which he argues that product liability law has gotten out of hand and that state courts are helping home state plaintiffs at the expense of out state companies. His book is, at least partially and most likely more honestly, arguing your point. But you feel compelled to quote him out of context, to argue a point that is the opposite of his book's conclusion. He actually calls for the US Supreme Court to step in and review state court decisions to make sure they are fair to out of state companies. I sure hope this was an honest mistake by you, Ms. Chumley.
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not me said:
this article is so insanely one-sided. for example, what of all the money that defense firms give to judges who they think will help them?
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Examiner Reader said:
Say it isn't so. Trial lawyers convicted of crimes contributing to Democrat candidates and Democrat causes. Here I though that the Democrat controlled Congress (the opposite of Progress) was going to fix all of that!!!! No wonder Congress has half the approval ratings of the President.
191 agree | 204 disagree
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Examiner Reader said:
It is difficult to determine how reasonable these fees are without knowing more about the amount of work required to achieve these settements and the amount of risk taken by these lawyers. In general, the amounts seem high, but aren't these fees the result of contracts negotiated between the lawyers and their clients? If the governrment starts putting caps on these fees, will it then try to cap the salaries and binuses paid to corporate CEOs?
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Examiner Reader said:
Nice series of stories. OK, I can see that these lawyers and law firms are making obscene amounts of money off of suits and settlements. But what about the problem of lead paint, even if it was painted decades ago? If it's hurting people, shouldn't it be cleaned up? So how can we protect citizens and prevent abuse at the same time?
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