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Monday, September 20, 2004
Law - Madison County Illinois the focus of a number of stories
A "plaintiff's paradise" is how Madison County Illinois has been described. See, for instance, this April 17th Indiana Law Blog entry.
Howard Bashman of How Appealing has collected here the links to nine (so far) stories in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that yesterday began a series entitled "Madison County: Where asbestos rules." The lead story may be accessed here. Some quotes:
How has Madison County, population 261,689, become a national center for lucrative asbestos litigation? The Post-Dispatch examined the system and found:[These quotes merely touch the surface of the story, and remember there are at least nine more.]* A one-party court system dominated by Democratic judges whose campaigns are financed by contributions from Democratic plaintiff lawyers.
* A county where judges are often related to — or at the least used to work beside — the plaintiff lawyers appearing before them.
* A history of anti-corporate sentiment that produces sympathetic — and generous — juries.
* A history of intimidation that makes some judges wary of crossing the powerful plaintiff bar. * * *
Class-action settlements are often touted at dollar amounts that bear only slight resemblance to what is eventually paid out, and big medical malpractice awards, though well-publicized, are relatively rare.
But asbestos pays off huge in Madison County — regularly returning settlements of $2 million to $3 million for asbestos-caused cancer and settlements of five and six figures for asbestos-related breathing problems. And it has been paying off regularly, month after month, year after year.
A RAND Corp. study estimates that 730,000 asbestos suits have been filed and $70 billion has been transferred from defendant corporations and insurance companies to victims and their lawyers since the litigation began in the 1970s.
Madison County's share of that $70 billion can be only estimated, because settlements are usually secret and the few cases that do result in jury verdicts are often resolved for a fraction of the verdict.
Even conservative estimates peg the payouts in the multibillion-dollar range, making the county a recognized center for such litigation, along with courts in Texas, Mississippi, Ohio, West Virginia and New York. * * *
Why is Madison County such a magnet for asbestos litigation?
For the same reason it draws all types of civil suits.
Madison County has been famous for decades as a good place to sue corporations. Plaintiff lawyers have brought their claims to Madison County because the county's juries have awarded damages to plaintiffs at far higher amounts than juries in, say, Clayton or Peoria.
[One reason is historical] Most of the area's industrial workers at the time were immigrants from Eastern Europe. Their leftist politics originated in the old country and were carried on here in pro-union groups such as the Industrial Workers of the World — the Wobblies — and the Socialist Workers Party. They fought for improved working conditions and higher wages against such corporate titans as the Niedringhaus family, owners of the city's massive Graniteware plant. * * *
The radical politics softened over succeeding generations.
"Politically, it has kind of petered out into pseudo-liberalism, but it's still an anti-corporate community," Chapman said. "That still affects the juries."
Add to that mixture Illinois' system of electing judges. Unlike Missouri's nonpartisan plan, in which urban judges are appointed by the governor, circuit judges in Illinois must run for election, and once elected, run for retention every six years.
A Post-Dispatch examination of campaign contributions found that the campaigns of Madison County judges are financed almost exclusively by lawyers, particularly the plaintiff bar.
Posted by Marcia Oddi on September 20, 2004 03:17 PM
Posted to General Law Related