Legal Malpractice

Asbestos, Settlements and Legal Malpractice

By (Andrew Lavoott Bluestone)

Asbestos settlements have changed the landscape of tort law, and especially mass tort law.  Back in the mid '90s asbestos cases started to cascade and overwhelm the system.  The defense bar's response was to try to streamline the process.  While this may seem counter intuitive, the intersection between defense costs and settlement costs, especially when insurance/limited insurance coverage was factored in, required litigation committees, typology of injury and the like.  On occasion, good claims were lost and bad claims were paid.

This article from the venerable Madison County Record tells the story of the aftermath of an asbestos case.  Aftermaths often mean legal malpractice litigation.

"Asbestos lawyer John Simmons, facing trial on a widow's malpractice claim, boasts that he obtained $100,000 from W.R. Grace & Co. after the statute of limitations ran out, plus $214,000 from other businesses despite "sketchy product identification."

Simmons offered these examples in hopes of winning summary judgment and escaping a trial that Madison County Circuit Judge Barbara Crowder has set for Feb. 9.
 

Buckles hired Simmons in 1999, when he worked at Hopkins Goldenberg, to represent the estate of her late husband Charles Buckles, she claims. When Simmons left Hopkins Goldenberg, he retained her case and others.

Roy Dripps of the Lakin firm alleges in Buckles' complaint that Hopkins Goldenberg entered into secret agreements with asbestos defendants to classify claims of clients and settle them "in accordance with predetermined figures of money for each such classification."

The complaint stated that Hopkins Goldenberg settled claims "for amounts of money which were manifestly inadequate and which bore no reasonable relationship to the actual loss sustained by the clients."

It stated that Hopkins Goldenberg "fabricated, exaggerated, or otherwise manipulated the bookkeeping" and wrongly ascribed advanced costs to Buckles, and that Hopkins Goldenberg settled groups of claims without obtaining consent of each client.

Simmons failed to provide timely, aggressive and zealous representation to Buckles, according to Dripps.

For Simmons, A.J. Bronsky of St. Louis moved in 2007 for summary judgment.

Bronsky attached an affidavit in which Simmons wrote, "Even though the statute of limitations had run with respect to W.R. Grace, I was able to, with Judy Buckles' consent, obtain a settlement for $100,000 in October of 2000."
 

Full post as published by New York Attorney Malpractice Blog on January 05, 2009 (boomark / email).