Liability reform enthusiasts and followers should note with interest today's editorial feature on the Wall Street Journal's online opinion page, "The Trial Bar on Trial." It chronicles the John Grisham-esque goings on in some of the nation's elite tort and class action factories, including:
Bill Lerach, the king of class actions, stands disgraced as an admitted felon. His former partners at Milberg Weiss face trial for being part of the same kickback scheme as Lerach. Federal prosecutors continue to pursue a criminal probe into asbestos and silicosis litigation fraud. And now comes the indictment of Mississippi tort legend Richard "Dickie" Scruggs, who is trying to soak insurance companies the way he once did Big Tobacco.
What are the stakes?
If convicted, [Scruggs and his partners/associates] could each face up to 75 years in prison. Keep in mind that these aren't street toughs but officers of the court, men who are supposed to uphold the law and who daily claim to be agents of justice against fraudulent business. If guilty, they are the pin-striped version of crooked cops--traitors to the public.
Certainly a challenge to the easy narrative that tort struggles are heroic dramas involving the selfless defender of the little guy taking down the robber baron corporation and its avaricious insurer.
