Personal Injury Attorneys

LEAD: The trust fund set up two years ago by the Manville Corporation to compensate asbestos victims asked a Federal judge in Brooklyn yesterday to treat all of the personal-injury lawsuits filed against it as a single class action.

The trust fund set up two years ago by the Manville Corporation to compensate asbestos victims asked a Federal judge in Brooklyn yesterday to treat all of the personal-injury lawsuits filed against it as a single class action.

The motion asks Judge Jack B. Weinstein to take the first step toward declaring a class action by ruling that the trust fund will never have enough assets to fully compensate all of those making claims against it.

The trust said yesterday that the motion was part of a refinancing plan that it has been developing over the last several months. Ten days ago, Manville announced that it would pay up to $520 million to the trust over a seven-year period as part of that plan. The trust has settled nearly 24,000 cases so far for more than $1 billion, but faces 157,000 claims and the prospect of running out of cash early next year.

Asbestos is a mineral fiber that was widely used for decades in insulation, construction and industrial applications. Those who inhaled its fibers may suffer a range of lung diseases and cancers.

Judge Weinstein has referred the question of whether the trust fund is, in essence, headed toward bankruptcy to a special hearing officer, Marvin E. Frankel. A hearing has been scheduled for Oct. 3.

A decision to grant a class action could halt nearly 30,000 lawsuits against the trust fund in Federal courts around the nation and consolidate them before Judge Weinstein. Lawyers for the trust would also seek to halt some 60,000 actions in state courts, but it is unclear whether that is legally possible.

The Manville trust was originally given $687 million in insurance proceeds, $150 million in accounts receivable, and stock holdings, notes, and rights to future Manville profits that were valued, in total, at between $2 billion and $3 billion.

The trust was created to take Manville’s place in the asbestos litigation as part of Manville’s reorganization under Chapter 11 of the Federal Bankruptcy Code.

Correction: September 20, 1990, Thursday, Late Edition - Final

A headline on the Company News page of Business Day in some editions yesterday about the trust fund set up by the Manville Corporation to compensate asbestos victims misidentified the party that asked the court to make a single class action out of all lawsuits naming Manville. It was the Manville Personal Injury Settlement Trust, not the corporation.

Source : query.nytimes.com

LEAD: In an attempt to put pressure on the Manville Corporation, a Federal judge said yesterday that the company’s senior executives had not been cooperative in helping to bail out the trust they created to assist victims of asbestos.

In an attempt to put pressure on the Manville Corporation, a Federal judge said yesterday that the company’s senior executives had not been cooperative in helping to bail out the trust they created to assist victims of asbestos.

”I am not satisfied that management understands the seriousness of this situation as a legal, social and medical matter,” District Judge Jack B. Weinstein of Brooklyn said at a hearing on more than 500 personal injury cases arising from the use of asbestos in shipbuilding at the Brooklyn Navy Yard more than 25 years ago. ”I believe the situation can be fully resolved when management fully understands this problem.”

Representatives of the corporation and the Manville Personal Injury Settlement Trust, along with a bankruptcy court-appointed official, have been in negotiations on how to revive the trust, which has run out of cash in settling the first 23,000 cases. It is facing more than 130,000 claims.

Holds 80% of Stock

The trust owns the equivalent of 80 percent of Manville’s stock, but it is generally restricted from selling shares without the permission of the corporation. Beginning next year, it will get $75 million in payments on notes issued by the company. Starting in 1992, the trust will also get up to 20 percent of the corporation’s profits. Previous talks to sell the stock back to the company have failed.

Manville shares fell 25 cents, to $6.375, in trading on the New York Stock Exchange yesterday.

W. Thomas Stephens, the chairman and chief executive of Manville, said the judge’s remarks were part of a ”motivational effort to push us toward an agreement.”

”There are honest disagreements about what would be the optimum solution,” Mr. Stephens said in an interview after the hearing. ”There’s no stonewalling here.” He added that last week Manville made a proposal that would have provided hundreds of millions of dollars of liquidity to the trust, but declined to provide details of that proposal or why it had not succeeded.

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LEAD: When there is an accident involving the mass transit system here, people for miles around start limping, holding their necks and calling lawyers who advertise ”no win, no fee” for personal injury suits.

When there is an accident involving the mass transit system here, people for miles around start limping, holding their necks and calling lawyers who advertise ”no win, no fee” for personal injury suits.

A case in point: The train crash last month at 30th Street Station, the worst in Philadelphia’s history, may also set a record for fraudulent claims, transit officials say. Four people died as a result of the derailment and 165 others sought immediate treatment in area hospitals. But 264 people have already filed personal injury claims, and more claims arrive every day from people who waited days or weeks to see a doctor. Transit officials say the late claims are being looked at with suspicion.

So great has the problem of fraud become that the transit system here spent 17 cents of every fare dollar paying personal injury claims in 1988. $46 Million Paid for Claims Last year payments for claims totaled $46 million of the $306 million in fares taken in by the nation’s fourth-largest transit system.

That is the highest payout in the nation, said James M. Kilcur, the general counsel of the Southeast Pennsylvania Transportation Authority, which has plastered anti-fraud posters in every one of its buses, trains and stations in Philadelphia and its suburbs. ”File a false claim against Septa and you could go to jail,” one ad says.

What makes the claims so high in Philadelphia is a puzzle to which no one has an answer. Officials of Septa say its safety record, which Federal reports suggest is comparable to that of other major systems, does not explain the situation.

‘A Way of Life’

Some officials believe that the problem has something to do with the nature of life in Philadelphia, which has the highest auto insurance rates in the nation. ”Insurance fraud is pervasive in Philadelphia,” said Michael M. Baylson, the United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania who created an insurance fraud task force in 1988. ”It’s a way of life for too many people here.”

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LEAD: The fragile alliance forged last week by 10 Federal judges trying to coordinate and resolve quickly tens of thousands of asbestos personal injury disputes will complicate settlement talks in many large cases, making their immediate resolution much more difficult, lawyers and judges said yesterday.

The fragile alliance forged last week by 10 Federal judges trying to coordinate and resolve quickly tens of thousands of asbestos personal injury disputes will complicate settlement talks in many large cases, making their immediate resolution much more difficult, lawyers and judges said yesterday.

On Friday, 10 judges with the heaviest dockets of asbestos cases approved an unusual order after meeting privately in Washington to coordinate many of the cases before three judges. Under the plan, two nationwide class actions will be consolidated and supervised by Federal District Judges Thomas D. Lambros of Cleveland and Robert M. Parker of Tyler, Tex. A third national class action will be under the jurisdiction of Federal District Judge Jack B. Weinstein of Brooklyn.

Judge Weinstein will hold a hearing this morning in Brooklyn that is expected to address several of the questions left by the vaguely worded order, including its impact on settlement talks that he hopes could resolve more than 500 cases arising out of the Brooklyn Navy Yard.

But until the national coordination is actually put into effect and withstands anticipated legal challenges, settlement talks in these and other jurisdictions are being thrown into question.

”The order is going to complicate settlements all over the United States in the short run,” said Kenneth R. Feinberg, a Washington lawyer who has been appointed by judges in the Brooklyn Navy Yard cases and in Baltimore to try to settle more than 9,500 cases. ”Every single defendant must now reassess its position in light of the order.”

Mr. Feinberg told two judges in New York last week that he was confident he would be able to settle at least 265 of the more than 500 cases filed by former workers and their families over injuries purportedly caused by the use of asbestos more than 25 years ago at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Those cases are scheduled to be tried en masse in early September in an unusual trial that will be heard jointly by Judge Weinstein and New York State Supreme Court Justice Helen E. Freedman.

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LEAD: A CHANGE in the automobile insurance law in 1989 is resulting in a drop in personal injury lawsuits, which state officials applaud as a step toward lowering premiums.

A CHANGE in the automobile insurance law in 1989 is resulting in a drop in personal injury lawsuits, which state officials applaud as a step toward lowering premiums.

But many of the state’s drivers, in their search for lower rates, may have inadvertently given up their right to sue for all but the most serious injuries, lawyers say, even in cases where the other driver is at fault.

Lawyers around the state, who are reporting a sharp decline in personal injury lawsuits they can file on behalf of their clients, say there is widespread misunderstanding of the change that limits the circumstances under which most accident victims can sue for their injuries.

In addition, they say, insurance agents often fail to inform customers adequately of the many available options and limits.

”The rationale was to discourage suits for relatively small amounts of money involving relatively minor injuries,” said the State Insurance Commissioner, Samuel Fortunato. ”If the insurance companies have fewer suits filed against them, they can then begin to reduce their premiums.”

Adding Another Option

More concern arises as the State Department of Insurance last week added yet another coverage option. Starting in January, drivers will be offered the option of having their health insurance pay for medical expenses incurred from an automobile accident, an additional factor that lawyers say will only increase consumer confusion.

”I would say that it is a rare person who understands what insurance coverage they have today,” said Gerald Baker, a lawyer in Hoboken who lectures throughout the state on personal injury litigation.

Mr. Baker said more clients were arriving at his office after an automobile accident only to find that their insurance policies did not allow them to recover damages.

The reason, he said, is because a large number of drivers - 80 percent by state estimates - now have coverage with a ”lawsuit threshold,” which limits an accident victim’s right to sue for injuries.

”I would venture a guess that we are seeing a 25 percent reduction in the smaller automobile negligence claims,” Mr. Baker said.

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Disregarding angry protests from lawyers representing asbestos victims, a Federal judge in Brooklyn ruled yesterday that he would treat all of the victims with personal injury claims against Eagle-Picher Industries as a single class.

United States District Judge Jack B. Weinstein also ordered a suspension of cases involving an estimated 70,000 claimants in other state and Federal courts. And he said he would commence hearings in January on the fairness of a plan proposed last week to settle all of the Eagle-Picher litigation, including any future claims. He also ordered Eagle-Picher to begin paying an estimated $45 million to thousands of victims whose claims had previously been settled.

The rulings marked a crucial step in Judge Weinstein’s effort to develop a model for quickly resolving the asbestos litigation that is clogging the nation’s courts. Asbestos was widely used in insulation, brake linings and industrial products as late as the 1970’s. People who inhale asbestos fibers can develop a lung disease called asbestosis and various cancers that may not appear until decades after exposure.

About 33,000 asbestos cases involving scores of companies are now in Federal courts; perhaps 70,000 other cases are in state courts. Asbestos is thus by far the most burdensome personal injury problem ever to confront the legal system.

“New cases are being filed faster than old ones are being terminated,” said William W. Schwarzer, the head of a panel of Federal judges appointed by Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist to study the situation and present recommendations by Jan.31. Bankruptcy Step Ignored

Judge Weinstein’s action was formally opposed by more than 90 lawyers representing 40,000 claimants. In another effort to stop the class action, a Cincinnati lawyer asked the Federal Bankruptcy Court in Cincinnati yesterday to put Eagle-Picher into involuntary bankruptcy proceedings. Judge Weinstein ignored the filing, which Eagle-Picher called “totally without merit” and “an act of desperation by certain members of the plaintiffs’ bar.”

If Judge Weinstein’s actions survive a challenge by plaintiffs’ lawyers — who contend that they are unconstitutional and illegal on a variety of grounds — Eagle-Picher will become the first company to have all asbestos litigation against it consolidated into a single case without declaring bankruptcy.

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In the beginning they were pioneers, visionaries, the vanguard of a great movement. There were only a few of them — some accounts say 40, others 50 — and they faced hostility, persecution, ridicule. But defying the odds, they grew in numbers, acceptance and respectability, until they became a formidable force.

It sounds like one of those hoary histories of some venerable organization, like the Massachusetts Bay Colony or the American Bar Association. In fact, it is the story of the National Law Firm Marketing Association. And its humble beginnings were all of four years ago.

The association’s Plymouth Rock, or Independence Hall, was a hotel in San Diego. There, its founding fathers and mothers, mostly in-house marketing people at large corporate law firms, gathered for the first time. By the time it held its fourth annual convention last month in San Francisco, membership had mushroomed to 750. And the science of selling legal services had evolved from embossing pencils to four-color spreads, newsletters, brochures, seminars and inserts in opera playbills.

The state of the art can be gleaned from the association’s annual “Your Honor” contest, in which 208 law firms — five times as many as last year — vied for awards in eight categories. Collectively, the winners, placers and showers offer a glimpse of Wall Street or LaSalle Street or Montgomery Street as they are dragged, kicking and screaming, toward Madison Avenue.

Placing first in advertising was Oppenheimer, Wolff & Donnally of Minneapolis, whose bold images appear in The Wall Street Journal, Business Week and Fortune. One promotion, titled “Global” and showing two talking silhouettes, extols the firm’s experience in international affairs. Another, called “Confidence,” shows another silhouette, this one talking and posturing aggressively on the phone.

Other firms offer still more elliptical messages. They resemble the advertisements of those conglomerates that sponsor the Sunday morning news programs, from which it is nearly impossible to tell just what it is they do or make or sell. An ad for Buchanan Ingersoll in Pittsburgh shows two people golfing by moonlight and flashlight and declares, “We know what it’s like to have a passion for something.” Only by reading the small type does one learn they practice law.

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Who would want to visit a museum dedicated to the seemingly arcane topic of tort law?

Indeed, it would be hard to blame the people of this old mill town for seeming a bit skeptical that a proposed museum to honor some of the most reviled professionals in the country — trial lawyers — was a sure-fire way to transform their downtown into a mecca for weekend visitors.

But listen to Ralph Nader, this town’s most famous native son, as he details his dream of a Museum of American Tort Law and brings the same passion that started the consumer movement to the unlikely cause of making personal injury law into a tourist attraction.

”There’ll be the Pinto with the exploding gas tank, flammable pajamas, asbestos and breast implants, the whole history of medical malpractice, and of course the more recent toxic pollution, like Love Canal,” Mr. Nader said in a telephone interview, sounding like a carnival barker reeling off a litany of horrors that could rival the more macabre exhibitions at Madame Tussaud’s.

The project manager, Dr. Fred Hyde, remarked that there even would be a gift shop that would sell ”the tchotchkes of tort law.”

”You know, like models of defective toys, products that were taken off the market,” added Dr. Hyde, a consultant with degrees in both medicine and law. ”We don’t want to trivialize it, but we want to have a way to memorialize the visit.”

Mr. Nader has taken several steps toward making his vision for a family outing into reality. He already has the building — a 19th century factory that used to make fixtures for coffins — and he has raised $1 million of the $5 million he needs for the construction and startup. That vision, of course, has a distinctly political edge. He is promoting the museum at a time business groups have been pushing Congress to pass legislation, known as tort reform, that would restrict their liabilities and limit damages.

The museum, scheduled to open in late 1999 or early 2000, is clearly intended to cast a more positive light on the practices that have resulted in large jury awards to consumers who bought questionable products (not to mention the lucrative fees for the lawyers).

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BILL COSBY has a jet named Camille, for his wife, and even Oprah got a jet,” Johnnie L. Cochran Jr. said recently over lunch at City Hall, a restaurant near his law office in Lower Manhattan. ”She wanted a plane just like Bill Cosby’s. It’s, like, amazing. He goes to sleep on the plane. It’s wonderful.”

Clearly dazzled by the luxury of personal transportation, Mr. Cochran has studied the subject. He is now getting a jet, too.

Mr. Cochran, who broke into the top-level national law leagues when he successfully defended O. J. Simpson against charges that he murdered his former wife, is now hitting the major money leagues as well, and he has the status-symbol issue down pat.

”We’re not getting a GII,” he conceded, his voice showing a tinge of disappointment that he is not buying a Gulfstream model favored by many chief executives. ”My plane won’t be that big — more like a Hawker or a Citation.”

But Mr. Cochran, showing his newfound financial prudence, will not make the purchase rashly. His law firm, which is building a national practice, is still deciding whether to buy or lease the plane. ”We are going to see how often we would use it,” he said.

Success is hardly new to Mr. Cochran, who is now 62. Long before his disciplined, relentless cross-examination and his flamboyant attire became a daily staple of the grueling O. J. Simpson murder trial, he was a prominent lawyer with a busy criminal and civil practice. His performance at the televised trial, however, made Mr. Cochran, a member of the ”dream team” defense, a celebrity in his own right.

But it did not leave him as rich as it left him famous. Now he is trying to close that gap, adopting a new money-management philosophy that includes putting more money into the stock market.

His success ”allowed him to move up the lawyer food chain,” said his accountant, John Baiardi, a partner at Mitchell & Titus, the nation’s largest minority-owned accounting firm.

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REFERRING to the exaggerated politeness with which the English Judge, as contrasted with his brother on the American bench dissents from the other members of the court, Law Notes quotes from Judge Bowen in Hutton vs. West Cork R. Co. as follows:

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