http://www.tobacco.org/newsfeed/category/fees.rss Latest top tobacco news headlines en-us http://www.miamiherald.com/business/story/498784.html http://tobacco.org/news/263541.html Miami Herald dhanks@MiamiHerald.com (DOUGLAS HANKS) Thu, 17 Apr 2008 04:00:00 GMT http://www.dailybusinessreview.com/news.html?news_id=48167 http://tobacco.org/news/263475.html Miami-Dade Circuit Judge David C. Miller awarded $218 million in legal fees Tuesday to Stanley and Susan Rosenblatt for years of work they put into now-defunct class action litigation against the nation's biggest cigarette markers. "I find it very reasonable," Miller said from the bench, referring to fee calculations estimating they worked for 77 hours a week on average at an hourly rate of $274. "These are reasonable and conservative hours." "In fact, in some firms that would not have been acceptable billing," he joked before a courtroom packed with at least 200 people. Tobacco attorney Robert Heim, a partner with Dechert in Philadelphia, told Miller "it would be wrong under common fund law" to award fees to the Rosenblatts, saying a guardian ad litem should be appointed to administer a fund "to protect the interests of the class." The fees would come out of a common "guaranteed fund" of about $800 million that Big Tobacco put up as collateral in 2001 to appeal the record $145 billion punitive verdict the Rosenblatt's won against cigarette makers. The verdict was later thrown out by the Florida Supreme Court along with a class certification order uniting sick smokers in a single lawsuit. Miller still must determine how to distribute the rest of the $800 million fund. . . . A line to speak in support of the Rosenblatts' fee request ran out of the room. Many people at the hearing were visibly ill or relatives of deceased smokers. floridabiz.com bshields@alm.com (Billy Shields) Wed, 16 Apr 2008 04:00:00 GMT http://www.clarionledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080319/COL0412/803190323/1171/COL http://tobacco.org/news/261586.html The seminar was entitled: "The Tobacco Settlement: Practical Implications and the Future of the Tort Law." I moderated a panel discussion that included three of the major players in the national tobacco settlement - then national Big Tobacco lobbyist and former Republican National Committee chairman Haley Barbour of Yazoo City, then-Mississippi Attorney General Mike Moore and then-lead tobacco litigation negotiator "Dickie" Scruggs. From my notes 11 years ago, a few random observations on the night's seminar discussion: * Neither Moore nor Scruggs was at all forthcoming at the seminar when asked the total of the legal fees Scruggs would be receiving, how Moore determined the fee structure that would govern Scruggs' fees and expense reimbursements and how much the other 12 law firms involved in Mississippi's tobacco suit would get. . . . Fordice died. Barbour's now governor. Moore's defending Scruggs' son, Zach, on the same charges to which his father pleaded guilty - and the same questions linger today that lingered in 1997 at the Ole Miss Law School about Mississippi's tobacco litigation, the legal fees and the political relationships and entanglements that perhaps forever changed Mississippi's legal landscape. Jackson Clarion-Ledger ssalter@clarionledger.com (Sid Salter ) Wed, 19 Mar 2008 04:00:00 GMT http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120543511884434181.html http://tobacco.org/news/261340.html Around this time, another law-school classmate, Michael T. Lewis, says he gave Mr. Scruggs the idea that ultimately made him rich and famous: demanding that tobacco companies repay states for their Medicaid costs in caring for people sickened by smoking. Mr. Scruggs was intrigued, but had drawn criticism over his asbestos litigation for the state. Detractors called it a gravy train for the attorney general's favored lawyers, who repaid the favor with campaign donations. So Mr. Scruggs turned to another political pal: Pete Johnson, who says Mr. Scruggs asked him to help push through legislation clearly authorizing the attorney general to farm out lawsuits to private lawyers. Mr. Johnson, a former state auditor, says that at an airport restaurant in March 1994, Mr. Scruggs promised him 10% of his legal fees from the tobacco case if the bill passed and the litigation was successful. The Wall Street Journal Interactive Edition Fri, 14 Mar 2008 04:00:00 GMT http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2008/03/14/attorneys-fees-the-source-of-many-headaches-for-dickie-scruggs/?mod=googlenews_wsj http://tobacco.org/news/261339.html This situation is this: Scruggs has been accused of conspiring to bribe a Mississippi judge in a lawsuit involving a fee-dispute with former cohorts. But it’s not the first fee-dispute of Scruggs’s career. Far from it. For years, he battled two former colleagues from his asbestos days, and after his mammoth tobacco wins of the late 1990s, he squabbled with a handful of folks over fees. Some, like Alwyn Luckey and Roberts Wilson, fought him tooth-and-nail. Others, like Pete Johnson and Michael T. Lewis, opted for less litigious routes. I “decided I’d rather spend whatever time I have alive at peace and not in court fighting for money,” explained Johnson, who claims that Scruggs promised him 10% of the legal fees from big tobacco, then reneged. Wall Street Journal Blogs lawblog@wsj.com Fri, 14 Mar 2008 04:00:00 GMT http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/20/business/20blake.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&pagewanted=all&oref=slogin http://tobacco.org/news/258495.html A former Mississippi state auditor, Steven A. Patterson, stood before a rapt courtroom and pleaded guilty to a charge of conspiracy. Prosecutors said he had worked with Richard Scruggs, arguably the country’s best-known plaintiff’s lawyer, to bribe a local judge to rule in Mr. Scruggs’s favor in a fee battle with another lawyer. Mr. Patterson’s plea — and his agreement to cooperate with prosecutors — significantly ratchets up the pressure on Mr. Scruggs, who was indicted on federal conspiracy and bribery charges in November. . . . Indeed, prosecutors plan to cite the political influence brought to bear by Mr. Scruggs, who once boasted that lawsuits are “won on the back roads long before the case goes to trial,” when his own trial begins on March 31. Rather than courtroom victories against the tobacco makers, legal experts say, it was Mr. Scruggs’s ability to put together a coalition of state officials and Washington politicians, while adeptly courting the news media, that ultimately forced cigarette makers to pay up in the landmark $248 billion national settlement. Mr. Scruggs declined to comment for this article. But his lead defense lawyer, John Keker, says Mr. Scruggs was unaware of any bribery attempts and is completely innocent. Now, the fate of Mr. Scruggs is being watched closely by advocates of tort reform as well as lawyers and industry leaders, who have all found themselves in his cross hairs over the last two decades. “He stands for the proposition that the halls of justice can become the arena for pressing public policy goals,” says David M. Bernick, a partner at the firm Kirkland & Ellis, who has represented the tobacco industry. “People want to know the reality of how he came to be so influential.” New York Times Sun, 20 Jan 2008 05:00:00 GMT http://www.gwcommonwealth.com/articles/2008/01/17/opinion/editorials/edit01.txt http://tobacco.org/news/258289.html In a separate case, another well-known trial lawyer, Paul Minor, is sitting in a federal prison after being convicted last year of bribing two state judges on the Coast. The judges, accused of rendering verdicts favorable to Minor's clients in return for financial favors from the attorney, are also serving prison sentences. The bribery scandals have not only given a black eye to the plaintiffs' bar in Mississippi, but they are bringing collateral damage to current and former state officials who have been closely affiliated with the accused. Former U.S. Sen. Trent Lott resigned from office a couple of days prior to the indictment of his brother-in-law, Scruggs. . . . The question out there is how far and deep will this corruption investigation go. The Scruggs-related bribery charges have been over squabbles between attorneys about the divvying up of legal fees following settlements in mass lawsuits involving asbestos, tobacco and Hurricane Katrina. Although this attorney infighting involved about $40 million, that's a pittance compared to the money - better than a billion dollars - that these massive litigation cases have been pouring into the bank accounts of Scruggs and his associates. If trial attorneys resorted to bribery over the “small stuff,” were they also so inclined in the original tort cases that generated the huge payoffs? That answer is yet to come. Greenwood Commonwealth Thu, 17 Jan 2008 05:00:00 GMT http://biz.yahoo.com/law/080109/7d3c8d9ff97220a59744c7c291304453.html?.v=1 http://tobacco.org/news/257879.html On Nov. 2, 2007, Brent Coon, now a principal in Beaumont's Brent Coon & Associates, sued 10 defendants in U.S. District Court for the Western District in Austin. In his original complaint in Coon v. Umphrey, et al., he alleges he was a partner in Provost Umphrey in January 1998, when the state reached a settlement agreement with the tobacco companies, and he is entitled to a portion of the fees. The total amount of fees to be split among the lawyers who represented the state is $3.3 billion. "Coon did not receive any of his scheduled attorney's fees payments despite Defendants obligation to pay those attorney's fees," Coon alleges in the complaint. "This is a multimillion-dollar claim for back pay," Coon says in an interview. Law.com via Yahoo! Wed, 09 Jan 2008 05:00:00 GMT http://www.southeasttexaslive.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=19135135&BRD=2287&PAG=461&dept_id=512588&rfi=6 http://tobacco.org/news/256927.html A financial squabble between prominent Beaumont plaintiffs' attorneys Walter Umphrey and Brent Coon has reached a Jefferson County civil court. When Big Tobacco lost big in 1998, Beaumont law firm Provost Umphrey was awarded about $660 million in fees to be paid over 30 years. Attorneys in the Beaumont firm entered a partnership for sharing the settlement payments. Coon, who left Provost Umphrey in 2001, said he is not receiving his share of the take. Beaumont Enterprise jmccullough@hearstnp.com (RYAN MYERS, The Enterprise) Fri, 21 Dec 2007 05:00:00 GMT http://www.setexasrecord.com/news/205469-coon-umphrey-in-dispute-over-tobacco-fees http://tobacco.org/news/256926.html Two of the biggest names in civil litigation in Southeast Texas have filed suits against each other over the mega-billion dollar tobacco settlement. Brent Coon, once a partner in the Provost Umphrey Law Firm, claims he has not received his share of the more than $3 billion in attorneys' fees from the $17.3 billion tobacco settlement with the State of Texas. On Nov. 2, Coon filed a Complaint to Compel Arbitration in federal court in the Western District of Texas. As defendants, the complaint names the Provost Umphrey Tobacco (PUT) Partnership and the following individuals or their professional corporations: Umphrey, Bryan Blevins, Paul "Chip" Ferguson Jr., Keith Hyde, Greg Thompson, Mike Ramsay, Glenn Steele, Jr., Robert Giblin and David Brandon. . . . Beaumont's own "King of Torts," Walter Umphrey, and his tobacco settlement partners have fired back at Coon, filing their own petition alleging that Coon is violating an arbitration agreement established in the event disputes arose over the settlement and Coon's withdrawal from the PUT partnership. Southeast Texas Record Wed, 19 Dec 2007 05:00:00 GMT http://archives.seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgi-bin/texis.cgi/web/vortex/display?slug=thulets24&date=20060824&query=tobacco http://tobacco.org/news/230692.html "The companies are on the hook to pay the government's $135 million in attorney fees." [It's official: Big Tobacco lied," editorial, Aug. 22]. What exactly do attorneys do that is worth such a vast fortune -- and who in my government approved hiring anyone who thought it was all right to bill us $135 million? . . . So we could learn what we all already knew -- that smoking is dangerous? How many anti-smoking programs/ads could be bought for $135 million? Seattle Times Thu, 24 Aug 2006 04:00:00 GMT http://press.arrivenet.com/pol/article.php/656567.html http://tobacco.org/news/199961.html In a decisive move today aimed at maintaining fairness for small companies who are not signatories to the tobacco Master Settlement Agreement (MSA), and at preserving the integrity of the Tennessee state budget, Governor Bredesen issued his first ever veto to eliminate legislation sponsored by R.J. Reynolds, that would have placed a discriminatory 50 cents per pack equity fee on some of the nations smallest cigarette companies. Complimenting the Governor for his precedent-setting action in dealing with this ill-conceived legislation, Clark Corson, President of the Council of Independent Tobacco Manufacturers of America (CITMA), said "Governor Bredesen must be commended for his intervention. The Governor has acted decisively to preserve tobacco jobs in Tennessee. These small manufacturers have employees in the state, buy Tennessee leaf tobacco, and sell their products through traditional cigarette and tobacco wholesalers and retailers in the state. At a time of diminishing economic opportunity in the tobacco sector, these are all vital jobs, and we are glad the Governor has intervened to protect them. This veto will also ensure that excise revenues from cigarette products continue to flow into the state treasury, as adult smokers will not be tempted to buy their favorite discount brands from stores in the bordering states, or from internet vendors." Corson explains, "This Reynolds-sponsored statute was pitched to state legislators on the basis that it would protect MSA monies coming to the state, and it would generate in excess of $15 million in new revenues for the TennCare program -- it did neither, and the Governor saw through it. Reynolds had proposed these discriminatory equity fees on Non-Participating Manufacturers (NPM's) in Michigan, Alaska, Utah, and now Tennessee, for purely selfish reasons. ArriveNet http://releases.usnewswire.com/redir.asp?ReleaseID=49122&Link=mailto:intcapstrat@comcast.net Mon, 20 Jun 2005 04:00:00 GMT http://www.dispatch.com/print_template.php?story=dispatch/2005/01/10/20050110-C1-02.html&chck=t http://tobacco.org/news/186687.html Lawyers who were awarded more than $14 billion from the tobacco settlement between states and cigarette makers will be in U.S. District Court in Columbus today to settle disputes over how to divide $145 million of this year’s payment of the award. After the tobacco companies filed a lawsuit to force a resolution, it appears that Mississippi lawyer Richard Scruggs — whose share of the settlement reportedly is $1 billion — has come up with a compromise that other lawyers have OK’d. The proposed solution won’t increase any awards. Instead, money would continue to flow as expected to more than 200 lawyers and law firms involved in the original settlements. In return, the lawyers won’t sue cigarette makers again. Columbus Dispatch kmayhood@dispatch.com (Kevin Mayhood / THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH) Mon, 10 Jan 2005 05:00:00 GMT http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/01/10/uitaly.xml&sSheet=/portal/2005/01/10/ixportaltop.html http://tobacco.org/news/186580.html Smokers in Italy have been forced to light up in the streets after a ban on smoking in indoor public places began at midnight. A man in Naples became the first person to be fined for breaking the new law, just minutes after it came into effect. He was ordered to pay £18, a fine that would have been £192 if children or pregnant women had been present. Italy became the third European country, after Ireland and Norway, to bring in a smoking ban but the move was not without opponents. Trade association Confcommercio plans to challenge the law in the courts, while cafe owners are angry about the prospect of fines for failing to enforce the ban. Electronic Telegraph Italy Mon, 10 Jan 2005 05:00:00 GMT http://www.dailyherald.com/cook/main_story.asp?intID=3830110 http://tobacco.org/news/181389.html Arlington Heights businesses with cigarette vending machines will have to pay more than double what they've been paying in licensing fees under a tentative plan endorsed by trustees. In a 6-0 vote Monday, trustees agreed to increase the annual fee from $40 to $100. It was part of a sweeping package of fee and fine changes officials made to reflect the higher cost of doing business. Trustee Stephen G. Daday initially proposed a $250 fee for the vending machines, saying he wouldn't mind if it meant the machines moved out of Arlington Heights. Chicago Daily Herald Wed, 10 Nov 2004 05:00:00 GMT