http://www.tobacco.org/newsfeed/lawsuit/ellis.rss Latest top tobacco news headlines en-us http://www.startribune.com/stories/535/3346413.html http://tobacco.org/news/105185.html Nearly 10 years after Bucky Zimmerman committed his small Minneapolis law firm to a role in one of the highest-profile cases in U.S. history, he and his associates are still waiting for the payoff. The firm hit an unexpected stumbling block on the road to a substantial financial windfall two weeks ago, when a New York court ruling hampered Zimmerman's firm, at least for the time being, from collecting a handsome portion of a $1.25 billion fee settlement on behalf of 53 law firms that sued the tobacco industry in 26 states. The judge labeled the fee excessive. The decision will be appealed, but it is another legal hurdle that Zimmerman and his colleagues and across the country had hoped to avoid. . . Zimmerman, whose given name is Charles, is a senior partner of Zimmerman Reed, a law firm of 14 Minneapolis attorneys on the fifth floor of Gaviidae Common where the tony restaurant Azur used to stand. . . Zimmerman Reed was an early member of the Castano group, and Zimmerman served on some of the group's steering committees. The disputed $1.25 billion fee, a healthy but confidential portion of which would go to Zimmerman Reed, was for the Castano group's work in California . . But St. Paul law professor Joseph Daly said the New York judge was wrong to negate the value of the work done outside of the California case and was wrong to overturn an arbitrated award. "When you're hiring a lawyer, the Rules of Professional Responsibility allow you to incorporate the experience, reputation and ability of the lawyer [when setting the fee]," said Daly, who has experience sitting on arbitration panels. "Taking on the tobacco companies was a herculean task. They [the Castano attorneys] had already gone through the other lawsuits and deserved to be paid more because they'd experienced the pain." . . The Minneapolis law firm of Robins Kaplan Miller & Ciresi, for example, collected about $550 million in legal fees for its work for the state of Minnesota . . . The state eventually recovered $6.1 billion. Minneapolis Star Tribune dphelps@startribune.com (David Phelps / Star Tribune) Mon, 07 Oct 2002 04:00:00 GMT http://online.wsj.com/article_print/0,,SB1033335677366892193,00.html http://tobacco.org/news/104567.html A New York state judge threw out $1.25 billion in attorneys' fees awarded to a group of law firms for their role in suing tobacco companies, saying an arbitration panel exceeded its authority in granting the money. The ruling by Supreme Court Justice Nicholas Figueroa is a blow to plaintiffs' lawyers whose war against the tobacco industry helped lead to the historic 1998 national settlement that ended state suits against the industry. The decision comes after an order issued during June by another New York state judge, Charles E. Ramos, who indicated he may void $625 million awarded by arbitrators to plaintiffs' lawyers who represented New York state in the 1998 settlement. Judge Ramos said the arbitrators "manifestly disregarded well-established ethical and public policies" by granting the $625 million. He hasn't issued a final ruling. . . David N. Ellenhorn, who represented the Castano group, criticized the ruling and said the group will appeal to the state Appellate Division. "Obviously, my clients are shocked," he said. "We think, respectfully, that the judge made some very fundamental errors." Jeffrey E. Stone, who represented the companies -- R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Holdings Inc., Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp., a unit of British American Tobacco PLC, and Lorillard Tobacco Co., a unit of Loews Corp., said he was "extremely pleased." "The court recognized the precise argument we made, that the arbitration panel exceeded its jurisdiction," Mr. Stone said. This is the only arbitration award that has been challenged by the industry. Mr. Stone wouldn't say why the industry chose to challenge this ruling, but in court arguments he called the $1.25 billion award "astronomical, unprecedented and obscene." The Wall Street Journal Interactive Edition Mon, 30 Sep 2002 04:00:00 GMT http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/2285537.stm http://tobacco.org/news/104438.html The lawyers who fought the state of California's case during the 1990s "tobacco wars" are looking at a sharply reduced payday. A team of 60 law firms which represented California in the 46-state suit against the cigarette companies - settled for $206bn settlement in 1998 - had been awarded total fees of $1.25bn by an arbitration panel. But a New York judge has ruled that the bill for the services of the Castano Group, as the team . .. The massive court case started in 1994 when Mississippi became the first US state to sue in an attempt to recover the immense costs of treating smoking-related diseases. Almost every state had joined in by 1996. At length the tobacco majors were forced to back down on their long-standing insistence that they had never known nicotine to be addictive, in the face of documents proving they were well aware of the drug's dangers decades ago. BBC Online Fri, 27 Sep 2002 04:00:00 GMT http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1032128622887 http://tobacco.org/news/104390.html A nearly $1.3 billion attorney fee award -- the largest issued out of the 1998 nationwide settlement of state litigation against the tobacco industry -- was overturned Wednesday by Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Nicholas Figueroa. Figueroa set aside a 2-1 arbitration decision awarding about $1.3 billion to the lawyers who handled a private attorney general's action in California. In his ruling, Figueroa found the arbitrators had exceeded the scope of their authority in compensating the 56-firm consortium for work it performed nationwide, instead of restricting its award to work "in connection with" the California litigation. . . David N. Ellenhorn of New York-based Solomon, Zauderer, Ellenhorn, Frischer & Sharp, who represented the law firm consortium, said Figueroa's ruling in Brown & Williamson v. Chesley, 117050/01, will be appealed. Ellenhorn said the consortium, known as the Castano group, which brought claims on behalf of California, had played an "integral" part in producing that state's $25 billion share of the national settlement. Without the work the group did in bringing a national class action and private attorney general actions in 25 states, Ellenhorn said, there would not have been a national settlement, or one in California, of such a large dimension. . . Jeffrey E. Stone of McDermott, Will & Emery's Chicago office, who brought the challenge to the fee award on behalf of the tobacco industry, sharply disputed that description of the Castano group's contribution. The attorney general's office in California pursued its own separate action with its own staff, financed by a special $14 million appropriation to fund an in-house tobacco litigation unit, he said. . . The dispute over the fees in the underlying California case, Ellis v. R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., came before Justice Figueroa because the fee arbitration was held in New York City for five days in the winter of 2001. . . In overturning the award to the Castano group, Justice Figueroa looked to a restriction on the fees that could be awarded to lawyers involved in the tobacco litigation that was common to all the arbitrations. Under the 1998 master settlement, compensation for legal work was restricted to work performed "in connection with" the state litigation a firm had been retained to handle. The agreement specifically excludes the payment of "any Fee Award in connection with any litigation" other than the lawsuit a firm had been hired to litigate. The "plain meaning" of that limitation, Figueroa wrote, was "ignored by the arbitrators' adjudication of an unsubmitted issue: respondents' nationwide compensation." Law.com Fri, 27 Sep 2002 04:00:00 GMT