Trial Lawyers

WHO SAID THIS? "I think the president has served the nation in a very ill fashion by saying he's going to veto a very balanced product liability bill. . . Twice when he was governor [of Arkansas] President Clinton voted for uniform standards of product liability. In those days he was a professor of law. I think these days he's become a professor of rather raw politics."Answer: Sen. Jay Rockefeller, Democrat of West Virginia, with an 85 percent support record for administration proposals in 1995.

Calvert Ross Bregel Sr., a renowned trial lawyer and lifelong outdoorsman, died June 19 of complications from Alzheimer's disease at the Presbyterian Home of Maryland in Towson. The Glen Arm resident was 84. The son of an attorney and a homemaker, Mr. Bregel grew up in the Hamilton section of the city and on his family's farm on the Choptank River in Cambridge, where he developed a deep appreciation for the Chesapeake Bay and its environs as well as for boating, fishing and hunting.

Janelle Cousino, a well-known advocate on consumer issues before the state legislature, has resigned as executive director of the Maryland Citizen Action Coalition to become the executive director of the Maryland Trial Lawyers Association.Cousino, 40, has worked for the coalition for the last six years. She represented the group in Annapolis on issues involving insurance, banking, health care, utilities, open government meetings and family leave policies.She also is a member of the Governor's Commission on Insurance, which is studying insurance problems in the state.

Judge Robert E. Cadigan Sr., a retired Baltimore County Circuit judge who was a student of the Civil War, died Thursday of cancer at his home in the Pinehurst neighborhood of Baltimore County. He was 75. "He was one of my very best friends," James T. Smith Jr., Baltimore County executive, said Monday. "He was an outstanding lawyer and loved being appointed to the bench. He considered it the pinnacle of his career, and he appreciated the opportunity. " Retired Baltimore County Circuit Judge J. Norris Byrnes was a longtime friend and shared chambers with Judge Cadigan for years.

Liability reform is anti-consumer"The Common Sense Products Liability Legal Reform Act of 1996." Don't be fooled by its soothing name. This law will destroy consumer rights for the convenient protection of powerful business interests.In its March 22 editorial The Sun, avoiding all effort to analyze the 70-page Act, summarily announced the proposed legislation "good for America" and necessary to end frivolous product liability suits. It then asserts President Clinton bowed to the power of trial lawyers when he threatened to veto the legislation.

RECENT news accounts have revealed that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce -- Washington's largest business lobbying group -- and national Republican Party leaders are about to declare war on trial lawyers.An integral part of the chamber's battle plan is a multimillion-dollar, negative advertising blitz. The GOP leadership plans to launch its own attack. According to a reported Republican source, "We'll unleash an attack on the trial lawyers never seen before."Speaker Newt Gingrich has already informed GOP leaders that attacking trial lawyers is a top priority this election year.

Your March 22 editorial ''Trial lawyers' president'' was grossly unfair.The writer asserts that the president's promise to veto the bill, as passed by the Senate, was purchased by some donations by trial lawyers.Whatever donations he received from them would be minor compared to the lobbying money and campaign donations spent on Congress by the insurance industry and corporations they insure against liability for products or working conditions which might injure or poison people or their environment.

Medical liability laws should be reformed The selection of Sen. John Edwards as the Democrat vice presidential candidate highlights an issue that needs to be addressed here in Maryland. Edwards is a multimillionaire trial lawyer. Before entering politics, he sued people for a living. Some argue that trial lawyers represent the little guy against the powerful. But how does it help the little guy to drive medical doctors out of business. Where will we take our children when they are sick?

The Maryland Senate voted this morning to raise the minimum liability limits for vehicle owners' auto insurance for the first time in 38 years. The final vote was 27-20, sending the bill to Gov. Martin O'Malley for his signature. The bill was approved after a stiff fight led by the Senate's Republicans, joined by a handful of Democrats. The measure pitted the state's trial lawyers, and some of their clients, against insurance companies and advocates for the poor -- a point repeatedly made by GOP senators.

Once again, the state's trial lawyers are attempting to stretch their ability to sue the pants off deep-pocket insurance companies. And as usual, trial lawyers serving in the General Assembly are eager to promote this plan, which is clearly in their own self-interests.This time, Sen. John Pica -- a lawyer working for litigator Peter Angelos -- is sponsoring a bill that essentially would let lawyers go after insurance companies with a vengeance for almost any reason. It would reverse a two-year old Court of Appeals ruling that determined plaintiffs can sue for punitive damages only if they can prove actual malice.

After a political duel that pitted trial lawyers against insurance companies, the legislature moved Wednesday to increase the minimum amount of insurance vehicle owners must carry, changing the requirements for the first time in 38 years and making higher premiums likely for as many as 200,000 Marylanders . The Senate voted 27-20 to send the measure raising liability insurance limits to Gov. Martin O'Malley, who has signaled that he will...

The Maryland Senate voted this morning to raise the minimum liability limits for vehicle owners' auto insurance for the first time in 38 years. The final vote was 27-20, sending the bill to Gov. Martin O'Malley for his signature. The bill was approved after a stiff fight led by the Senate's Republicans, joined by a handful of Democrats. The measure pitted the state's trial lawyers, and some of their clients, against insurance companies and advocates for the poor -- a point repeatedly made by GOP senators.

Maryland's trial lawyers and insurers are squaring off in a politically charged duel over a bill that would increase, for the first time in almost 40 years, the amount of insurance a vehicle owner must carry to protect others in case of an accident. The bill, which has passed the House of Delegates and is headed to the Senate, would almost certainly lead to higher premiums for tens of thousands of Marylanders who carry the minimum liability insurance required by law. Policyholders could see increases ranging from $60 for vehicles on the lower Eastern Shore to $300 in Baltimore, state officials say. Those potential increases - and the possibility that many of those policyholders would drop coverage and drive without insurance as a result - have spurred the insurance industry to oppose the measure.

Leo A. Hughes Jr., a retired trial attorney and legal mentor recalled for a commanding courtroom presence, died of a heart attack Feb. 16 at his Catonsville home. He was 72. Born in Baltimore and raised on Woodhaven Avenue, he was a 1953 graduate of Forest Park High School, where he played basketball, football and baseball. Family members said he was a pitcher and once struck out a young Al Kaline, who then played for Southern High School and went on to play for the Detroit Tigers. Mr. Hughes attended the Johns Hopkins University and received a degree from the old Mount Vernon School of Law in 1959.

Malpractice rollback a windfall for lawyers At a time when the nation's economy is slumping and the governor is proposing to mandate that Maryland hospitals and physicians provide more free care to lower-income families, it's ironic that the state House Judiciary Committee, led by trial lawyer Joseph F. Vallario Jr., is proposing legislation to roll back the reforms in the state's medical malpractice insurance policies enacted in 2004 ("Attack of the...

Just because medical malpractice insurance rates have stabilized - and even gone down a bit for many doctors - doesn't mean it's time for Maryland to roll back hard-fought caps on noneconomic damages. But that's exactly what a group of lawmakers is attempting to do. After all, it was just five years ago that rising malpractice costs were thought to be a crisis for the state, forcing doctors out of business and limiting access to quality medical care, especially in rural areas. Late in 2004, the General Assembly approved a package of reforms that included limiting how much plaintiffs and their lawyers could receive for what is often referred to as pain and suffering.

ANNAPOLIS -- One of the most intense lobbying campaigns in years ended yesterday as a Senate panel killed a bill that would TTC have restricted the award of punitive damages in Maryland.The Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee's 8-3 vote against House Bill 329 marked a hard-fought victory for plaintiffs' lawyers, labor unions and consumer groups, who had branded the bill special interest legislation for big business.The measure would have been overkill, trial lawyers said. They noted that a February Maryland Court of Appeals ruling went a long way toward restricting punitive damages, which are awarded in addition to the money intended to compensate victims for their injuries.

Advocates vowed yesterday to continue to fight for two health initiatives - medical malpractice reform and extending coverage to more of the uninsured - after both high-profile initiatives sputtered out in the waning hours of the legislative session. "We still have an 800-pound monkey on our back," said T. Michael Preston, executive director of MedChi, a professional organization for the state's doctors. "The malpractice insurance problem is going to result in an explosion this summer, as doctors face another round of huge price increases."