Monday, December 27, 2004
Lightfoot Franklin firm for DaimlerChrysler Corporation Wins Crashworthiness Case in South Alabama
Mobile, Alabama (December 15, 2004) -- After 8 days of trial, a Mobile, Alabama jury today returned a unanimous verdict in favor of DaimlerChrysler Corporation in a case brought on behalf of a child who was ejected from her vehicle and rendered a ventilator-dependent quadriplegic in a July 1998 accident. Plaintiff, three years old at the time of the accident, was seated on the passenger side rear seat of the subject vehicle, a 1992 Dodge Shadow, when the Shadow was impacted in the rear passenger side door by a Chevrolet Lumina traveling approximately 50 miles per hour.
Mike Bell, Brad Powell, and Chandler Bailey, along with local counsel Tom Benton, represented DaimlerChrysler Corporation.
Plaintiff contended that Ms. Dingman was ejected out of the rear hatch of the Dodge Shadow, and that the Shadow was uncrashworthy due to the failure of the Shadow's rear hatch latch. DaimlerChrysler Corporation denied that the vehicle was uncrashworthy, and put on evidence that Ms. Dingman, who was unbelted at the time of the impact, was ejected through the window of the rear passenger side door.
Plaintiff, who was represented in the case by both Beasley, Allen, Crow, Methvin, Portis and Miles, P.C. and Cunningham, Bounds, Yance, Crowder and Brown, L.L.C., claimed more than $17 million in past and future medical damages, and more than $27 million in total compensatory damages. Plaintiff also asked the jury to award punitive damages. Plaintiff's lowest pre-trial settlement demand was $12 million.
Monday, December 13, 2004
Snell & Wilmer's Marine Trial Team Wins Again in Re-trial for Sea Ray Boats
On October 22, at the conclusion of a six-week trial, Alex Marconi and Pat Fowler obtained a unanimous defense verdict for Sea Ray Boats in Clark County, Nevada (Las Vegas) District Court in a wrongful death and significant brain injury case in which Plaintiffs alleged that the 1981 Sea Ray boat was defective because it lacked adequate warnings about the dangers of carbon monoxide gas.
Associate Craig Logsdon, paralegal Holly Vana and project assistant Erica Warne provided critical support and assistance at trial, as did Marty McAllister and Brad Petersen in Phoenix. Additional thanks go to Alex Bayardo and the computer services department of the Las Vegas office (along with Dave Merritt in Phoenix), who saved the day after a lap top crashed during the middle of trial.
This was the second time the case was tried. The first trial occurred in April 2000 and also resulted in a defense verdict, which was subsequently reversed by the Nevada Supreme Court and remanded for a new trial.
This case involved a 1981 Sea Ray cabin cruiser boat, equipped with a gasoline powered generator to provide power to its' air conditioner. The accident occurred in May 1993 on Lake Mead, where the 12 year-old boat was beached at a remote beach. While "beached" they ran the gas generator and used the air conditioning for days on end. The two adult occupants of the boat went to sleep while under the influence of drugs (methamphetamine and cocaine) and alcohol (however, this evidence was excluded from trial by the Court, so the jury never heard about it).
Sometime from the time they were last seen on the beach by friends and during the next 16 hours, properly exhausted carbon monoxide found its way into the cabin, and killed one of the occupants and left the other occupant in a coma which resulted in significant brain damage. The boat had no "on product" warning labels about the dangers of carbon monoxide. There were several warnings in manuals (other than Sea Ray's) that were on the boat that carbon monoxide and engine exhaust were deadly. Plaintiffs claimed that more specific warnings needed to be given about taking precautions before going to sleep on the boat when a generator is left running.
Sea Ray defended the case by pointing out that there were already explicit warnings about the dangers from carbon monoxide on the boat, and that additional warnings would not have made a difference, and that Plaintiffs were at fault for not installing a carbon monoxide detector (CO alarms didn’t exist in 1981) boat after they bought it in 1991.
The jury took a little more than a day to deliberate before returning a unanimous defense verdict. The client was extremely pleased with the outcome, as this was a significant trial for the entire recreational boating industry. The marine group is currently involved in defending a number of other high-profile carbon monoxide death cases for other recreational boating manufacturers.
LeClair Ryan's John Fitzpatrick Takes Defense Verdict in Childbirth Death Case
Bill McKelway
Richmond Times-Dispatch
Sunday, Dec. 12, 2005
John Fitzpatrick won another defense verdict in yet another high stakes case last week. Richmond's Times-Dispatch reports Fitzpatrick, defending one of only two doctors serving the low income community, persuaded a jury that a 37-year old mother of three who bled to death after delivering her third child, did not result from negligence. Testimony was that such deaths happen only once in 3,000 to 6,000 births.
Fitzpatrick was described as a "quick-minded defense lawyer with Richmond-based LeClair Ryan. Fitzpatrick's reputation for fearlessness and tenacity is legend: He once collapsed from heart problems in front of a jury and had to be revived by his client, a cardiac surgeon. After a year's delay that gave him time to recover, he won the case on retrial."
Relying on Fitzpatrick's courtroom skill and judgment to go to trial required a huge leap of faith for the obstetrician who had cared for the decedent.
Obstetricians are sued more frequently than any other specialists in medicine, and in many states, including Virginia, even an out-of-court settlement can push malpractice-insurance premiums to unpayable levels. Across Virginia, obstetricians are giving up their practices or ending deliveries because of premiums that have as much as doubled in recent years.
Complicating the situation is that in Virginia, Medicaid reimbursement rates set by the state are so low that doctors can't recoup the cost of their care - or absorb the higher premiums.
For the defendant doctor, going to trial meant trusting Fitzpatrick to convince a jury that he was not at fault in his patient's death.
Settling out of court or losing at trial would have meant the end of his 13-year career in that community, one that primarily involved care to indigent patients. He had never seen the decedent before that night; her regular doctor was not on duty.
Months before trial, the defendant told Fitzpatrick that he had made plans to leave Virginia and practice in a Southern state where federal and state reimbursement levels are vastly superior to Virginia's.
"I think he recognized the emotionalism in this case, how much sympathy there would be for this very unfortunate woman," Fitzpatrick said in an interview. "He told me he would consider settling, even though it meant he might have to move on and practice somewhere else.
"But I told him that with his help, we could win this thing and I said, 'If we can't defend cases where your judgment was reasonable, maybe not perfect but reasonable, then you are no longer going to be able to practice medicine,'" Fitzpatrick said.
"You gotta go in with that attitude and tell the jury you did the best you can. We don't have the advantage of the 'retrospectroscope' [in the operating room]. Given what you know, you gotta go in there and look them in the eye and say, 'This is why I did it and this is why it was the most reasonable thing to do at the time.'"
. . .
The trial lasted for three days, with some jurors occasionally nodding off or gazing past the lawyers into empty space. One juror was excused in the midst of the case because she felt ill.
Plaintiff's lawyer waged a running battle with an uncooperative exhibit - a timeline of decedent's care - that seemed incapable of staying in place on easels.
Fitzpatrick laced his comments with references to his Irish heritage and ingratiated himself to one juror by wondering if he was the Motley whose name seemed to be on so many businesses in town.
Fitzpatrick even quoted his mother: "Keep an open mind until you hear both sides," he told jurors early on. "As my mom said, 'No matter how thin the pancake is, there's two sides to every story.'"
Beyond the charm of the lawyers lay a complex medical condition that expert witnesses all agreed afflicted Elizabeth Davis: disseminated intravascular coagulopathy, known as DIC.
It is a condition during which internal imbalances cause intense, unregulated blood clotting. If untreated, this eventually diminishes the blood's ability to clot at all. In other words, bleeding becomes profuse, and in severe cases, blood can drain from eye sockets and fingernails.
In decedent's case, testimony indicated that the DIC likely developed from the baby's birth, the failure of decedent's uterus to constrict or possibly from infection.
The case turned on if, when and to what extent the defendant doctor should have administered or ordered clot-generating fluids to supplement the deteriorating condition of decedent's blood.
Fitzpatrick attacked plaintiff's witnesses with precision. At one point, he got one witness to concede that his own published material has said that bleeding remains a leading, though rare, cause of death of obstetrical patients.
Fitzpatrick also established that much of the first-line responsibility for keeping fluids in order rests with the anesthesiologist.
* * *
New York Bonuses Causing a Stir
New York Lawyer
December 13, 2004
By Marie-Anne Hogarth, The Recorder
A bonus boom is underway. In October, when Sullivan & Cromwell announced an interim bonus of $10,000 to $20,000, later supplemented by additional bonuses of $20,000 to $30,000. Simpson, Thacher & Bartlett came back with bonuses ranging from $30,000 for first-years on up to $60,000 for senior classes. Cravath, Swaine & Moore is also paying out bonuses between $30,000 and $50,000.
Consultants say big bonuses reflect rising revenues as well as renewed worries about hanging on to talent.
Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe Chairman Ralph Baxter Jr. said bonuses can range to $50,000 for junior lawyers, and as high as $75,000 for senior associates.
Thursday, December 09, 2004
Law Firms' Billing Rates Climb Ever Higher
In a possible sign of confidence in the economy, some firms demonstrated notable upswings
Leigh Jones
The National Law Journal
12-09-2004
The National Law Journal reports that "[l]aw firms showed healthy increases in billing rates this year, with the vast majority of those participating in The National Law Journal's annual survey boosting both associate and partner fees."
300 surveys distributed
125 law firms responded
110 supplied answers
Key Finding: Billing rates continued to climb in 2004.
Partners Rates: 88 of the 110 firms responding raised the high end of their rate structures. The highest reported hourly rate: $875/hour, up by $170/hour over last year, in a firm with a $302/hour average per attorney.
Associate Rates: 81 of the 110 firms responding raised the high end of associates' billing rates.
Large Northeast firms consistently showed the highest increases.
And the increase in rates could have been higher. Joel Henning, vice president and general counsel for Hildebrandt International, law firm consultants, said that law firms sometimes shortchange themselves. "Lawyers tend to be terrified of losing clients because of increased rates," he said.
Billing Rates for Junior and Senior Associates
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Tuesday, December 07, 2004
NEW ORLEANS, LA – Four attorneys at the law firm of Deutsch, Kerrigan & Stiles have been selected among "The Best Lawyers in America" as published in Woodward/White's Best Lawyers in America 2005-2006 (11th Edition).
Robert E. Kerrigan, Jr. who has been on the list for the last ten years and 
Nancy J. Marshall who has been listed for the last six are again on the 2005 list as one of the best in two categories: Business Litigation and Personal Injury/Civil Litigation.
Victor E. Stilwell and 
Charles F. Seemann, Jr. are listed for 2005 as among the best in Construction Law.
Woodward/White's Best Lawyers in America is an annual publication that distinguishes more than 15,000 lawyers in 27 specialities nationwide. Lawyers are selected each year by their peers.
Deutsch, Kerrigan & Stiles is a multidisciplinary law firm serving clients throughout the country from its New Orleans and Gulfport offices.
Friday, December 03, 2004
Litigation Hourly Rates Rising -- Are Yours?
Upping the Ante
Aric Press
The American Lawyer
12-03-2004
88% of the 128 Am Law 200 law firm leaders responding to The American Lawyer's annual Law Firm Leaders Survey said they're optimistic about prospects for 2005.
Firms plan to raise rates, pay more to partners and invest in new offices. Underpinning those ambitions are studies showing firms' fourth year of revenue growth exceeding 6 percent.
Significant findings:
• Hourly Rates Going Up: 44% of firms responding planned hikes of more than 5%; 45% planned hikes of 5 percent or less.
• PPP: 73% predicted that profits per partner would grow by more than 5 percent in 2005.
• Litigation Still King: As was the case last year, litigation was the practice area that a plurality of respondents thought would grow the most: 49% said their largest revenue growth would be in litigation, and 56% their biggest head count growth would be there. Corporate work placed second, both in revenue (33%) and head count (27%).
• Hiring Mixed: Fifty-four percent planned bigger first-year classes than last year; 41 percent plan to hold them flat.
• Expansion to NYC and Abroad: About 2/3 responding said they plan to open a new office or sharply expand an existing one. Of that group, about 1/3 eyed New York; 22% were looking abroad.
• 26% Seeking a Merger Partner!: About the same proportion as last year reported that they are seeking a merger partner.
The vast majority of firms plan to raise rates this year -- most at a pace that again exceeds inflation. And why not? Firms have successfully passed along their increased costs plus a handsome profit for years; that fact, more than any other, explains their remarkable run-up during an otherwise troubled economy.
During this period, there has been increased discussion of client push-back, but the evidence of real revolt is spotty. For instance, 43% of respondents reported no change in client behavior regarding collections in 2004 -- that is, clients paid their bills. An even greater number -- roughly 2/3 of respondents -- said that clients had demanded more discounts this year. Clearly there is ferment, but clients are talking more than walking.
Last month Corporate Counsel, [AmLaw's] sibling monthly, published its annual review of which firms represent the Fortune 250. The report is notable for the lack of turnover. (For results, see Who Represents America's Biggest Companies?)
See also, Picking Up Steam, a first look at law firm finance numbers for 2004 shows strong growth, raising hope for more of the same in 2005, by D. DiPietro, writing for The American Lawyer, 12-03-2004.
