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Entries from April 1, 2008 - May 1, 2008
Dickie Scruggs; Speaking of Justice
The Civil Action Channel
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In today’s edition of Speaking of Justice the topic turns to the headline story of last week, the guilty plea of the “King of Torts”, Richard “Dickie” Scruggs. In a week of amazing headlines regarding the likes of Eliot Spitzer or William Lerach, to our mind the most amazing story is this guilty plea of Scruggs to a charge of attempting to bribe a judge to rule in his favor during a legal dispute over attorney fees.
Civil Action attorney Jan Schlichtmann and Speaking of Justice host Scott Drake look at the career of Dickie Scruggs, discuss the landmark case that brought him to prominence, that being the Tobacco litigation of the mid 1990s and the twists and turns of a career that has gone from the pinnacle of the law to now the very bottom. The question that comes to mind when anyone looks at the facts of this case and the status Mr. Scrugg’s enjoyed in the legal community virtually everyone wonders what could have driven this man to such an unlawful action when he already enjoyed wealth beyond that of all but a handful of citizens.
WR Grace to pay for Libby, MT asbestos clean up
The Civil Action Channel
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In news from last week, the EPA announced on March 12, 2008 that WR Grace had agreed to pay $250 million to the EPA to fund the clean up of the town of Libby, MT., one of the most notorious environmental disasters of the last 25 years. You can read the entire AP news wire report by clicking here.
” Taxpayers have been footing the bill for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s investigative and cleanup work in Libby, where the agency arrived in 1999. Expenses total $168 million and another $175 million in costs are likely, said Paul Peronard, EPA’s Libby project leader. Sen. Max Baucus, a Montana Democrat, called $250 million “a drop in the bucket compared to the destruction and pain our neighbors in Libby have been through.”
Asbestos came from the vermiculite mine and processing facilities, a few miles from Libby, that Grace owned and operated from 1963 until the site’s closure in 1990. Vermiculite was used in a variety of products and the asbestos was dispersed in a variety of ways. Workers carried it home on their clothing. Asbestos also ended up in the yards of homes where vermiculite was spread as a soil conditioner. Exposure in Libby has been blamed for lung-scarring asbestosis and for mesothelioma, a fast-moving cancer that attacks the lungs. “
While notable for it’s amount and the fact that at long last some measure of compensation and justice for the residents of the small Montana mining community is on the horizon, the facts of the Libby case and what still lies ahead really isn’t discussed in great detail in any of the news reports. For perspective on what happened at Libby, the nature of this environmental and public health disaster we have turned to LBN’s Jan Schlichtmann, one of the nations leading environmental lawyers to discuss the case.