Folks may recall that we posted a list of 12 questions in these cases, done as a response to David Rossmiller’s post listing 10 open questions he saw.
I’ve been working through a chronology of events in the Scruggs/Katrina related-cases (by "these cases " I’m meaning it very broadly –McIntosh v. State Farm, Renfroe & Co. v. Rigsby and the related contempt prosecution, Jones, Funderburg v. Scruggs, State Farm v. Hood and the grand jury investigation, the Rigsbys’ qui tam action, and the Woullard class action against State Farm, for instance. The events relating to the asbestos fee cases –Wilson and Luckey –largely precede what I’ve been considering)
Going through all of this has caused me to generate a revised list of questions in the Scruggs cases. I’ve got four new or newish questions, and am retaining three from my original list, one from Lotus’s original list, and two from Rossmiller’s original list. Here’s what I think are the serious mysteries in this case. Except possibly #9 from Rossmiller, someone out there has the answer to each of these I think.
1. Why did Jim Hood reopen State Farm v. Hood in January 2008?
2. Why did Judge Senter think that the dollars being paid the Rigsbys were not enough to disqualify Scruggs Katrina Group in September 2007 but were enough in April 2008?
3. When did Scruggs first meet the Rigbys, before December 2005 or in February 2006?
4. What was going on between Jim Hood and SKG between December 17, 2006 (right after the document-exchange went down, a point that SKG and Hood were clearly cooperating), and January 19 (the date of Barrett’s letter saying Hood should take the deal) or January 23 (the date Hood made a deal with State Farm? Who was delivering what messages to Hood about what Scruggs would do if Hood didn’t play along? (This is a version of a question I asked in the last round, but broader.)
From my original list:
5. Who was the "high public official " who wanted Ed Peters to prosecute Roberts Wilson for tax fraud?
6. What was the Kentucky project Patterson and Balducci were chasing in early-to-middle 2007?
7. Just how many cases are caught up in that Peters-DeLaughter connection thing?
From Lotus’s original list:
8. Why, when Breland Hilburn had for years been putting everybody to sleep with the pace of Wilson v. Scruggs, did he in late 2000 or early 2001 suddenly come to and start pouring out orders (including middle-of-the-night ones in barely-English)?
From Rossmiller’s original list:
9. Will we ever find out what exactly P.L. Blake did for those millions?
10. When and if all the information on the Wilson case comes out, I’m sure going to be curious to see the testimony about Trent Lott’s role in the call to Judge DeLaughter, aren’t you? I mean, given that he had known Bobs Wilson for a long time, and given that Dickie Scruggs was his brother-in-law, is it possible that he could have been unaware that Judge DeLaughter had before him a case involving Wilson and Scruggs? If he did know, how is that OK? If he didn’t know, how is that OK?
NMC: re #4 where on this time line does the Patterson & Balducci’s “lobbying” of Hood?
#5: I’ve though aLott about this one. I know aLott of us don’t know the answer. But aLott of us wouldn’t be surprised to learn that a Senator who would stoop to call a judge sitting on a brother in law’s case to help the brother in law out would not hesitate to call a district attorney for the same reason in the same case. I know aLott of you may not agree with me, after all I’m only guessing.
#7. Every case on DeLaughter’s docket that Peters ever worked either behind the scenes or where he appeared of counsel.
#8. Don’t know what woke Judge Hilburn up but could it be that Scruggs was at that very same time trying to clear title to his tobacco proceeds to securitize the future stream of tobacco proceeds in a bond issue? Only his then lawyers know for sure.
#10. Ditto #5.
Answering your question, Justsinttinghere: First two weeks of January, 2006
Then I would venture to guess the answer to no. 4 might be Patterson & Balducci.
And regarding no. 5, although Ive thought aLott about it, the tactic sounds Moore like something a former prosecutor might do.
No. 2 regarding why Judge Senter disqualified now, but not last year, has me confused too. It almost seems like he simply reconsidered his 2007 denial of the motion. My thought is that Senter has been watching events and decided that it was untenable to have KLG handling these cases. I think the Fifth Circuit’s opinion chastising Barrett in the Shell Oil case came down between the first order denying disqualification and this order. State Farm has also written a lot of briefs about Derek Wyatt’s handling of subpoenas. It seems to me it was an accumulation of things that led to this.
@ #2 the premise is wrong. The payments to the Rigsby sister’s were not known at that time.
Judge Senter has taken some shots in the recent commentary elsewhere that is frankly unfair.
The short answer is if you are aware of behavior that would merit DQ then you must come out with it timely. State Farm waited a year on the issues they raised. His decision was appealed unsuccessfully to the 5th circuit court of appeals by State Farm – in short his decision was grounded in the law.
Elsewhere an industry commenter is saying Graves et al will be DQ’d for the same reason KLG was Friday 0n Qui Tam. I’m hearing from people I respect here it won’t happen – unless State Farm can prove they also knew about the payments. To this point there is no evidence in the record to suggest that is the case.
You can find both Judge Senter’s original opinion denying State Farm’s first DQ motion along with the 5th Circuit affirmation (and Lee Harrell’s first deposition) here.
This is the salient excerpt from Judge Senter’s first decision:
“State Farm has identified February 2006 as the date that Scruggs first engaged in the conduct State Farm contends to be unethical. By August 2006, the relationship between Scruggs and the Rigsbys was public enough to include an appearance on ABC’s 20/20 television program. Thus, State Farm has known of this relationship and of its alleged impropriety for at least a year prior to the filing of this motion. During this time State Farm has defended hundreds of claims in which Scruggs represented State Farm’s policyholders; State Farm and Scruggs have successfully negotiated mutually satisfactory settlements in most of these cases; and State Farm has negotiated with Scruggs and his law firm in an attempt to fashion a class action settlement of all State Farm-Katrina property damage claims. Given this history between Scruggs and State Farm, I am at a loss to understand why State Farm has waited so long to invite the Court’s attention to the issues raised in this motion. While State Farm’s motion might be timely if this particular case were considered in isolation, I cannot close my eyes to the fact that State Farm has proceeded in hundreds of other similar cases without raising the issue of Scruggs’s alleged misconduct and seeking his disqualification.”
sop
If I was either Judge Hilburn, Patton or Delaughter,my butt would be at Jackson International headed for Amsterdam.
And as an addenum, if I was Mike Allred as well.
Sop, the issue of payments to the Rigsby sisters was briefed by State Farm in the original motion to disqualify. It’s in SF’s memo in support of disqualification, docket no. 222 in the McIntosh v. SF case, case no. 06-1080. He had that issue in front of him when he refused to disqualify the first time. I’m not speaking ill of Senter. I’m simply saying its confuses me that he said State Farm had waived the argument in 2007, but then disqualified based solely on the payments.
Roger I’m not disputing you but I have yet to find it in the public record of news accounts or the Judge’s decision where he focuses on the contact in February 2006 between Scruggs and the Rigsby’s. If you have that brief I’d like to see it.
I think the more interesting question relative to #9 is not “Will we ever find out what exactly P.L. Blake did FOR those millions?”
But rather “Will we ever find out what exactly P.L. Blake did WITH those millions?’
iratetoday at 9:53 pm
Having not previously seen his name in these posts, why should Mike Allred to running to hop on a plane to some foreign jurisdiction ?
Sop, the first sentence of your comment at No. 5 was that the payments to the Rigsby sisters were not known at the time. They were.
I don’t understand what you’re getting at with the issue of Senter focusing on the contact in February, 2006 between Scruggs and the Rigsbys. The bottom line is that Senter had more than enough information to disqualify in September, 2006. He chose not to disqualify because State Farm had been negotiating with SKG for a year after knowing the incriminating information, thereby waiving the objection. You’re right that the Fifth Circuit upheld him, and I think they would also uphold this ruling since the standard is abuse of discretion.
I think you’re right that SF didn’t know all the details about the February, 2006 meeting in the trailer until a time after the original motion was briefed. For whatever reason, Judge Senter decided that KLG must be disqualified now. I don’t think he made a bad decision, but I think he did make a decision that qualifies as just changing his mind about the effect of the same set of facts.
Roger I’m asking for you to prove your statement that Senter knew the first go round. It is not mentioned in his first opinion or in any of the news accounts.
A pdf of the brief you cited is all I need.
sop
Sop, I don’t have the technical know-how to link it, and I can’t upload anything to this site. It’s on PACER, website mssd.uscourts.gov, McIntosh v. State Farm, Case No. 06-1080, docket entry 222. State Farm’s brief, filed in June, 2007, has a big bold subheading that says Scruggs, et al. should be disqualified because of the consulting payments to the Rigsby sisters. I went back and double checked before posting at 8. NMC can confirm that the brief mentions the payments if he’s online. He has PACER access.
Roger I had the docs, just read them and I cede the point. I did note in reading two briefs differing legal arguments were made to support the contention. I’ll post them to save the PACER charges.
Sop:
I’ve checked. The very first State Farm motion to disqualify specifically cited that the Rigsby’s were being paid $150,000. Here is State Farm’s first motion to disqualify.
I have a lot of respect for Judge Senter. I have not criticized him the least bit about these decisions. Rather, I’m curious about understanding his reasoning. I’m going to post more about this in the next few days.
NMC I never said you or anyone on Folo criticized Judge Senter. I now share your curiosity. The reasoning in his first decision was sound. Given the 5th Circuit affirmation he could have easily stuck to his first decision. Perhaps Scruggs guilty plea had a bearing on Judge Senter’s thought process.
JustOlMoi, read this.
http://www.folo.us/2008/01/30/contracts-to-pay-fact-witnessesare-improper-and-illegal-the-frisby-motions-in-eaton-corp-v-frisby-part-1-of-3-by-nmc/#more-479
Sop, I didn’t want to be contentious, and I’m not criticizing Judge Senter either. Yesterday or the day before Zen Master (affectionately known to me as Zenner [or alternatively "The Counterfeit Buddhist"]) made the point that he thought Judge Senter’s patience had simply run out. I think that’s right to an extent. I think he lost his patience, plus he decided that the waiver argument couldn’t override the accumulating conduct. His first order denying disqualification sounded like he viewed State Farm as holding hands with plaintiffs’ counsel for a year, then strategically moving to disqualify as trial approached. Therefore, he didn’t disqualify.
On this one, he rejected the waiver argument and addressed the conduct, with predictable results. Even if one views Senter’s recent order as a “reconsideration” of his earlier order, it’s his prerogative to do that. He probably could have made things more clear by addressing his evolving reasoning in more detail, but that’s his prerogative, too.
jom @ 11: eaton v frisby. allred did a secret association with peters. Case was on DeLaughter’s docket.
Not a problem Roger the mistake is mine. I was inferring the answer from the opinions and I should have checked the briefs first.
Sop:
Here’s something I’m very curious about. On the Slabbed weblog in a comment you’ve mentioned (more than once) that there are only 130ish State Farm cases pending now. If that’s so, that alone makes a big difference in the context of Judge Senter’s first and second orders on disqualification.
Where did that figure come from?
btw, Sop, I was thinking about citing that comment in a post but was concerned about a source for it. I really think that (and subsequent events) may explain what Judge Senter was thinking.
NMC
This is terribly off topic, but have you or Lotus written about the Non-Profit Hospital class actions? I looked around here and didn’t find it.
In any event, I found it curious that one of the only actual settlements amidst the rest getting dismissed was with the North Mississippi Health Services represented by Mike Moore and Hood got involved too.
Moore knows from personal experience. He and his firm represent four hospitals and health systems sued as part of the class-action litigation and he participated in the settlement agreement with North Mississippi Health Services.
and
“After reviewing the proposed settlement, there seemed to be little reason to pursue lengthy litigation of the issue since the proposed discounts were very reasonable,” he added.
Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood (D) said Aug. 6 that his office was intervening in the case to protect the interests of Mississippi’s poor, and to monitor compliance with the settlement terms. “Our interest is to determine who has been overcharged, and by how much, and who is eligible for refunds,” he said.
Did the 5th Circuit affirm Senter’s original ruling in which he denied the motion to disqualify SKG? Or, was that issue before the appellate court on a petition for mandamus by State Farm? The standard applied by the 5th Circuit would vary substantially if it was the latter, do you agree?
Lotus
One of your readers brought to your attention the Kentucky Phen Fen case fandango.
Here is a new story on it
William J. Gallion and two other lawyers relied heavily on the advice of famed trial lawyer Stan Chesley in the handling of a $200 million civil settlement with a diet drug manufacturer, according to an expert witness retained by Gallion.
Chesley discouraged Gallion and two lawyers from providing notice to potential plaintiffs that a lawsuit against the maker of the diet drug fen-phen had become a state class action, according to a report filed in U.S. District Court by Richard L. Robbins, a Harvard-educated lawyer retained by Gallion as an expert on class-action litigation.
http://www.kentucky.com/news/state/story/362833.html
and this is interesting
Prominent Cincinnati attorney Stan Chesley said he wanted to file the Diocese of Covington priest-abuse case in Boone County because “we have a real friendly judge there,” a lawyer testified this week.
“He winked at me” and said “we need to file this in Boone County,” testified Covington lawyer Barbara Bonar, who is suing Chesley in a dispute over attorneys fees in the $84.5 million case.
“He said we already have hired a trial consultant, and he is real friendly with the judge,” Bonar said, describing a conversation she claimed to have had with Chesley in January 2003. “And he winked at me again.”
http://www.overlawyered.com/2007/05/more_chesley_follies_with_judg_1.html
His wikipedia entry says
Chesley was one of the “inner circle” of the plaintiffs’ bar that negotiated the controversial $246 billion tobacco settlement on behalf of state governments.
One more thing – I seem to recall that Balducci mentioned not only Kentucky, but a Pennsylvania deal too in the transcript.
Regards to the phen fen, this link does mention
As fen-phen litigation scandals go, this one is unique only because it is so brazen…Two other grand juries in Mississippi and Pennsylvania are investigating, though only a single attorney and a handful of paralegals have been convicted.
http://www.american.com/archive/2007/april-0407/fen-phen-zen
(this link also has much more on the Kentucky Phen fen deal too)
NMC I’ve used the numbers approx 170 and 180 to represent the number of people who will need new lawyers resulting from Friday’s DQ. The exact number according to Anita Lee at the Sun Herald is 178. It’s early so I may be running slow but I don’t recall using a lower number.
If you are trying to reconcile that to the CNN report I linked Scruggs mentioned 2000 cases in the fall of 2006 in part 6 (last clip).
Here is the link to the Anita Lee article.
http://www.sunherald.com/201/story/471344.html
Thanks for all these new leads, Seacrest 24-26-27! Do you have link(s) for those quotes at 24? Now to read up . . .
Thanks, Sop. I really think the lower number of remaining cases may have been in the back of Judge Senter’s mind.
I am curious about the splits between plaintiffs who were with SKG for a while but did not take the settlement, and those who signed up with SKG after the first settlement. I assume that most of these plaintiffs are the latter.
There are people out there who only recently decided to sue and others who have not sued but are still trying to get more money from their insurers, especially after they learned that materials and contractors are much more expensive than the early estimates. Is the 3rd anniversary of the storm the deadline to file suit?
I would think so, Researcher.
Sorry Lotus.
I’m in a different time zone.
Here is link to the Moore Quote
http://appollonius.com/Richard%20Scruggs.htm
and here is link to Hood involvement
http://healthcenter.bna.com/pic2/hc.nsf/id/BNAP-63WNGR?OpenDocument
Excellent, Seacrest — thanks (and good morning)!
When I first was reading about those class actions and saw North Mississippi Health Services (if I have my timeline right) settled early on when so many said they shouldn’t have and then so many of those suits were getting dismissed left and right I thought the NMHS must have been pissed. Then I wondered if they were just so in tune to knowing what Scruggs was about they didn’t even hold out and go there.
It follows the tobacco pattern and you’ll notice this quote in the Moore link
Gerson, who battled Scruggs before and whose firm represents some of the defendant hospitals, says in the tobacco cases Scruggs “litigated and litigated and litigated and lost and lost and lost until he found a defendant too weak to litigate who agreed to a settlement. He was able to establish a precedent, which he used like a shoehorn to extract other settlements and ultimately bring down the industry. I can’t argue with his success.”
In reading more, I’m not sure how that settlement worked out, but the timeline of a settlement Aug. 5 and on Aug. 6th Hood said he stepped in and
“Hood declined to specify what other ongoing investigations were under way. Two other Mississippi hospitals, St. Dominic Health Services Inc. and St. Dominic-Jackson Memorial Hospital, were the subject of a charity care lawsuit filed by Scruggs’ firm July 7.
and Moore was involved on the Hospital side. Was he telling his clients the might as well fold?
Follows a distinct pattern. Also, the goofy GA “whistleblowers” and how the cases started fits the pattern and I found a recounting of one of the “whistleblowers” depositions in which he admits Scruggs was paying his legal fees in a dispute between the hospital and the guy to the tune of $100,000 plus.
Seacrest// IMO, you are the best. If you can locate The Settlement please direct us to it. We(The Community) have never gotten the truth, one side will say there was no settlement, and the other side has been very very quite about it. The best I remember it was kinda’ like Jim Hoods’ MCI case, in that Dickie was the Hero that came in for the poor people of Mississippi, and Moore sat in as the Attorney advising NM. How much these two pals received for their work has never been mentioned.
Thanks Magnolia, sounds like I’m being redundant though, huh?
I did find a graph someone put together outlining each of the non-profit hospital cases, when they were filed and where and the attorneys for plaintiff and defendants. Noticed Tim Balducci was one.
saw this too
The first health system to settle was not even named as a defendant in the lawsuits focusing national attention on the charity practices of community hospitals. North Mississippi Health Services, a six-hospital, 736-bed not-for-profit system in Tupelo, settled before Richard Scruggs’ Oxford, Miss.-based law firm filed suit but spent several months negotiating the agreement. Scruggs’ firm, famous for its tobacco litigation, launched the wave of national lawsuits.
that’s sure odd, isn’t it?
Seacrest and mag, I’m working on a post (or two or three?) pulling together as much as we know about this now. Seacrest, if you have a link to that graph, I’d sho like to include it (and anything else pertinent you come across).
Seacrest// Wondering if Tim had his own business, was working for Langston, Jim Hood, or Scruggs. He worked for them all, yet all wont’ed to deny him, sounds like a chapter in the Bible.Someone reported the other day, when this first broke and he needed protection he and his wife ended up in Swizerland, and I have wondered if He would go into the Witness Protection , He flipped so fast, makes me wonder who he knew or what he knew, and if the public will ever know. He has always appeared to be used by The Name Brands, Langston,Hood, and Scruggs.
Here is the only thing I’ve found as far as a settlement – sounds like the Hospital realized they were strongarmed(I’m guessing)
http://www.nmhs.net/openletters/apr102005.htm
Lotus
I wish I would have bookmarked that graph – I’ll look through my history to see if I can dig it up
I actually found it
http://healthcenter.bna.com/pic2/hc.nsf/id/BNAP-674MLV?OpenDocument
Caption:
Gardner v. North Mississippi Health Services
Case No.:
No. 04-cv-235
District Court:
Mississippi — Northern District (Eastern)
Judge:
Michael P. Mills
Defendants:
North Mississippi Health Services Inc.
North Mississippi Medical Center Inc.
Plaintiff’s Counsel:
Timothy Reese Balducci
Langston Law Firm
Booneville, Miss.
Jack Rhea Tannehill
Tannehill Law Firm
Oxford, Miss.
Sidney A. Backstrom
Scruggs Law Firm
Oxford, Miss.
Defense Counsel:
William M. Beasley
Phelps Dunbar
Tupelo, Miss.
Date Filed: 8/6/04
Other Actions:
9/2/04: hearing on proposed partial settlement
9/27/04: notice of continuance of 11/6/04 case management conference pending further court order
Terrific, Seacrest! (Jeez, whatta list.)
iratetoday,
Thx for the link at 18.
My computer again went down due to the tornadoes and thus the delay in my responding.
Hey Everybody,
Where the ‘H’ is Ed (Slick Eddie) Peters?
Good question.