User Tag List

+ Reply to Thread
Results 1 to 5 of 5

Thread: The trial lawyers behind the climate litigation racket

  1. #1
    Points: 445,362, Level: 100
    Level completed: 0%, Points required for next Level: 0
    Overall activity: 1.0%
    Achievements:
    SocialVeteran50000 Experience PointsOverdrive
    Common's Avatar Senior Member
    Karma
    339112
    Join Date
    Feb 2013
    Posts
    66,765
    Points
    445,362
    Level
    100
    Thanks Given
    8,785
    Thanked 18,315x in 10,924 Posts
    Mentioned
    396 Post(s)
    Tagged
    0 Thread(s)

    The trial lawyers behind the climate litigation racket

    The intersection of trial lawyer opportunism, climate orthodoxy, and political expediency has become a busy and increasingly perilous place.
    Over the summer, Richmond, Marin County, Oakland, San Francisco, San Mateo County, Imperial Beach, Santa Cruz, and Santa Cruz County in California filed suit against ExxonMobil and other energy companies for damages to coastal property and infrastructure caused from climate change-related increases in sea levels. The legal foundation for holding individual companies responsible for a planetary climate phenomenon is far from solidified so the companies are sure to fight long and hard to avoid losing a war of financial attrition.
    Even in progressive California, taxpayers generally don’t let elected officials take in a penny more than needed. These suits are feasible financially for these California cities and counties only because the plaintiffs’ firms representing them are working on contingency. They don't get paid unless they win, but if they do win, they hit the mother lode.
    On its face that might sound like a reasonable arrangement, but it is actually part of a troubling trend.
    First, the contingency fees are exorbitant. For example, the contracts between San Francisco, Oakland, and Hagens Berman, a law firm leading several of the lawsuits against the energy industry, would give the firm nearly a quarter of the hoped-for payout from Exxon and the others.
    Second, these suits are expanding a perilous new frontier in the world of ambulance-chasing by elected officials that began with the multi-state litigation against the tobacco industry in the 1990s. Nearly five years ago, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Institute for Legal Reform published a report detailing a growing alliance between state attorneys general and private plaintiffs’ lawyers to seek hefty monetary damages from unpopular industries with deep pockets.
    The Washington law firm of Cohen Milstein has been at the forefront of this trend. It brought a controversial racketeering case targeting ExxonMobil on behalf of the U.S. Virgin Islands. Linda Singer, a former District of Columbia attorney general who now runs the Cohen Milstein Public Client Practice, is quite open in explaining why this arrangement makes sense: “AGs offices, like other state agencies, have been hit with budget cuts, and they have been very interested in using outside counsel to leverage their resources and do the work.”
    In essence, plaintiff firms are devising new theories, such as “climate crime,” and using government-backed cases to test these theories in court, in the hopes of raking in billions. Instead of making policy in city hall or the state legislature, officials are farming out the resolution of complex public policy questions to trial lawyers. This smacks of legal opportunism, not pro bono work to advance the public good.
    Third, giving trial lawyers free rein encourages frivolous lawsuits and protracted litigation. A telling example came in 2014 when a Nevada judge ordered the state’s attorney general to pay legal and discovery costs to a mortgage lender that Cohen Millstein had sued on behalf of the state, alleging that the company violated state consumer protection laws by engaging in “robosigning.”
    In that case, the mortgage lender, Lender Processing Services, had settled similar claims in 49 states. But it was unable to reach a settlement with Nevada — a situation that the company said reflected Cohen Milstein’s incentive to hold out for more money under its contract with the state, which awarded the firm 15 percent of any settlement.
    Finally, these lawsuits are corrupting the concept of attorneys general discharging their law enforcement duties without regard to politics. Last March, a superior court judge in New Hampshire appropriately ruled that the state attorney general did not have the legislative authority to “deputize” Cohen Milstein to pursue a pharmaceutical company in a case stemming from the marketing of a prescription opioid.


    http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/th...rticle/2648919
    LETS GO BRANDON
    F Joe Biden

  2. #2
    Points: 10,517, Level: 24
    Level completed: 59%, Points required for next Level: 333
    Overall activity: 0.1%
    Achievements:
    Veteran10000 Experience Points
    Kacper's Avatar Senior Member
    Karma
    1027
    Join Date
    Aug 2017
    Posts
    2,404
    Points
    10,517
    Level
    24
    Thanks Given
    495
    Thanked 1,017x in 747 Posts
    Mentioned
    9 Post(s)
    Tagged
    0 Thread(s)
    Trial Lawyers are behind most everything that comes out of the DNC.

  3. The Following User Says Thank You to Kacper For This Useful Post:

    Grokmaster (02-13-2018)

  4. #3
    Points: 57,006, Level: 58
    Level completed: 33%, Points required for next Level: 1,344
    Overall activity: 0.1%
    Achievements:
    Veteran50000 Experience Points
    Grokmaster's Avatar Senior Member
    Karma
    5984
    Join Date
    Jun 2012
    Location
    Indiana
    Posts
    9,934
    Points
    57,006
    Level
    58
    Thanks Given
    12,205
    Thanked 5,815x in 3,968 Posts
    Mentioned
    40 Post(s)
    Tagged
    0 Thread(s)
    There should be a bounty on them....
    De Oppresso Liber



  5. #4
    Points: 264,301, Level: 100
    Level completed: 0%, Points required for next Level: 0
    Overall activity: 86.0%
    Achievements:
    50000 Experience PointsSocialVeteranTagger First ClassOverdrive
    Awards:
    Activity Award
    MisterVeritis's Avatar Senior Member
    Karma
    307871
    Join Date
    Oct 2014
    Location
    Northern Alabama
    Posts
    104,523
    Points
    264,301
    Level
    100
    Thanks Given
    94,656
    Thanked 39,245x in 27,866 Posts
    Mentioned
    385 Post(s)
    Tagged
    0 Thread(s)
    It is another shakedown attempt.
    Call your state legislators and insist they approve the Article V convention of States to propose amendments.


    I pledge allegiance to the Constitution as written and understood by this nation's founders, and to the Republic it created, an indivisible union of sovereign States, with liberty and justice for all.

  6. #5
    Points: 22,553, Level: 36
    Level completed: 51%, Points required for next Level: 597
    Overall activity: 0%
    Achievements:
    10000 Experience PointsVeteran
    Cannons Front's Avatar Senior Member
    Karma
    13491
    Join Date
    Jan 2017
    Location
    Ohio
    Posts
    5,048
    Points
    22,553
    Level
    36
    Thanks Given
    2,897
    Thanked 5,150x in 2,896 Posts
    Mentioned
    23 Post(s)
    Tagged
    0 Thread(s)
    It is time to get real reform on our system
    "The powers of the federal government are enumerated; it can only operate in certain cases; it has legislative powers on defined and limited objects, beyond which it cannot extend its jurisdiction." James Madison 1788

+ Reply to Thread

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts