There was a $210,000 punitive verdict on top of the $210,000 actual damages verdict in the Natchez asbestos fraud trial discussed in the prior post.
That’s a good verdict for Natchez. I got my clock cleaned there this time last year by Carl Hagwood and Michael Phillips. But they have a nice courtroom and Judge Bramlette is a great judge.
Wouldn’t it be great to have a resource that reports on many civil verdicts in the State of Mississippi? This blog could serve as that resource if more verdicts are reported to me.
Over the last year, I have reported on many verdicts. But my ability to report verdicts is limited to the verdicts that I hear about.
If you hear about a verdict in a Mississippi case, please send me an email about it. In addition to the result, I like information on the facts of the case, venue, judge, attorneys and other interesting information about the case. I typically do not reveal sources on the verdicts that I write about.
It’s not unusual for me to hear about a trial going on somewhere in the state, but to not get enough information on it to report the result. Please help build the content on this blog by reporting verdict results.
Please report verdicts by sending me an email or submitting the information on the contact form on my firm web site.
There was a plaintiff’s verdict yesterday in federal court in Natchez in favor of Ill. Central RR against McComb lawyers William Guy and Thomas Brock. The trial involved the claims in two cases. Here are the Amended Complaints in the Turner case and the Harried case. Ill. Central sued the lawyers and their clients, but the clients obtained a defense verdict at trial.
The Complaints alleged that the individual defendants were plaintiffs in the big Cosey Jefferson County asbestos case that was filed in 1995 in which there was a massive plaintiff verdict around ten years ago. It was one of the verdicts that led to tort reform in Mississippi.
The defendants sued Ill. Central in 2001 in Jefferson County asserting an FELA claim related to exposure to asbestos. The defendants failed to disclose to Ill. Central that they were plaintiffs in the Cosey case and settled their claims with Ill. Central for $90,000 and $120,000 respectively. The individual defendants testified that the lawyers (Guy and Brock) were aware of their prior asbestos claims in Cosey.
Ill. Central sued the lawyers and their clients for fraud. I believe that the verdict was for the $90,000 and $120,000 previously paid by Ill. Central, but a judgment is not on file yet, so I am not sure.
I also do not know what happened in the punitives phase. I hope to report more on this verdict later.
Danny Mulholland and Tanya Ellis with Forman Perry represented Ill. Central. John Corlew and Kathy Smith of Jackson represented the defendant lawyers. Wayne Dowdy of McComb represented the individuals. Judge David Bramlette presided over the trial.