Yesterday the Mississippi Supreme Court stayed further proceedings in the Union Carbide v. Brown case pending a determination of Union Carbide’s motion to recuse Judge Eddie Bowen. Here is the Supreme Court’s Order. Here is my post where I wrote about the recusal motion.

The Clarion-Ledger article confuses me and makes me suspect that I am missing a piece of the puzzle. I get this part of the article:

Union Carbide Corp. had asked Bowen of Raleigh to vacate the jury award and to step aside from any further action in the case because he didn’t divulge that his father had filed two similar asbestos cases.

Bowen’s inaction resulted in Union Carbide petitioning the Supreme Court to force him off the case.

The judge’s bias and prejudice against Union Carbide and Chevron Phillips, the other party being sued, were evidenced in his rulings, comments in front of the jury, and his coaching of Brown’s attorneys in questioning witnesses, according to Union Carbide’s motion.

Here is where the article loses me:

Georgia Pacific filed court papers last month saying Bowen, who was presiding over three Mississippi lawsuits involving the company, had sued one of the company’s subsidiaries in Jasper County.

The company said the lawsuit filed by Tullos on behalf of Bowen and others is materially similar to the pending lawsuits assigned to Bowen.

What is this talking about? How did the article go from Union Carbide to Georgia Pacific? Is this talking about the same case or a related case? Did Judge Bowen not recuse himself from the case even though he had sued the defendant? I can’t tell.

Someone help me out here.

It’s Bar Convention week in Mississippi. The Summer School for Lawyers CLE runs today through Wednesday and the Annual Meeting runs Wednesday through Saturday. Both are at the Sandestin Resort. There are 250 lawyers registered for the CLE and 400 lawyers and judges registered for the Annual Meeting.

The Bar Convention is a great opportunity for lawyers and judges to visit in a relaxed atmosphere. Everyone always has a smile on their face.

For lawyers and judges back in Mississippi, Bar Convention week is often one of the quietest weeks of the year. With so many judges and lawyers in Florida, there is usually a noticeable decline in the number scheduled trials, hearings and depositions this week. So for anyone looking to sneak out to the golf course or fishing hole for an afternoon, this wouldn’t be a bad week to do it.

If Court Orders documented what the judge was thinking, they would all look something like this order from a Kentucky state court. Seems that the judge was excited that the parties settled the case.

My favorite part of the order was the footnote to the word amicably: “The Court uses the word ‘amicably’ loosely.”

Don’t stop reading on the first page. Paragraph 4 is not to be missed.

The Order was entered by Judge Martin Sheehan (not pictured).

You Can’t Teach Hungry is John Morgan’s self-described how-to guide for building the multi-million dollar law firm. Morgan is the founder of the Morgan & Morgan personal injury law firm that has developed a national footprint. The firm lists eleven lawyers in its Jackson office, which makes it one of the largest plaintiff firms in the state.

Morgan’s book is part nuts and bolts suggestions and part business philosophy. The latter is what I enjoyed the most.

Morgan definitely understands lawyers. He recognizes that many lawyers are poor businessmen and simply hope for the best for their practice. His descriptions of some lawyers are funny, such as the big-talking lawyers who always tell war stories about the same trial that was years ago. Incidentally, I think that I am speaking for many lawyers when I say that the only war stories that we are interested in hearing are the ones with a punch-line at the end.

Morgan attributes a fear of failure as a common characteristic of successful lawyers. That is something I can identify with. I’ve had my own practice for nine years. My practice has been successful and financially stable for the entire time, despite a transition from an almost all defense practice to an almost all plaintiff practice. But success and experience has not made me fear failure less.

I fear failure more today than I did the day that I walked out of Baker Donelson. The reason is that now I have tasted bitter defeat from losing trials where there was no recovery or fee unless we won and have seen other lawyers’ practices fail. In the late 90’s and early 2000’s there were lawyers making a fortune in Mississippi who were not really practicing law—much less litigating and trying cases. Today, there are smart and hard working lawyers who struggle to make it.

Morgan suggests that when the fear of failure leaves a lawyer, he or she should hang it up.

Morgan is a huge proponent of television advertising. He states that many lawyers who try television ad campaigns do it wrong. He recommends developing a catch phrase like his firm’s brilliant “for the people.” If everyone advertised like Morgan’s firm, I might not think that it is damaging to the profession. But the get-rich-quick commercials starring plaintiffs who look fine are a ball-and-chain around the neck of those of us who actually try cases.

Although the book is written for plaintiff lawyers, some defense lawyers might enjoy its insights on the business of law. The book is $20 on Amazon or $9.99 on the Kindle. You don’t need to get much out of it to make it worth that price. The book even comes with an offer for a free gift for those who read to near the end of the book. What is it? Read the book. But I can say that Morgan does deliver the gift as promised.

Want to improve your legal writing? If so, you may want to consider reading: Point Made, How to Write Like the Nation’s Top Advocates, by Ross Guberman.

The book’s product description on Amazon states in part:

With Point Made, legal writing expert Ross Guberman throws a life preserver to attorneys, who are under more pressure than ever to produce compelling prose. What is the strongest opening for a motion or brief? How to draft winning headings? How to tell a persuasive story when the record is dry and dense? The answers are “more science than art,” says Guberman, who has analyzed stellar arguments by distinguished attorneys to develop step-by-step instructions for achieving the results you want.
The author takes an empirical approach, drawing heavily on the writings of the nation’s 50 most influential lawyers, including Barack Obama, John Roberts, Elena Kagan, Ted Olson, and David Boies. Their strategies, demystified and broken down into specific, learnable techniques, become a detailed writing guide full of practical models.

I found this book interesting. The examples from briefs written by legal heavyweights like John Roberts show that not only is it ok to depart from traditional, wordy “legalese” writing, it is preferred. For instance, the book encourages lawyers to consider streamlining information with tables and bullet point lists.

I have been using tables in my briefs for the last few months since reading this suggestion. I find it helpful for compressing a lot of information onto one page. I think lawyers will see a lot more of this and other similar techniques in the coming years with heavy use of the internet making everyone—including judges—speed skimmers.

Books on legal writing are a bit like eating spinach. Or in Mississippi Supreme Court Justice Jess Dickinson’s case, peas. They may not be that exciting, but they are good for us. Point Made has a list price of under $20 and sell for much less on Amazon. The book is a real bargain and worth reading for litigators who are always looking to improve their game.

On Friday the hammer fell for five men who pleaded guilty in the A&O Life life insurance fraud scheme. Here is a good A.P. article on the sentencing as printed in the Houston Chronicle. The article describes the scam:

“The impact of this massive fraud on many of A&O’s investor victims has been disastrous,” U.S. Attorney Neil MacBride said in a written statement after the sentencing hearings. “Hundreds of elderly investors invested their life savings with A&O and saw it all vanish in an instant.”

The sentences were:

• Brent Oncale (the ‘O’ in A&O): 10 years;
• David White (former banker and A&O president): 5 years;
• Eric Kurz (middleman who fed info. to salesmen): 5 years;
• Russell Mackert (A&O lawyer and front-man): 15 years, 8 months;
• Tomme Bromseth (life insurance agent and A&O salesman): 3 years.

Mackert asked for a shorter sentence based on his being stupid:

These sentences put a smile on my face. Life insurance agents, in particular, should heed Mr. Bromseth’s sentence. The take-home is that when you put your clients into a scam, you will be held criminally responsible.

Investors should note that they cannot automatically trust their life insurance agents—particularly when it comes to selling investment products. Many of the victims of the A&O scheme invested because they were buying from their long-time life insurance agent who they trusted. The agents, who earned large commissions from the sales, later claimed ignorance as a defense to the scheme.

This is not the first investment scheme fueled by sales made by life insurance agents. Personally, I would not buy anything except insurance from an insurance agent. They may try to become your investment advisor and put you into mutual funds and other investments. I’d say no. Why?

It’s sort of like the adage of don’t order steak at a fish house or fish at a steak house. Insurance and investing are different.

Read more about the A&O scam here.

Here is all the information that I’ve been able to obtain on the recent jury verdict in Pearl River County.

Reportedly, there were 12 plaintiffs. The defendant was Mitchell Crane Services. The case involved personal injuries sustained in 1999. But I do not know what kind of case it was. The trial was bifurcated. The liability phase was tried in 2005.

A couple of weeks ago, a jury awarded total damages of $2.3 million in the damages phase. The largest amount was $1.3 million and went to a woman with $755,000 in medical expenses. Two other plaintiffs were awarded less than $2,600.

Mitch Tyner of Jackson represented the plaintiffs. Bill Whitfield with Copeland Cook’s Gulfport office represented the defendant.

My Take:

Not enough information here for me to have a take on the case, so I’ll reminisce about Pearl River County.

A community South of Poplarville called Derby was like a second home to me growing up. My parents were from there and both sets of my grand-parents lived there.

Probably my earliest memory as a child are a few snippets from riding out Hurricane Camille in the Derby Baptist Church.

When I was a young child, it was a big deal to get to go to “town” (Poplarville). This was back before the influx of people from Louisiana into Pearl River County. It was small, very rural and very conservative. It has a different feel today, even though I suspect that it is still very conservative.

It does not seem that long ago. But now, both my parents and all four grandparents are gone and buried in Poplarville cemeteries. The only time that I go to Poplarville now is for funerals or to visit the cemetery.

I have always wanted to try a case in the Pearl River County Courthouse in Poplarville. At this stage of my life, it would be an emotional experience for reasons not readily apparent to others in the courtroom.

The June issue of the Mississippi Jury Verdict Reporter was emailed earlier this week. This edition includes 8 jury verdicts from 2011.

Four of the eight verdicts were defense verdicts. One of the defense verdicts was my recent losing effort in a medical malpractice trial in federal court in Aberdeen.

Of the four plaintiff verdicts, only one was a personal injury case. That was the $1 million Hinds County med-mal verdict that I reported in this post.

The other 3 plaintiff verdicts were:

• the $1.17 Yazoo County shareholder dispute reported in this post;
• a $212,900 federal court verdict in a Katrina negligent misrepresentation case; and
• an $80,000 Hinds County verdict in a nuisance case.

Two of the defense verdict were in personal injury cases. So to recap, there were 3 personal injury jury verdicts reported and 2 of those 3 were defense verdict.

Perhaps someone could forward this information to the Clarion-Ledger and Gannett, who want to pretend like it’s 1999.

Here is my post on the May 2011 edition of MJVR.

On Saturday a Hinds County jury returned a $750,000 verdict in a nursing home case involving Manhattan Nursing and Rehab. Center in Jackson. I believe that Manhattan is part of the Tara Cares chain. All the damages were non-economic damages.

The case was a wrongful death case involving Mannie Williams, aged 87. Ms. Williams fell and suffered a fractured pelvis at home. She went to Manhattan for short term rehab. with a plan to return home. While in the nursing home, she suffered multiple pressure sores, also known as bed sores. The pressure sores included a stage IV sacral (tailbone area) wound that became infected and caused Ms. Williams’ death.

Stage IV pressure sores are serious injuries. If you doubt the severity of a stage IV sacral pressure sore, go to google images and search “stage iv sacral pressure sore.” But don’t do it right after a meal. Wikipedia has a good explanation of pressure sores here. Pressure sores are usually preventable with regular turning.

The case was tried before Judge William Gowan. The trial started on Wednesday and ended on Saturday.

Eric Stracener and Andrew Neely of Jackson and Jake Adams of Brandon represented the plaintiff.

Davis Frye, Barry Ford and Brad Moody with Baker Donelson in Jackson represented the defendant.

There was a $750,000 jury verdict returned on Saturday in a nursing home case in Hinds County Circuit Court. Judge Bill Gowan was the trial judge. I will have a full report on Tuesday.