Posts Tagged ‘wrongful death’

$590 million for daughter, slain mom’s estate

RENO, Nev. – A jury awarded a $590 million wrongful death judgment Tuesday to the young daughter of a woman killed by her estranged husband and to the slain woman’s estate.

Darren Mack, once a wealthy pawn shop owner, is serving a life sentence for the June 2006 killing of his wife and shooting of the couple’s divorce judge.

Under the award in the wrongful death lawsuit, $530 million will go to the couple’s young daughter, Erika, and the rest will go to the estate of his slain wife, Charla, said Hans Jessup, administrator for the Washoe County court.

Tags: Jury, wrongful death
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Referral Fees in Texas

Historically in Texas, there were no particular rules regarding the division of fees among lawyers or the payment of a referral fee from one lawyer to another for forwarding the case. In 2005, however, the Texas Supreme Court enacted new referral fee rules which do away with “pure” referral fees (those where the referring lawyer has no role in the case other than forwarding it to another lawyer). Now, referral fees in Texas must be based on either a “proportion of services” basis or a “joint responsibility” basis.

In a “proportion of services” situation, each lawyer performs substantial services on behalf of the client with respect to a particular legal matter. Each lawyer who participates in the division of the fee is required to perform services beyond simply being hired by the client and forwarding the case to another lawyer. There must be a “reasonable correlation” between services performed and the sharing of the fee between the referring lawyer and the handling lawyer.

In a “joint responsibility” situation, the referring lawyer assumes an ethical and perhaps financial responsibility for the representation. The referring lawyer must make a reasonable investigation into the client’s legal matter and refer the matter to a lawyer reasonably believed to be competent to handle it. The referring lawyer must monitor the matter throughout the representation, respond to client questions and keep the client informed of progress in the case, and assist the handling lawyer when necessary. “Joint responsibility” does not mean joint control, and the referring lawyer is not required to attend deposition or hearings or trial, or be copied on all pleadings and correspondence.

Importantly, attorneys must obtain the client’s written consent in advance regarding the basis for the referral and the division of fees. The complete rules pertaining to referral fees in Texas may be found in Rule 104 of the Texas Disciplinary Rules of Professional Conduct.

In our practice handling personal injury and wrongful death cases on a contingent-fee basis, we find that referrals on a joint responsibility basis are most common and most akin to the traditional referral fee arrangements our referring attorneys have enjoyed over the years.

Tags: Dallas, fort worth, lawyers, personal injury, texas, wrongful death
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Judge wants wrongful death lawsuit dropped

Sharon Keller, the presiding judge of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (that’s the highest court in the state for criminal matters), has been named in a wrongful death lawsuit brought by the widow of Michael Wayne Richard. Richard was executed by the state on September 25th, after his lawyers tried unsuccessfully to file a last-minute appeal.

Keller contends that while she ordered the clerk’s office closed promptly at 5 p.m., state law clearly gave attorneys for death row inmate Michael Wayne Richard the power to contact judges on the court directly.

In papers filed in U.S. district court in Austin, Keller said Richard’s lawyers made no attempt to contact any judges on the court, even though three were available Sept. 25, the date of Richard’s execution in 1986 rape and murder of Marguerite Dixon, a Houston-area mother of seven. Keller said the clerk’s office was closed but the court’s building remained open.

Keller has garnered national attention for refusing to extend the court’s closing time prior to Richard’s execution, despite calls from Richard’s attorneys alerting her office they were experiencing computer problems and begging for extra time.

But in a motion to dismiss the suit, Keller said Texas law “provides a clear and unambiguous avenue for litigants to file documents with the (Court of Criminal Appeals) directly through any of its judges, so Richard did not need the CCA clerk’s office to stay open after hours to file his motion.” This is the first time Keller has claimed Richard’s lawyers could have directly gone to other judges on the court. She previously has tried to shift blame to Richard’s lawyers by saying they had all day to file.

Jim Harrington, director of the Texas Civil Rights Project, called Keller’s argument “shameless” and said “The rules of procedure in the law are supposed to serve justice and here you have a case where a guy’s life is at stake. It’s literally a matter of life or death and to fall back on some off-the-wall assertion, ‘go find a judge and file it that way’ is absurd. It makes a farce of the law.”

Story here.

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Changing Minds, One at a Time

A grown man sat in my office last week and cried like a baby. He had buried his wife and their first child less than a month earlier, both the victims of medical negligence. He came to us for help, wanting answers to why his young, healthy wife and his unborn son are now gone. He struggled to simply breathe. I thought of my wife and my two girls and I cried, too.

What do you say to a fellow like this? I confess that I was at a loss. Once we plaintiff lawyers could at least offer some comfort, inadequate as it was, that the civil justice system might provide answers and maybe, just maybe, some attempt at compensation. Now I had to explain that politicians in Austin have already decided what his loss is worth. I had to tell him that because his beautiful wife and the son that was to bear his name were the victims of medical negligence, the courthouse doors had been closed by the very people who represent his family in the Capitol.

Do you know what was most frustrating about this scenario? This man had not voted on Proposition 12 and had no idea of the damage that it did to the Texas Constitution. Before this tragedy befell him, he was one of the thousands of uninformed, misinformed or indifferent Texans who did not understand what HB 4 and Proposition 12 really did to their rights. He knows the truth now, unfortunately.

So what can we trial lawyers do about this ? Speak up. Educate others. Make sure your families, friends and clients are registered to vote and that they do vote. Get involved with your elected representatives. Let them know that we will hold them accountable for the promises made when they stripped away our rights. When you turn down cases that are no longer economical due to “tort reform,” make sure the potential clients know how to contact their senators and representatives in Austin, because odds are they voted in favor of HB 4.

And above all, keep fighting. Fight for victims. Fight for justice. Fight the negative stereotypes about trial lawyers and the “tort reform” propaganda. Fight for what is right and never, ever give up.

Tags: lawyers, proposition 12, tort reform, wrongful death
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