Senate Democrats Strike Proposal to Limit Fees for Lawyers in Tobacco Case

Associated Press ^ | 5/8/03 | Associated Press Staff

[friendly]

Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., to insert his plan to limit the attorney fees into the bill when it went to the full Senate.

He is proposing a 200 percent tax on attorneys' fees when they are more than five times what is "reasonable" in a jurisdiction. The rate varies from place to place, but would reach upward of $2,500 an hour in large cities.

The attorneys who won a $246 billion settlement from the nation's big tobacco firms - and have received about $15 billion in legal fees - are the primary targets.

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(Owww.Overlawyered.com comments) Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., had proposed requiring plaintiff's lawyers in the tobacco affair to return to their state-government clients fees in excess of $2,500/hour or thereabouts. "But Democrats, led by Sen. John Breaux, D-La., and joined by Republican Sens. Orrin Hatch of Utah and Gordon Smith of Oregon, won a 12-8 vote to strike the language. Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., said that if Congress can change the terms of the tobacco settlement, there is nothing to stop it from telling every business in America to change the way they pay their executives." It's almost as if Sen. Kerry doesn't realize that 1) a host of federal laws already on the books, notably tax provisions, do purposely shape the way businesses compensate their executives; 2) lawyers, unlike business execs, practice under professional ethical codes which are supposed to bar them specifically from charging excessive fees; 3) lawyers who claim to represent the government (and thus the public) come under some of the most stringent ethical constraints of all.

[Reagan79]

Even more proof the whole tobacco fiasco was a ruse to line the pockets of compulsively greedy attornies. Of all the national problems we have, it's sad that Phillip Morris became another scapegoat.

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The tobacco con scam settlement has yielded seemingly endless billions to the lawyer industry, the greatest single act of theft in all of human history.

[The South Texan]

This tobacco non sense was nothing but a pure fraud.

If the liberals and the trail lawyers are so concerend about the health and safety of all, they should have sued the alcohol industry. Think about all the deaths (DWI's, suicides, murders), the health costs( addiction, cirrois of the liver,etc) and the social costs ( divorces, abuse).The daths caused by second hand smoke, etc probably are dwafed by those caused by alcohol.

But if they were to do this and win, where would Ted Kenedy, et.al find a cheap drink?

[friendly]

Alcohol and fast food are in the sights of the lawyer industry, seeking to increase the portion of the GNP under its evil thumb.