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THE SECOND (WORST) CITY
The legal climate has improved
downstate, but a storm
is brewing in the Windy City.
In 2005, Cook County made the American Tort Reform Association’s
list of the nation’s worst Judicial Hellholes for the first time,
debuting all the way up at Number Two.[147] The Chicagoland
jurisdiction’s rising share of Illinois’ litigation—its
share of state claims skyrocketed from 47 to 64 percent from 1994 through
2003—is troubling, particularly when you consider that Cook County’s
share of Illinois’ population dropped slightly over the same period.[148]
 Cook County’s emergence as Trial Lawyers, Inc.’s new venue
of choice can in part be traced to the housecleaning that’s been
going on downstate. After Judge Daniel Stack took over Madison County’s
asbestos docket from Nicholas Byron in 2004 and began dismissing out-of-state
claims, plaintiffs’ lawyers began filing cases in Cook County in
greater numbers. The Chicago asbestos firm Cooney and Conway, for example—which
boasts of handling 90 percent of northern Illinois’ mesothelioma
cases—was more than eager to accommodate any displaced litigants.[149]
In 2004, Cook County asbestos
filings rose 40 percent, to 236, even as national filings dropped considerably.[150]
And this year, the firm’s John Cooney netted two multibillion-dollar
asbestos settlements with USG Corporation and Ohio-based Owens Corning.[151]
Cook County is also one of the trial bar’s favorite medical-malpractice
venues. Med-mal verdicts there averaged over $1 million as recently as
1998, but they have since escalated to $4.45 million.[152]
Trial Lawyers, Inc.’s big player in the med-mal field in Chicago
is Power Rogers & Smith; founding partner Larry Rogers won a recent
$55 million medical-malpractice verdict, the state’s largest in the
last
decade,[153] and name partner Todd Smith recently
negotiated med-mal settlements of $17.25 and $20 million.[154]
Each of these lawyers is also a power player in Trial Lawyers, Inc.’s
government- and public-relations operations: Rogers is a past president
of the Illinois Trial Lawyers Association, and Smith is the immediate
past president of the Association of Trial Lawyers of America—or
the “American Association for Justice,” as the organization
sunnily rebranded itself this summer.[155]
Cook County judges abuse procedure in much the same way that their Madison
and St. Clair County colleagues once did, welcoming far-flung cases with
no real local contacts.[156] Even when such venue
abuses are reversed on appeal, defendants cough up a lot of money litigating
the claims. Cook County’s judges also routinely make questionable
evidentiary decisions that prejudice defendants, such as excluding videotaped
testimony showing purportedly injured plaintiffs engaged in strenuous
activity—while accepting videotape evidence that disadvantages the
defense.[157]
Unfortunately, reforming Chicago’s judiciary is like catching lightning
in a bottle. A simple change in one judge can make a big difference in
Madison or St. Clair County, but to clean up Cook County requires a massive
effort. Statewide reforms—from legislative action on medical malpractice
to shifts in personnel and opinion on the state supreme court—offer
some hope, but much work remains. Let’s hope that Cook County can
get its act together and elect judges with respect for the rule of law.
Chicago may be proud of its position as America’s Second City, but
placing second on the Judicial Hellholes list is a far less enviable distinction.
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147. See id. at 7.
148. See Litigation Imbalance, supra note 22, at 9.
149. Cooney & Conway Home Page, http://www.cooneyconway.com
(last visited Oct. 5, 2006).
150. See American Tort Reform Foundation, supra note 20,
at 16; Davies, supra note 3.
151. See David Mitchell, $5.2 Billion Owens Corning Asbestos
Trust, Chi. Daily Ll. Bull., May 10, 2006, at 1; David Mitchell, $4
Billion Asbestos Accord Set, Chi. Daily Ll. Bull.., Jan. 30, 2006,
at 1.
152. See Litigation Crisis, supra note 56, at 3.
153. Power Rogers & Smith, Chicago Medical Malpractice Verdicts
& Settlements, http://www.prslaw.com/success.php?id=4
(last visited Oct. 5, 2006).
154. Power Rogers & Smith, Todd A. Smith, http://www.prslaw.com/attorneys_detail.php?id=9
(last visited Oct. 5, 2006).
155. Power Rogers & Smith, Larry R. Rogers, Sr., http://www.prslaw.com/attorneys_detail.php?id=8
(last visited Oct. 5, 2006); Todd A. Smith, supra note 154.
156. See American Tort Reform Fundation, supra note 20,
at 16-17 (listing examples of cases that Cook County trial courts have
taken and that have been later reversed because of the limited number
of local contacts).
157. See id. at 17.
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