didiand
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Interesting article from Cincinnati Post - 2007/02/20 17:45
Tuesday, September 12, 2006
Fen-phen attorneys can expect pointed questions in depositions
By Paul A. Long
Post staff reporter
Depositions are to begin today in a Boone County, Ky., case filed by plaintiffs against the attorneys who represented them in a lawsuit against makers of the diet drug fen-phen.
Suspended Lexington attorney Shirley Cunningham, one of three lawyers whose conduct is being challenged, will be asked to answer what are likely to be pointed questions about his role in distribution of a $200 million settlement he and his colleagues won for their clients.
The private hearing will be in the law offices of Lexington attorney Angela Ford, whose lawsuit over the settlement has sent shockwaves through the Kentucky legal community.
It's already resulted in the reprimand and resignation of former Boone Circuit Judge Jay Bamberger from the senior judge program; the suspension of Cunningham and two other prominent central Kentucky attorneys, William Gallion of Lexington and Melbourne Mills Jr. of Versailles; and the freezing of the attorneys' fees from the fen-phen suit, which one judge determined were so excessive they were a breach of the attorneys' fiduciary duties to their clients.
The fen-phen drug makers agreed to the $200 million settlement to resolve claims of various health problems the drugs caused. Many plaintiffs in that suit, unhappy with awards they received, then hired Ford, who discovered that more than $100 million of the settlement had gone to pay attorneys' fees and to set up a charitable organization called the Kentucky Fund for Healthy Loving. It paid out more to its officers - including the three attorneys and Bamberger - than it did to charities.
Senior Judge William Wehr said Cunningham, Gallion and Mills breached their duties to the clients and ordered them to surrender the excess payments. A lawyer for the Kentucky Bar Association called the trio's actions "absolute, unbridled greed"
Ford is asking that all the money the lawyers made be turned over to her clients. On Monday, she asked Wehr to transfer the approximately $23 million in the Kentucky Fund - which Wehr already has ordered to be dissolved - to a settlement fund for her clients.
She also asked Wehr to order the attorneys to turn over more of their financial and legal records - in a process called discovery - saying they were refusing to cooperate with her subpoenas and his court orders.
But Bill Johnson, the lawyer for the three attorneys, said Ford was asking for information she wasn't entitled to. And Frank Benton, who represents Cincinnati attorney Stan Chesley - who also is being sued for his work on the case - said Ford already has most of the information she is asking for.
Ford said that's not true.
During a hearing Monday in Boone Circuit Court, attorneys sniped at each other over documents and other evidence in the case, scheduling and professional courtesy. Ford called an attempt to mediate the case "a complete waste of time."
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