Monthly Archives: February 2005

On Philip Johnson

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Wall Street Journal architecture critic Ada Louise Huxtable writes this interesting op-ed ($) on the late Philip Johnson‘s career, in which she makes this interesting observation:

His fame made him the “signature architect” for corporate headquarters and commercial developers. The AT&T Building’s much-publicized “Chippendale” top put him on the cover of Time magazine, cradling the model in his arms. But his nimble intelligence and excellent eye failed to produce more than a pictorial pastiche that was flat and one-dimensional or a shallow sendup of the past. What was meant to be monumental was merely big and flaccid.
Whatever Philip Johnson’s legacy turns out to be, it will not rest on his buildings. His dedication to the art that was central to his existence, his proselytizing zeal for new work that pushes concept and practice beyond existing limits, his driving belief in architecture as the defining art of the present and the past, did much to re-establish a sense of the importance of the way we build in an age that worships the beauty of the bottom line. In his own way, perhaps he did change the world.

Class action bill nears Congressional approval

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New class lawsuit legislation that will facilitate removal of most class actions from state to federal courts moved closer to Congressional approval yesterday as the Senate prepared to approve it. The House of Representatives has already committed to ratifying the bill so long as the Senate does not materially amend the legislation, and President Bush has already publicly stated that he will sign the legislation into law.
Under the legislation, most large class actions with aggregate claims of more than $5 million would be subject to removal to federal court, where most defense attorneys prefer defending class action cases.
A few exemptions remain that would allow primarily local controversies to remain in state court, such as cases in which at least two-thirds of the class members are from the state of the state court in which the class action is filed. A similar exemption exists for cases involving injuries that occurred primarily in one state.
The theory behind the legislation is to prevent class action plaintiffs’ lawyers from forum shopping class actions in the state courts to find the most “damages friendly” venue for such cases. However, class action plaintiffs’ lawyers have forum shopped class actions in federal courts for years, so the main impact of the legislation is simply to reduce the supply of available courts in which plaintiffs’ lawyers can initiate a such a lawsuit.
The rest of the political debate regarding the bill is largely partisan drivel.

Updating the Yukos case — Yukos shareholder sues Russian Government

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Group Menatep Ltd. is the offshore entity under which jailed Russian billionaire Mikhail Khodorkovsky and several of his associates hold the controlling stake in Russian oil company and American debtor-in-possession OAO Yukos. Here are the previous posts on the fascinating Yukos case.
Yesterday, Group Menatep asserted a tidy $28.3 billion damage claim against the Russian government for its handling of Yukos under the European Energy Charter Treaty, a 1994 treaty that, among other things, protects investors against unfair treatment and expropriation of assets without fair compensation.
This new litigation front arises just a week before U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Letitia Clark in Houston is scheduled to hear arguments on a motion to dismiss Yukos’ chapter 11 case in Houston. The availability of another legal forum in which Yukos’ owners can assert their claim for compensation from the Russian government may actually work to undermine Yukos’ opposition to dismissal of its chapter 11 case in the American civil justice system.

News flash: Carly Fiorina steps down at HP

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Carly Fiorina has stepped down as Hewlett-Packard‘s chairman and chief executive officer, effective immediately.
Here’s why.
Here are previous posts on HP’s saga over the past year.
By the way, HP shares are surging in early trading.

GM’s big problem

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Alan Murray’s column today in the Wall Street Journal ($) reports on the subject of General Motors CEO Rick Wagoner‘s speech tomorrow to the Chicago Economic Club.
What do you think it would be? International trade barriers? GM’s bonds being rated at junk levels? Declining GM profits?
None of the above.

Instead, [Mr. Wagoner will] focus on fixing the U.S. health-care system.
[Mr. Wagoner] runs not only the world’s largest auto maker (a position threatened by Toyota Motor), but also the nation’s largest private health-care purchaser (a position threatened by no one.) He’s responsible for the health of some 1.1 million people, most of them retirees and their families, and paid $5.2 billion last year for the privilege. The cost of health care now adds more than $1,500 to every vehicle sold, and is rising at double-digit rates. . . To cure what ails General Motors, he has to cure what ails America: a very sick health-care system.

Mr. Murray then frames the issue nicely:

The U.S. spends a fortune on health care — 15% of its total output, compared with 10% in Germany and 8% in Japan. But it gets a lousy return on that money. Forty-five million Americans lack health insurance. . .
Curing the problem won’t be easy — which may be why the White House has put it on a back burner. . . fixing health care ultimately is more important to the nation’s future than overhauling Social Security, rewriting the tax code or cutting discretionary spending. But Mr. Bush wrestled with health care in his first term, and has decided to give these other issues top billing in his second. That means there’s little chance he’ll have the time or energy to give serious attention to health care again before leaving office.
If costs continue to rise at their current pace, however, you can expect Mr. Wagoner and his business buddies to join forces with beleaguered state governors and insist that health care become the issue of the 2008 presidential campaign.

Meanwhile, Harvard Law and former University of Texas law professor Elizabeth Warren pens this Washington Post op-ed today in which she addresses the recent Harvard study that found that half of the nearly 1,800 study participants interviewed admitted that medical costs had been the primary cause of their bankruptcy filing. As Professor Warren notes:

The problem is not in the bankruptcy laws. The problem is in the health care finance system and in chronic debates about reforming it. The Harvard study shows:
? Health insurance isn’t an on-off switch, giving full protection to everyone who has it. There is real coverage and there is faux coverage. Policies that can be canceled when you need them most are often useless. So is bare-bones coverage like the Utah Medicaid program pioneered by new Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt; it pays for primary care visits but not specialists or hospital care. We need to talk about quality, durable coverage, not just about how to get more names listed on nearly-useless insurance policies.
? The link between jobs and health insurance is strained beyond the breaking point. A harsh fact of life in America is that illness leads to job loss, and that can mean a double kick when people lose their insurance. Promising them high-priced coverage through COBRA is meaningless if they can’t afford to pay. Comprehensive health insurance is the only real solution, not just for the poor but for middle-class Americans as well.
Without better coverage, millions more Americans will be hit by medical bankruptcy over the next decade. It will not be limited to the poorly educated, the barely employed or the uninsured. The people financially devastated by a serious illness are at the heart of the middle class.

As noted in this post on the funding crisis in Medicaid, the failure to address the true crisis in this country — i.e., the broken down system of financing health care — is not only a daunting failure of the Bush Administration and the Republican Party, but a huge political opportunity for the Democratic Party.
If the Dems can resist their normal temptation to address the problem through nationalizing the entire health care finance system, then the Democrats could establish a political foothold that could cut across normal party lines and provide the party with the basis for a comeback in the 2006 and 2008 elections.

Mayor White and SAFEClear reach a milestone

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Other Houston blogs such as blogHouston.net and Lone Star Times have been done a good job of covering the local political controversy that has arisen over Mayor White‘s rather clumsy implementation of the SAFEClear program for towing cars from Houston area freeways.
However, as a politician, you know you have really “screwed the pooch” when the Wall Street Journal ($) runs a front page article on the political storms caused by your pet program.
Welcome to the big leagues, Mayor White.

David Gockley moves on to San Francisco

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David Gockley — without question the most successful executive in Houston’s arts community over the past generation — has resigned as general director of Houston Grand Opera to accept the same position with the San Francisco Opera.
After the HGO Board hired the youthful Mr. Gockley 33 years ago to replace HGO’s founder Walter Herbert, Mr. Gockley oversaw the transition of HGO from a sleepy regional company to one of the leading Opera companies in the United States. Under Mr. Gockley’s diretion, HGO has become particularly well-known for its productions of new works for the American stage, and Mr. Gockley brought in 33 world premieres. Examples of noteworthy works that were first performed by HGO are “Nixon in China” by John Adams and “A Quiet Place” by Leonard Bernstein.
Under Mr. Gockley?s leadership, HGO won a Tony, two Grammy and two Emmy awards, conducts frequent international tours, and is heard around the world each year through international radio broadcasts on three continents. Mr. Gockley was also a superb innovator as he introduced such concepts as supertitles, outdoor simulcasts, and OperaVision, which are screens that bring close-ups of the stage and orchestra to people in the upper reaches of the theater.
The main attraction to the director’s post with the San Francisco Opera is that the company is bigger and much older than HGO. SFO was chartered in 1923, while HGO began in 1955. Moreover, SFO’s budget is about $55 million, which is twice the size of HGO’s budget. SFO’s season includes 9 productions and 80 performances compared with HGO’s 7 productions and 55 main-stage performances.
Nevertheless, Mr. Gockley will not be facing a bowl of cherries in taking on the SFO job. SFO is undercapitalized, and its current endowment is only about a third of what it should be given SFO’s budget. Moreover, in San Francisco, Mr. Gockley will face huge transportation problems in attracting Bay Area opera fans into downtown San Francisco; those problems simply do not exist in the much less densely populated Houston metro area. Finally, SFO is heavily unionized, which makes operations much more expensive and complicated. Mr. Gockley did not face any meaningful union problems during his entire 33 year stint with HGO.
No word yet on who will replace Mr. Gockley, who will be the quintessential tough act to follow. Nevertheless, given HGO’s stature in the opera world, the HGO should have an impressive list of candidates. Stay tuned.

Ron Bliss, RIP

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Ronald G. Bliss, a highly-regarded Intellectual Property lawyer in Houston over the past two decades and a true legend in Houston legal circles, died Tuesday in Houston after a six year battle with cancer. Ron was 61 at the time of his death.
Ron headed Fulbright & Jaworski‘s IP section during a time of explosive growth in that area from the mid-1980’s until he became ill with cancer in the late 1990’s. Ron specialized in patent, trademark, copyright, and trade secret lawsuits, but he also was an expert in litigation matters over franchises and franchise assets. Most recently, Ron had become a first rate mediator of intellectual property disputes.
Although well known for his legal talent, Ron was legendary in Houston legal and business circles for being a decorated Vietnam War fighter pilot who spent over six years in the “Heartbreak Hotel,” a particularly nasty part of the “Hanoi Hilton” POW camp in North Vietnam. Ron was tortured many times during that experience, which gave him a particularly interesting perspective on difficult legal matters. Listening to his stories about the torture sessions was a riveting experience in and of itself, which is one of the reasons that Ron was a big part of the 2000 documentary Return with Honor.
Ron was in captivity for 2,374 days — as he would specify in talking about the experience — and he was shackled in leg chains for almost the entire time. According to Ron, the worst torture method was one called the “Vietnamese Rope Trick,” in which the North Vietnamese guards would place him face down with his wrists behind him on his back. The guards would then tie Ron’s arms with rope, run a bamboo pole through the ropes, and then apply increasing amounts of pressure on the pole. That force, in turn, would place tremendous pressure on his wrists, arms, elbows and shoulders. As Ron noted to me and a group of lawyers on one occasion, the physical abuse “did not help my golf game, but it is a good excuse for getting more strokes on the first tee.”
Ron got on with life upon his return to the United States in 1973 and never dwelled on the horrifying experience, although he would admit in conversation that he would have enjoyed a few rounds with the North Vietnamese guards who tortured him. As one would expect, Ron was a highly decorated veteran. Among his medals were two Silver Stars, a Distinguished Flying Cross, two Purple Hearts and the POW Medal. He was also inducted into the Texas Aviation Hall of Fame in 2000.
A memorial service for this remarkable Houstonian will be held at 1 p.m. Friday at St. Luke’s United Methodist Church, 3471 Westheimer.

Sound advice from one of Houston’s best trial lawyers

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Knox Nunnally is a well-known and highly regarded trial lawyer at Vinson & Elkins in Houston. Knox has been writing a series for the Texas Lawyer on tips for trial lawyers, and the latest segment in the series provides a number of common sense tips. Knox makes two particularly insightful points:

[Get] to know all of the people associated with the court at the courthouse. This means you need to know, on a personal level, the clerk of the court, This means you need to know, on a personal level, the clerk of the court, the bailiff, the court reporter and whoever else assists with the trial. . . . during a trial any one of those court personnel could have some contact with the jury. It is always to your advantage if court personnel feel positively about you, because you never know when some gratuitous comment could be made that either advances or sinks your case. These folks also usually prove to be the best shadow jury I have ever known concerning who?s winning and who?s losing during the course of a trial.

Perhaps even more important is the following point, which unfortunately is contrary to the adversarial approach to litigation that has become increasingly common in recent years:

One of the most important tips concerns getting along with opposing counsel. Years of trial combat taught me it is far better to try to get along with the other side rather than allowing everything to become a heated battle. It seems today that so many of our relationships with opposing counsel deteriorate more quickly; cases become almost exclusively a motion practice, with personal recriminations creeping into the pleadings and arguments. I remember a case I tried to a jury verdict (and lost) with Ronald Krist, a truly splendid lawyer. It was a case we fully lost) with Ronald Krist, a truly splendid lawyer. It was a case we fully prepared, took to trial and ultimately settled after the verdict without needing one hearing before the court on any kind of dispute. That is a rare occurrence today. The trial business is tough enough without making it tougher with scorched-earth tactics. It is also true that what goes around, comes around.

Read the entire article. Definite clear thinking from a first rate (and first class) lawyer. Hat tip to the Illinois Trial Practice Weblog for the link to Knox’s article.

The Trans-Texas Corridor

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This Washington Post article examines the political implications of the Trans-Texas Corridor, which is the biggest highway project since the Interstate Highway project of the 1950s. The $184 billion, 50-year plan provides for building 4,000 miles of six high speed toll lanes for cars and trucks, six rail lines, and easements that would provide space for petroleum, natural gas and water pipelines, and electric, broadband and other telecommunications lines.