This Washington Post article provides a fine report on the various memorial services for Lloyd Cutler, the longtime Washington attorney and insider who died this past Sunday. Mr. Cutler served as an official and unoffical adviser to most of the Presidents over the past generation.
Mr. Cutler was a Democrat, but he was widely respected by both sides of the political aisle for his conscience, which is not always considered an asset in the hard-knuckled backrooms of Washington. For example, Mr. Cutler opposed the Democratic Party’s successful effort to thwart conservative Judge Robert Bork’s nomination to the Supreme Court in 1987 and often defended the automobile industry in legal proceedings that consumer activist Ralph Nadar pursued over safety issues. Over the past year, Mr. Cutler served on President Bush’s commission that investigated intelligence failures during the run-up to the war in Iraq.
As with Texan Robert Strauss, Mr. Cutler served our country selflessly while working quietly in the background to resolve many important issues of our time. He exemplified what a lawyer should aspire to be.

It’s a pretty good sign that a trial has just not gone well for the defendant when the defendant takes solace in the fact that the punitive damage award is “only” $850 million.
The same Florida state court jury that awarded Ronald Perelman $604.3 million in actual damages against Morgan Stanley earlier in the week awarded the Revlon, Inc. chairman $850 million against Morgan in punitive damages for defrauding the financier in connection with the 1998 sale of a large interest in Coleman, Inc. to Morgan’s client, Sunbeam Corp. Mr. Perelman had been seeking $1.8 in punies.
Thus, Morgan Stanley is facing a $1.454 billion jury verdict. If the trial court upholds the jury verdict, then Morgan is facing a difficult appeal, which will almost certainly revolve around the trial court judge’s pre-trial sanction order against Morgan Stanley that effectively prevented Morgan from defending itself during trial on the merits of Mr. Perelman’s fraud claims. Although that sanction order was harsh, most jurisdictions review such orders on an abuse of discretion standard. That is not an easy standard to overcome on appeal, even when the result is a $1.454 billion jury verdict.

In an interesting public relations and legal strategy, BP PLC admitted liability for its negligence in connection with the March 23rd explosion at its Texas City facility that killed 15 contract workers and injured more than 170 others. Here is the Houston Chronicle’s exhaustive coverage of the explosion, and here is the BP report and notes from its press briefing that were published on BP’s website.
In a detailed preliminary report on the blast, BP concluded that its employees committed “surprising and deeply disturbing” mistakes that led to the blast. The accident was only the latest in a series of serious safety and compliance lapses in BP’s North American operations. Not only do the report’s findings suggest that BP expects regulators to assess fines once their own investigations are complete, but they essentially turn the wrongful death and personal injury lawsuits resulting from the blast into a trial on the amount of damages that BP will have to pay. This Wall Street Journal ($) article quoted John Eddie Williams Jr., one of Houston’s best personal injury trial lawyers, as saying the following:

“My client’s husband trusted BP with his life, and now she’s supposed to trust that BP will fully compensate her for his death?”

BP’s report blames its supervisors and employees for making a series of operational errors and oversight lapses that caused the blast at the isomerization unit of the refinery. The explosion occurred during a start-up procedure after the unit had been taken off-line for routine maintenance when operators overfilled and overheated a processing tower at the unit that housed hydrocarbon liquid and vapor. The liquid and vapor mix was overpressurized and flooded into an adjacent stack before escaping into the atmosphere around the unit. The vapor cloud was then ignited by a still-unknown source.
“The failure of [the isomerization unit’s] managers to provide appropriate leadership and the failure of hourly workers to follow written procedures are among the root causes of this incident,” BP admitted in it’s press statement. BP is taking disciplinary action against an unspecified number of employees responsible for running the isomerization unit on the day before and the day of the blast, and has already replaced the plant’s manager. BP has also began a wide-ranging review of plant procedures.
Although its effectiveness is still uncertain at this point, BP’s strategy in quickly investigating the explosion and in admitting liability may be the best way to put the negative publicity from the blast behind it. BP realizes that the regulatory fines and damages it will have to pay on wrongful death and personal injury claims arising from the blast will be substantial, but even those amounts will be only a small fraction of BP’s net worth. The greater risk for the company is that prolonged publicity and uncertainty from the investigations would negatively affect the company’s stock price. Yesterday’s admission may be BP’s way of trying to minimize that risk.

Checking again on Ford Motor Company’s troubles in Crystal City, this Chronicle article reports on the hearing in regard to Ford’s motion to set aside the $28 million jury verdict that a jury rendered against Ford in a wrongful death lawsuit earlier this year. Ford’s motion is based on a variety of grounds, including the following information that was confirmed during the hearing about the original jury foreman in the trial:

[The original jury foreman] acknowledged on the stand she and [the plaintiff’s lawyer] were romantically involved, that she had helped him sign up clients for this case and had worked for him as a jury consultant in other cases.
But, she said, those factors did not affect her ability to be fair as a juror in the case.

Yeah, right. And if you believe that, I’ve got some swamp property near Beaumont that will be a nice weekend getaway spot for you and your family.
Incredibly, the girlfriend’s relationship with the plaintiff’s lawyer was not her only connection with the case:

In addition to her relationship with [the plaintiff’s lawyer], [the girlfriend’s] sons from a previous marriage were first cousins to one of the deceased victims.

What has not been reported is how the girlfriend was able to hide her relationship with the plaintiff’s lawyer from Ford’s attorneys during the voir dire (i.e., questioning) of the jurors before trial. Likewise, there has been no report yet on the rationalization of the plaintiff’s attorney as to why he did not disclose his relationship with the girlfriend before she was placed on the jury. Depending on the answers to those questions, both the girlfriend and the plaintiff’s lawyer may have much bigger legal problems than having a $28 million verdict set aside.
Crystal City is about 90 miles southwest of San Antonio near the Texas-Mexico border. Here is a KSAT.com story on the proceedings.