Don’t miss this Matt Tolson/Houston Chronicle investigative piece on the cooperation between several Houston plaintiff’s attorneys — including prominently John O’Quinn — regarding the prosecution of dubious silicosis and asbestos claims, sometimes based on the same plaintiff (see related earlier post here). This part of the article is particularly interesting:
From the moment in late 2004 that silicosis litigation began to unravel under [U.S. District Judge Janis] Jack’s scrutiny, [former O’Quinn partner Richard] Laminack has denied any wrongdoing. The O’Quinn firm did not do asbestos work, he said, so it should not be lumped in with other firms who recycled their old clients, a practice that Jack saw as presumptive evidence of fraud.
“We never, never represented an asbestos claimant and then turned around and retreaded it as a silicosis claimant,” Laminack told the judge, an assertion he repeated to the congressional committee. “We never, ever did that.”