BEAUMONT, Texas (Legal Newsline) - Asbestos attorney Brent Coon recently filed a motion for sanctions in a petition brought by a Beaumont, Texas-area political commentator, calling the litigation frivolous.
On Jan. 30 Judge Donald Floyd, 172nd District Court, denied Philip Klein's verified third amended petition to take the depositions of Google and Coon, effectively ending the political commentator's three-year crusade to unmask two area bloggers.
Klein and his companies filed the petition against the Operation Kleinwatch and Sam the Eagle blogs, as well as Google and its subsidiary, blogger.com, on Aug. 26, 2009, in Jefferson County District Court.
He alleged Operation Kleinwatch and Sam the Eagle engaged in a pattern of libel and defamation, invasion of privacy and use of copyrighted images.
In his petitions, Klein claimed the bloggers defamed him by posting a parody of Dog Fancy magazine in which he was depicted under the caption, "Fat Men Who Love Their Dogs Too Much."
On May 6, Klein amended his petition to include Brent Coon as a respondent, seeking to take the trial lawyer's deposition concerning emails sent from his firm, Brent Coon & Associates, to the bloggers.
Court records show that Coon filed his motion for sanctions on March 26, asserting he was wrongfully sued through a Rule 202 petition, even after providing sworn testimony that he had no knowledge of any of the allegations contained in Klein's third amended petition.
Persons who file under Rule 202 anticipate the institution of a suit in which the person may be a party, and who desires to perpetuate or obtain the person's own testimony.
"The court clearly has the power to sanction petitioners and their counsel for signing and filing groundless, frivolous pleadings," Coon's motion states.
"Because petitioners' pleadings were both legally and factually groundless, and filed for the purposes of harassment, the court may order both petitioners and their counsel to pay Brent Coon $6,000 in attorney's fees and costs of court."
Coon is also seeking an additional $4,000 for his inconvenience and harassment, plus $257.45 in out-of-pocket expenses.
Klein responded to the motion on April 4, court records show.
He contends that the Rule 202 petition was neither frivolous nor a lawsuit.
"The 202 petition against Mr. Coon was not frivolous because Mr. Klein already told this court under oath that his office verified the location of emails that were sent to web sites defaming him was the Law Office of Brent Coon," the response states.
A hearing on the matter was slated to be held on April 5. However, the hearing was cancelled and has not been reset, a court official told the Southeast Texas Record.
Beaumont attorney John Morgan represents Klein.
Coon is represented by Beaumont attorney Jason Cansler.
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Friday, April 27, 2012
Association of Personal Injury Lawyers president vows to fight for asbestos fund Read more
Campaigning Karl Tonks today pledged to step up the fight for justice for industrial disease and accident victims in his role as national president of the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers. Tonks, 46, a partner and head of the employers’ liability department at the Manchester office of Fentons, formally succeeded Wilmslow-based David Bott at the helm of the 5,000-member organisation at its national conference in Newport last week. The married father-of-three, who lives in Chorlton, Manchester, is leading APIL’s campaign for a ‘fund of last resort’ to be set up for people who are sick and dying because of exposure to asbestos at work and are unable to trace their employer’s insurer. Sometimes they become ill many years after exposure, by which time insurance records have been lost or destroyed. The fund would be similar to the current system for people injured in collisions with uninsured motorists. Tonks said: “Dying people who are entitled to compensation to see them through their remaining days are denied it because the insurers of their negligent employers cannot be traced. It’s a dysfunctional system. “It’s obvious what needs to be done. We need a fund of last resort. We need an employers’ liability insurance bureau. The insurance industry needs to start paying what it should pay. “It has received the premiums with which to pay these claims. This is the industry’s corporate responsibility, and insurers individually and collectively need to step up, accept their responsibility for this scandal and put it right by agreeing to, and funding, an employers’ liability insurance bureau.” He also took a swipe at what he called ‘disingenuous’ insurers who ‘unnecessarily’ prolong the claims process. “We have a system where insurers can contest claims until the eve of an expensive trial, cause significant costs to be incurred unnecessarily, and make an innocently-injured person wait unreasonably long for the compensation he may desperately need. “Then the insurers say that the process is too expensive and takes too long. Then those same insurers pass those wasted costs on to their customers in the form of higher premiums.” Tonks said the rights of injured people are facing a further threat under government reforms to the no-win, no-fee system. The Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill, which is due to come into force in April next year, will see the recovery of success fees and associated costs abolished in no-win, no-fee conditional fee arrangements, so claimants will have to pay their lawyers’ success fees. Tonks said this would mean before-the-event insurance premiums would rise, leading to a two-tier compensation system as poorer claimants would be unable to afford the costs. “Injured people are facing an even tougher fight in trying to gain access to justice,” he said. “We continue to campaign against some of the provisions of the Bill.” Tonks trained at Irwin Mitchell then worked at Manchester firms Brian Thompson & Partners and Lawfords before joining Fentons in 2002. He became a partner the following year. He is head of training at Fentons, whose Manchester office is on Princess Street, and he is a member of the Forum of Complex Injury Solicitors. Tonks, who has been a member of APIL’s executive committee for five years, added: “It’s APIL’s job, and mine as the new president, to try to get the government to listen to the voice of injured people and not allow their needs to be forgotten in the push for efficiency and cost savings for businesses and the insurance industry.” His vice-president is St Johns Buildings barrister Matthew Stockwell, who is based in Liverpool.
Mesothelioma Victims Suffer Even More From Legal Wrangling by Corporate Defense Lawyers
Mesothelioma is a tragic disease on many levels – it’s tragic that the disease is entirely preventable and equally tragic that, once diagnosed, victims of the disease typically live less than two years. Mesothelioma is directly linked with exposure to asbestos, which often occurs on the job.
Many of the companies where workers were exposed to this deadly product were fully aware they were endangering their employees, but did nothing to prevent the exposure. The companies’ knowledge prompted workers sickened by asbestos to sue companies for negligence, with the first case filed in 1929.
Today, asbestos litigation is the longest running mass tort in U.S. history. Thousands of people have filed lawsuits against corporate defendants over mesothelioma, asbestosis or other asbestos-related diseases.
Mesothelioma lawsuits have been met with mixed reactions from the public, politicians and legal analysts alike. Some politicians, pressured by corporate lobbyists, are asking for caps to be placed on the damages awarded for asbestos claims. Others are siding with legal experts, claiming the victims deserve the maximum awards available to compensate them and their families for the suffering they have endured.
Regardless of the ongoing debate, mesothelioma lawsuits are a very real part of the justice system. In fact, according to an article in Sunday’s LA Times, “today, asbestos cases constitute the largest body of mass tort litigation in the U.S. And it’s a monstrosity.”
Mesothelioma Victim Dies During California Lawsuit Trial
Unfortunately, as the article points out, some of the lawyers defending the corporations may be prolonging litigation, leading to lower payouts after victims die. This is yet another tragedy of mesothelioma – the victims of the disease also become victims of legal wrangling.
In the article, author Michael Hiltzik points to a recent mesothelioma case where John Johnson of California, gravely ill with mesothelioma, was forced to sit through over 25 hours of depositions by the defendants’ legal team. When the initial 20 hours were depleted, the defendants requested an additional five hours, over the “plaintiffs strenuous objections,” according to the article. Johnson answered every question asked of him, all while his health rapidly declined. Johnson died one day after completing his testimony.
Upon Johnson’s death, any claims for pain and suffering, mental anguish and bodily disfigurement were voided, and his widow became eligible for medical bills, lost wages and loss of his companionship only. Hiltzik notes that adds up to less than 70% of the original claim.
Can Lawyers Be to Blame for the Plaintiff’s Death?
In the plaintiff’s Notice of Motion to keep the originally scheduled court date of March 26, and to establish Johnson’s widow as the new plaintiff, the lawyers wrote the “defense counsel’s time wasting & delay tactic and stalling strategy… accelerated decedent death to near the moment that their additional deposition concluded.”
The plaintiff’s legal team further claimed the“defendants wasted valuable time asking an abundance of questions that defendants already knew the answer to because the information was provided in medical records of plaintiff, responses to standard interrogatories, and his direct testimony and included delaying questions.”
Did the legal system contribute in some measure to Johnson’s death? Johnson’s lawyers, doctor and widow think so.
“We tried to keep faith with the law, because that’s what you had to do to get justice for his excruciating pain. And that’s what accelerated his death. I don’t understand how the justice system can work like that,” said Johnson’s wife to Hiltzik, as quoted in the article.
“You can tell when a lawyer is smelling death — they were pounding him with the same questions over and over again,” said Robert B. Cameron of UCLA Medical School and Johnson’s thoracic surgeon.
However, the defendants’ lawyers disagree.
“Anybody who gets sued for millions or tens of millions of dollars has the right to defend themselves,” says Robert E. Thackston, a Dallas product liability lawyer whose firm represents several defendants in the Johnson case. “To say they’re not entitled to go ask these questions because the guy is sick is really not fair.”
Legal Teams Will Fight for the Victims
Each state’s laws are different. Johnson’s case, tried in California, may be different from cases heard in other states. For that reason, it is critical to secure an experienced mesothelioma lawyer.
Law firms such as Belluck & Fox, a New York law firm that represents victims of asbestos disease and mesothelioma throughout New York State, make every effort to move mesothelioma victim’s cases along as quickly as possible. Those lawyers realize that for anyone diagnosed with mesothelioma or lung cancer, time is short and they will petition the courts to resolve the case within one year – or shorter if the patient’s health is fragile.
Belluck & Fox has won several major personal injury and wrongful death lawsuits involving injuries from asbestos exposure. In August, the firm secured two separate mesothelioma verdicts in the Supreme Court of New York, New York County, which resulted in more than $51 million in combined damages.
Many of the companies where workers were exposed to this deadly product were fully aware they were endangering their employees, but did nothing to prevent the exposure. The companies’ knowledge prompted workers sickened by asbestos to sue companies for negligence, with the first case filed in 1929.
Today, asbestos litigation is the longest running mass tort in U.S. history. Thousands of people have filed lawsuits against corporate defendants over mesothelioma, asbestosis or other asbestos-related diseases.
Mesothelioma lawsuits have been met with mixed reactions from the public, politicians and legal analysts alike. Some politicians, pressured by corporate lobbyists, are asking for caps to be placed on the damages awarded for asbestos claims. Others are siding with legal experts, claiming the victims deserve the maximum awards available to compensate them and their families for the suffering they have endured.
Regardless of the ongoing debate, mesothelioma lawsuits are a very real part of the justice system. In fact, according to an article in Sunday’s LA Times, “today, asbestos cases constitute the largest body of mass tort litigation in the U.S. And it’s a monstrosity.”
Mesothelioma Victim Dies During California Lawsuit Trial
Unfortunately, as the article points out, some of the lawyers defending the corporations may be prolonging litigation, leading to lower payouts after victims die. This is yet another tragedy of mesothelioma – the victims of the disease also become victims of legal wrangling.
In the article, author Michael Hiltzik points to a recent mesothelioma case where John Johnson of California, gravely ill with mesothelioma, was forced to sit through over 25 hours of depositions by the defendants’ legal team. When the initial 20 hours were depleted, the defendants requested an additional five hours, over the “plaintiffs strenuous objections,” according to the article. Johnson answered every question asked of him, all while his health rapidly declined. Johnson died one day after completing his testimony.
Upon Johnson’s death, any claims for pain and suffering, mental anguish and bodily disfigurement were voided, and his widow became eligible for medical bills, lost wages and loss of his companionship only. Hiltzik notes that adds up to less than 70% of the original claim.
Can Lawyers Be to Blame for the Plaintiff’s Death?
In the plaintiff’s Notice of Motion to keep the originally scheduled court date of March 26, and to establish Johnson’s widow as the new plaintiff, the lawyers wrote the “defense counsel’s time wasting & delay tactic and stalling strategy… accelerated decedent death to near the moment that their additional deposition concluded.”
The plaintiff’s legal team further claimed the“defendants wasted valuable time asking an abundance of questions that defendants already knew the answer to because the information was provided in medical records of plaintiff, responses to standard interrogatories, and his direct testimony and included delaying questions.”
Did the legal system contribute in some measure to Johnson’s death? Johnson’s lawyers, doctor and widow think so.
“We tried to keep faith with the law, because that’s what you had to do to get justice for his excruciating pain. And that’s what accelerated his death. I don’t understand how the justice system can work like that,” said Johnson’s wife to Hiltzik, as quoted in the article.
“You can tell when a lawyer is smelling death — they were pounding him with the same questions over and over again,” said Robert B. Cameron of UCLA Medical School and Johnson’s thoracic surgeon.
However, the defendants’ lawyers disagree.
“Anybody who gets sued for millions or tens of millions of dollars has the right to defend themselves,” says Robert E. Thackston, a Dallas product liability lawyer whose firm represents several defendants in the Johnson case. “To say they’re not entitled to go ask these questions because the guy is sick is really not fair.”
Legal Teams Will Fight for the Victims
Each state’s laws are different. Johnson’s case, tried in California, may be different from cases heard in other states. For that reason, it is critical to secure an experienced mesothelioma lawyer.
Law firms such as Belluck & Fox, a New York law firm that represents victims of asbestos disease and mesothelioma throughout New York State, make every effort to move mesothelioma victim’s cases along as quickly as possible. Those lawyers realize that for anyone diagnosed with mesothelioma or lung cancer, time is short and they will petition the courts to resolve the case within one year – or shorter if the patient’s health is fragile.
Belluck & Fox has won several major personal injury and wrongful death lawsuits involving injuries from asbestos exposure. In August, the firm secured two separate mesothelioma verdicts in the Supreme Court of New York, New York County, which resulted in more than $51 million in combined damages.
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