All About Erin

Heroine of screen and courtroom Erin Brockovich deserves a prize, all right. But not for what you think.

Walter Olson from the October 2000 issue

(Page 2 of 2)

Not long after the case was settled, generating $133 million in lawyers’ fees, Girardi and Lack just happened to invite the three Hinkley case arbitrators to join a week-long Mediterranean cruise for 90 guests, including 11 public and private judges, on a chartered ship. "One judge," reports Sharp, "called it ‘absolutely incredible.’" A luxury yacht floated on azure waters; tuxedoed butlers balanced silver trays of free champagne; young bikini-clad ladies frolicked on the sun-splashed deck, according to retired Judge [William] Schoettler, who was a guest. As another bare-chested judge remarked at the time: ‘This gives decadence a bad name.’"

Naturally, this was all done for strictly educational purposes, under the aegis of a group Girardi and Lack ran called the Foundation for the Enrichment of the Law. Girardi told the Los Angeles Times that the trip included "an extensive professional program," which is supposed to make it OK under ethical rules, but Sharp reports that "retired judge Schoettler can’t recall anyone he knew actually attending a lecture." Eventually, the judges agreed to pay their expenses for the trip; the outcry over the cruise helped spur a California Supreme Court inquiry into the arbitration.

Not a frame of this remarkable epilogue to the case, of course, made it into the movie Erin Brockovich. And the movie was equally misleading, it seems, in depicting a grateful Hinkley populace winning big. In the real world many of the Hinkley clients feel they got the shaft from Brockovich’s firm of Masry & Vititoe, and are now proceeding to sue them. Specifically:

• Of the $333 million settlement paid by PG&E, the lawyers kept a handsome 40 percent ($133 million) share, plus another $10 million to cover expenses. The clients say they were short on detail to back up the latter number. Worse, they say Masry, Brockovich, et al. held onto their money for six months after the settlement, a delay that appeared highly irregular to the experts Sharp checked with, while not paying interest or even returning their phone calls (the lawyers say the payments did include interest). Some with large awards also got steered toward certain financial advisers, among them Ed Masry’s son Louis.M

• When the payouts eventually came, many clients found the division of spoils mysterious, arbitrary, or worse. Divided among the 650 plaintiffs, the announced $196 million would provide about $300,000 per client. But an outside lawyer who interviewed 81 of the plaintiffs was told they received an average of $152,000, and Sharp reports that many long-term residents with presumably documented medical ailments got payments of $50,000 or $60,000. The allocation among clients was kept secret, which means they couldn’t get an accounting of who received what–gotta protect the privacy of the other plaintiffs, right?

  Moreover, writes Sharp, "there was no mention of the criteria, formula or method by which the money would be divided," other than a statement that the amounts would be based on clients’ medical records. Yet some residents say their medical records were never solicited. One elderly, ailing resident "blew up at one of the attorneys, who didn’t like his attitude," according to a fellow townsman, and "got a real bad deal," allotted in the end only $25,000. "Fairly or not," writes Sharp, "some residents say they saw a pattern in the distribution method. ‘If you were buddies with Ed and Erin, you got a lot of money,’ said [client Carol] Smith. ‘Otherwise, forget it.’"

• Many clients (as well as members of the press) say they were unable to keep track of the case’s progress as it moved through arbitration. "We had no idea what was going on and weren’t allowed to watch," one plaintiff told Sharp. With help from the plaintiffs’ lawyers, Universal Studios, which made the movie, obtained a copy of the trial transcript–more than many of the actual plaintiffs in the case have yet managed to do.

When Sharp attempted to interview the lawyers on the Brockovich team, the resulting conversations were "short and explosive and terminated abruptly by the lawyers." And when an outside lawyer took an interest in the disgruntled clients’ case, Masry and fellow lawyers at once seized the offensive, suing him for allegedly slandering them and interfering with their business relationship with the clients; this slander suit was filed, then dropped two weeks later, then reinstated, then dropped again.

So if you want to know how to win some of the most coveted prizes and accolades handed out by the American legal establishment, ask Erin Brockovich. She knows all about it.

Comments

Pingback| 10.22.09 @ 9:18AM

Erin Brockovich in Florida links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:

Tags Subscribe Overlawyered Chronicling the high cost of our legal system Erin Brockovich in Florida by Walter Olson on October 22, 2009 An editorial in the Palm Beach Post advises reader caution about the glamorous tort-chaser’s efforts to drum up clients for Weitz & Luxenberg and Searcy Denney Scarola Barnhart & Shipley based on allegations of a cancer cluster with a claimed link to radioactive drinking…

Pingback| 11.16.09 @ 12:06AM

November 16 roundup links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:

….A. Says It May Ban Alcoholic Drinks With Caffeine” [ NYT] Profile of L.A. tort lawyers Walter Lack and Thomas Girardi, now in hot water following Nicaraguan banana-pesticide scandal [ The Recorder ; my earlier outing on "Erin Brockovich" case] Federalist Society panel on federalism and preemption [ BLT] Confidence in the courts? PriceWaterhouseCoopers would rather face Satyam securities fraud lawsuits in India than in U.S…