Segal McCambridge Legal Blog

Former Michigan football (and past West Virginia football) coach Rich Rodriguez is having a bad week.

A 52-14 loss to Mississippi State in the Gator Bowl

Followed by his termination as Michigan football coach

and now he is being sued in West Virginia over the sale of his previous home

A Weirton attorney is suing former West Virginia University and newly fired Michigan football coach Rich Rodriguez over problems with the purchase of the coach’s Morgantown home.

Raymond A. Hinerman Sr. and his wife Barbara B. Hinerman filed the lawsuit Dec. 27 in Monongalia Circuit Court against Richard and Rita Rodriguez. Hinerman is representing himself.

In the complaint, the Hinermans say they signed a purchase agreement for the home located in Greystone Estates for $1.3 million and was ready to close on the property on Dec. 20. The sellers asked for that closing to be moved to Dec. 22, and the buyers agreed.

On Dec. 21, the Realtor for the Rodriguezes advised the Hinermans that a room they previously hadn’t been able to inspect — because it was full of children’s toys and, on one occasion, the door wouldn’t open — had suffered a water leak. On the final inspection on Dec. 22, there were ongoing attempts to dry out the “strong musty smell and obvious water leak.”

The Madison County Record reports that Madison County, Illinois Chief Judge Ann Callis responds to the ATRA report putting Madison County on the “Watch List”. The entire article can be found here

LegalNewsline.com reports that Philly is No. 1 ‘judicial hellhole,’ group says

The Southeast Texas Record reports Texas Gulf Coast courts tough place for defendants, ‘Hellhole’ report claims

The West Virginia Record article on its own third place in the report can be found here Reaction in West Virginia can be found here

The American Tort Reform Association (ATRA) has released its “JUDICIAL HELLHOLES 2010/2011″ report. This is ATRA’s ninth annual report and it focuses primarily on six areas of the country that have “developed reputations for uneven justice.”
The six areas singled out by ATRA are:
#1 PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA
#2 CALIFORNIA, PARTICULARLY LOS ANGELES AND HUMBOLDT COUNTIES
# 3 WEST VIRGINIA
# 4 SOUTH FLORIDA
# 5 COOK COUNTY, ILLINOIS
# 6 CLARK COUNTY, NEVADA

WATCH LIST
MADISON COUNTY, ILLINOIS
ATLANTIC COUNTY, NEW JERSEY
ST. LANDRY PARISH, LOUISIANA
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
NEW YORK CITY AND ALBANY, NEW YORK
ST. CLAIR COUNTY, ILLINOIS

The full report can be found online here

More litigation concerning the issues with mass X-ray screenings arising out of West Virginia.

“CSX Transportation says the dismissal of 1,400 asbestos cases in West Virginia has everything to do with its fraud case against a Pittsburgh law firm.

Peirce Raimond & Coulter had asked that CSX’s notice of the dismissals be stricken from the record of the fraud case, which alleges the Peirce firm teamed with a radiologist to fabricate asbestos claims and hid them among several others.

CSX’s lawsuit was ruled by a district court to have been filed after the statute of limitations, and the company appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.

“(The Peirce firm’s) basic submission is that it is impermissible… to apprise a federal court of appeals of a recent development in related state-court litigation,” CSX’s attorneys wrote Tuesday.

“In fact, it is commonplace.”"

The entire article can be found here

From Legal Newsline.com

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (Legal Newsline) – In a clean sweep, Ohio County, W.Va., Circuit Judge Arthur Recht disposed of about 1,400 asbestos suits that Robert Peirce of Pittsburgh filed against CSX Transportation.

At a hearing on May 17, Recht granted a motion to dismiss the suits with prejudice.

Robert Daley of Peirce’s firm moved in February to dismiss them without prejudice, after Recht denied a motion to vacate rules he imposed last year.

Daley continued to resist Recht’s requirement of testimony from pulmonologists, pleading that the rule exceeded standards of the Supreme Court of Appeals.

In March, Jim Turner of Huntington opposed the motion for CSX.

“Plaintiffs will be permitted to re-file their claims wherever they please and CSX, as well as the courts, will be forced to start from scratch,” Turner wrote.

“Moreover, judging from past experience, if the Peirce firm remains involved, one can only assume it will do everything in its power to thwart meaningful discovery and convince the courts that its mass of cases requires mandatory mediation before discovery commences,” he wrote.

He wrote that Peirce’s firm submitted a fraudulent medical diagnosis bearing the name of a fictitious doctor, Oscar Frye.

Turner quoted to Recht his own order finding that although the firm didn’t know about the forgery, the firm enabled the forgery.

He wrote that most cases had been pending since 2003 or before.

He wrote that the Peirce firm actively recruited clients as far away as Oregon, Texas, Missouri and New York.

He wrote that the firm opposed sending cases to home courts and appealed the issue all the way to the U. S. Supreme Court.

He wrote that the firm pushed for limited discovery and mandatory settlement conference instead of bona fide pretrial orders.

He wrote that the firm pushed mediation even after its X-ray reader, radiologist Ray Harron of Bridgeport, “was proven to be completely incredible.”

He wrote that the firm never intended to subject the claims to scrutiny on the merits.

All the cases alleged asbestos disease but not malignancy. The Peirce firm continues to pursue 62 malignancy claims in Recht’s court.

Recht disposed of two smaller packages, dismissing a few dozen Peirce suits against Norfolk Southern and Conrail.

Legal Newsline has ordered a transcript of the hearing.

Recht presides over Peirce cases by appointment of the Supreme Court of Appeals, where he served as justice.