By MARK SAMUELS, JG/T-C Springfield Bureau Chief

Critics call it a "judicial hellhole," where doctors and hospitals accused of medical malpractice often cave in and agree to excessive out-of-court settlements rather than face juries they believe are predisposed to award millions of dollars in damages.

Is this "judicial hellhole" Madison County, Ill., and the courthouse in Edwardsville?

Yes. And no.

"If it isn't a corrupt jurisdiction, it's the closest jurisdiction we can find to it," U.S. Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said in July, adding that insurance company lawyers know the "judicial deck is stacked against them" in Madison County.

Hatch's comment came as Senate Democrats successfully blocked legislation that would transfer lawsuits of more than $5 million from state to federal courts.

But "judicial hellhole" is a catchy public relations term the American Tort Reform Association has also used to describe three counties in Texas, Mississippi's 22nd Judicial Circuit and both Holmes and Hinds counties, Orleans Parish, La., Kanawha County, W. Va., Los Angeles County, Calif., the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas in Pennsylvania, Miami -Dade County, Fla., and the City of St. Louis, Mo.

The medical malpractice insurance issue is just one part of a nationally coordinated campaign to curb jury awards. It is called tort reform. Insurance companies, hospitals and physicians are driving the medical aspect of the effort and Republicans, by and large, are carrying their standard.

Without tort reform, President George W. Bush said a year ago in remarks at Pennsylvania's University of Scranton, "excessive jury awards will continue to drive up insurance costs, will put good doctors out of business, will run them out of your community."

Bush said fear of being sued has forced physicians to practice "defensive medicine." He said unneeded tests and procedures are raising health care costs at least $28 billion annually at the federal level alone.

Trial lawyers are fighting tort reform and Democrats are manning the barricades. North Carolina U.S. Sen. John Edwards, a trial lawyer, shot back at Air Force One in a press release, saying, "President Bush is once again standing with his insider friends in the insurance industry and standing against seriously injured children and families."

And during the Illinois General Assembly's failed attempt to address the problem, Collinsville state Rep. Jay Hoffman, a Democrat and confidant of Gov. Rod Blagojevich, was a principal negotiator. Hoffman is a trial lawyer who works for Wood River's Lakin Law Firm, which boasts it has "filed more cases in Madison County" than any other personal-injury firm and whose television advertising blankets late-night Metro East airwaves.

Money is the mother's milk of all political campaigns and the competing interest groups are dishing it out in buckets both at the state and federal level to make sure their voices are heard in the corridors of power.

"One of the stereotypes of politics is that labor unions, trial lawyers, and party power brokers finance Democratic candidates, while Republican candidates are backed by big corporations, wealthy businessmen, and party power brokers," wrote University of Illinois at Springfield's Kent Redfield in "Almanac of Illinois Politics -- 2004."

Redfield points to Blagojevich's successful run for the Executive Mansion as an example. Two major Chicago trial lawyer firms, Bob Clifford's at $214,000 and Joe Power Jr.'s at $135,000, were among the then-Chicago congressman's top 20 contributors.

And the perception Blagojevich would win in the fall, Redfield says, also opened the cash spigot from at least one traditionally Republican cash cow. The Illinois Hospital Association pumped $148,427 into Blagojevich's campaign against GOP nominee Attorney General Jim Ryan -- after giving Ryan $170,000 in the primary.

The latest Illinois State Board of Elections reports show Blagojevich hauled in $50,000 apiece from IHA in the first half of 2004 and another $50,000 from the Illinois Trial Lawyers Association.

Illinois lawmakers have been financially blessed this year with IHA passing out $303,000, the Illinois State Medical Society contributing $233,000 and ITLA shoveling $156,000 into the campaign war chests of General Assembly members.

At the federal level, recent campaign-finance filings show four of Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry's top fund-raisers in Illinois are also Chicago trial lawyers. They include Clifford, Power, and Chicagoans Phil Corboy Sr. and Myron Cherry.

On the GOP side of the ledger, the Center for Responsive Politics reports that nationwide, Bush has already taken in $5 million from health professionals, $2.67 million from the insurance industry and $1.28 million from hospitals and nursing homes. He's also gotten nearly $10 million from defense lawyers.

Nowhere is the Democrat-Republican split on the issue more pronounced than in the hotly contested state Supreme Court's 5th District, where Justice Phil Rarick is stepping down. Madison County, the Illinois "judicial hellhole," is part of the district.

Current 5th District Appellate Court Justice Gordon Maag, a Democrat whose son, Tom Maag, works at Lakin Law Firm, is taking on Washington County Judge Lloyd Karmeier of Okawville.

The GOP's Karmeier is being trotted around the state to country club fund-raisers as far-flung as DuPage County and is getting organizational muscle and money from the Illinois State Chamber of Commerce and the Illinois Civil Justice League, both advocates of tort reform and caps on non-economic damages.

Trial lawyers are ladling money to the Illinois Democratic Party with the expectation much of it will be used to boost Maag to the high court.

Since January, five firms have kicked in at least $100,000. They include Power, Clifford, East Alton's SimmonsCooper, Godfrey and St. Louis' Carey & Danis, and East Alton trial attorney Randall Bono.

Carey & Danis handles asbestos and personal-injury claims. SimmonsCooper does asbestos lawsuits, too. Bono, who works with SimmonsCooper, and won a $250 million judgment last year against U.S. Steel in an asbestos case. State Sen. William Haine, D-Alton, is a partner in SimmonsCooper.

Published on Friday, September 3, 2004 11:59 AM CDT
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