Governor defends his aid for DuPont

by ziggy Sat Aug 23, 2008 11:02 am

Governor defends his aid for DuPont
Manchin says appeal to high court is not siding with firm in $196M case
By Ken Ward Jr.
Staff writer

Gov. Joe Manchin insisted Friday that he was not siding with DuPont Co. when he asked the West Virginia Supreme Court to hear an appeal of a $196 million punitive-damage award against the chemical giant.

Manchin said his goal was simply to encourage Supreme Court justices to clarify how they review such awards, which are meant to punish wrongdoing and discourage future misconduct.

"I think the misrepresentation is that we took sides," the governor told Gazette-Mail editors. "We didn't take sides."

Manchin and several top aides visited the newspaper offices Friday afternoon. The governor's office asked for the meeting after a Gazette editorial last week harshly criticized Manchin for inserting himself into the appeal.

"You all have done an editorial saying I took sides with DuPont," Manchin said, "and nothing could be further from the truth."

Manchin's filing of a "friend of the court" brief urging the justices to hear the appeal has drawn angry responses from Spelter residents and their lawyers, and a critical article in The New York Times.

Manchin jumped into the case after a phone call with DuPont President Chad Holliday and a meeting with top company lawyers. The governor's brief was filed the same day as DuPont's appeal petition.

http://www.wvgazette.com/News/200808222091?page=1&build=cache

by Aaron Sat Aug 23, 2008 11:16 am

Do you think he took sides Frank?

by ziggy Sat Aug 23, 2008 11:31 am

Being as he colluded with the case attorneys for one side, in writing and filing his amicus briefs, but not with the attorneys for the other side, yeah, I would say that he did take a side.

by **ohio county** Sat Aug 23, 2008 12:15 pm

Come on. Colluded to what end? Perpetuate a toxic waste dump? Illegally enrich DuPont?

I'm not willing to play the meaning of words game. Collusion defined very narrowly is a conspiracy that is hatched for illegal purposes. Manchin is trying to influence the court to look at the result of a Circuit Court verdict. That's all.

DuPont reacquired this smelter for the express purpose of cleaning up Spelter. Did they have culpability? They had not owned the smelter in fifty years. In legal parlance, the aggrieved party goes after the party with the deepest pockets and with only the most limited relationship to their responsbility.

Who benefits from the Spelter verdict? The hapless Harrison Countians who live along the West Fork? No, the trial lawyers will take millions of dollars and the residents of the Spelter vicinity take home an average of $7,000. If Manchin is silent, he sides with the predatory trial lawyers. They don't care about the folks who live there. At this moment, the only party that has taken any step at all to help the people up in Harrison County is DuPont.

Manchin did the right thing.

by ziggy Sat Aug 23, 2008 12:54 pm

ohio county wrote:Come on. Colluded to what end?

To the end of trying to influence the Court to take an action which the attorneys for one party wanted, but that the attorneys for the other parties didn't want.

Collusion defined very narrowly is a conspiracy that is hatched for illegal purposes.

I intended no such meaning, nor even inference. I will look further into the definition of "collusion", though.

Manchin is trying to influence the court to look at the result of a Circuit Court verdict. That's all.

And since only one party is asking the Court to do that, he is taking the side of that party.

DuPont reacquired this smelter for the express purpose of cleaning up Spelter. Did they have culpability?

That was for a jury to decide.

Who benefits from the Spelter verdict? The hapless Harrison Countians who live along the West Fork? No, the trial lawyers will take millions of dollars and the residents of the Spelter vicinity take home an average of $7,000.

That's the American way. GM manufactures automobiles. The dealer who sells a car might make a few hundred or even a couple thousand dollars of gross profit on selling that car- much less net profit. But GM makes and sells zillions of those cars- and so GM executives are paid millions, tens of millions, in salaries and bonuses, while the dealer struggles to keep the lights on.

If Manchin is silent, he sides with the predatory trial lawyers.

How is remaining silent a default siding with either side? Both sides had lawyers- apparently able ones. Let the legal case run its course without running gubernatorial intereference.

They don't care about the folks who live there. At this moment, the only party that has taken any step at all to help the people up in Harrison County is DuPont.

Even if so, is that because Dupont "cares about the folks who live there", or because it believed that it was in its best financial interest to reacquire that facility? In what way are the motives of Dupont and its lawyers more noble than the motives of the plaintiffs and their lawyers?

by **ohio county** Sat Aug 23, 2008 2:32 pm

That's the American way.

No. I've said it before and will gladly say it again: that is not the American way. That's the Scamville way. In America we work for what we want.

Why chase out the eleventh largest employer of West Virginians?

by ziggy Sat Aug 23, 2008 2:37 pm

No. I've said it before and will gladly say it again: that is not the American way. That's the Scamville way. In America we work for what we want.

Do we?

Do the multi-million dollar Dupont or other corporate executives do any more "work" than the plaintiff's lawyers in the case at hand?

by **ohio county** Sat Aug 23, 2008 2:50 pm

You believe that, don't you?

The DuPont Washington Works plant manager is one of the busiest men in the state. What's more, he manages a facility that produces something. The plaintiff's lawyers don't make anything but trouble. Trouble and roadblocks. It is the DuPonts that make the United States the greatest country the world has ever seen. It is the plaintiff's attorneys who are the parasites who produce nothing.

Only a country like the United States could have produced the catalytic converter. The Europeans could not. The Asians have no reason to. They don't have to mess with it. You aren't even willing to give them credit when they make something useful.

And once you get beyond your hatred for the corporate folks, the vast majority of work is done by the ancillary industries that spring up to straighten the pump shafts, and cut the gaskets, and weld up the tanks, and blast out the plugged lines. The world of lawyers and obfuscators and impeders seems far away and strangely unreal.

You can sit in your Lazy Boy in Ripley and see the world as you think it is. But until you put your torgue wrench to the flanges and slap your valve wrench on the gate valves you don't really know what "corporatists" are up to. It certainly isn't scheming. There's too much work to do.

by ziggy Sat Aug 23, 2008 2:54 pm

ohio county wrote:Come on. Colluded to what end? Perpetuate a toxic waste dump? Illegally enrich DuPont?

I'm not willing to play the meaning of words game. Collusion defined very narrowly is a conspiracy that is hatched for illegal purposes.

OK. I grant you that "colluded" was maybe not the appropriate word to use here.

I more correctly could have said, "Being as he worked in concert with with the case attorneys for one side, in writing and filing his amicus briefs, but not with the attorneys for the other side, yeah, I would say that he did take a side."

by **ohio county** Sat Aug 23, 2008 3:01 pm

Wait a minute. That's what I mean. I'm not taking you to school. I understood you meant that Manchin worked with DuPont's attorneys. Hell, my understanding is that DuPont's corporate attorneys wrote the friend of the court brief. Manchin's lawyers made minor changes that they thought made their brief Manchin's. I doubt either of us is satisfied with that. My point is, so what? The Court, what with the separation of powers, has no obligation to give Manchin the time of day. I happen to agree that DuPont deserves a second look. I wouldn't be whining if the plaintiffs got any of the settlement. If they're suffering from cancer, $7,000 isn't a settlement - it's window-dressing. The lawyers have stolen the dough. The plane has crashed into the mountain. Hello?

by ziggy Sat Aug 23, 2008 3:11 pm

The DuPont Washington Works plant manager is one of the busiest men in the state. What's more, he manages a facility that produces something. The plaintiff's lawyers don't make anything but trouble. Trouble and roadblocks. It is the DuPonts that make the United States the greatest country the world has ever seen. It is the plaintiff's attorneys who are the parasites who produce nothing.

I disagree.

Plaintiff's lawyers, just like defense lawyers and other agents and officers of the Courts, help to produce American justice. And that is at least as important as anything Dupont ever produced.

Is it always perfect? No. And neither is everything Dupont ever produced perfect, either.

As to catalytic converters, they certainly have not escaped my attention. Fifteen years ago, at an environmental conference in Charleston, I used catalytic converters as an example of the success of the combination of American economic and technical ingenuity, environmental reguation and a consumer need- an need so strong that, even today- were cars available with catalytic converters as non-mandated options, no self-respecting consumer would order a new automoboile without one.

by **ohio county** Sat Aug 23, 2008 3:20 pm

Catalytic converters are an anomaly - a technological advancement that featured not one but two bona fide miracles. Not only did the inventors find a clay in Georgia that accepted the extreme temperature range required but they were able to synthesize it. Truly the stuff of which miracles are made. Catalytic converters are not good examples of what corporate America should be required to produce. They should not even exist. That they are is not a credit to the environmental movement. It is a testament to the brilliance of American manufacturing, a segment you appear to revile.

With regard to plaintiff's lawyers, there is no justice in Spelter. The people who suffer get nothing. The people who who stir it up get rich beyond any measure of success. They produce nothing. Remember the satisfaction of a job well done? What is the product here? $7,000 per resident? The only entity that tried to help - DuPont - is the target of the largest punitive verdict ever. Judicial hellhole? Hell, yeah! Manchin colluded against the sharks? I might even vote for him.

by ziggy Sat Aug 23, 2008 3:23 pm

ohio county wrote:Wait a minute. That's what I mean. I'm not taking you to school. I understood you meant that Manchin worked with DuPont's attorneys. Hell, my understanding is that DuPont's corporate attorneys wrote the friend of the court brief. Manchin's lawyers made minor changes that they thought made their brief Manchin's. I doubt either of us is satisfied with that. My point is, so what? The Court, what with the separation of powers, has no obligation to give Manchin the time of day. I happen to agree that DuPont deserves a second look. I wouldn't be whining if the plaintiffs got any of the settlement. If they're suffering from cancer, $7,000 isn't a settlement - it's window-dressing. The lawyers have stolen the dough. The plane has crashed into the mountain. Hello?

And so the original question asked was if I believed that Manchin has taken a "side" in the matter. You seem to be agreeing that he did.

I am OK with the Courts giving 2nd and even 3rd and 4th looks to anything they consider worthy under the law and legal procedures- based on the arguments of the parties. But it should be done without outside political pressures from elected administrators.

The State Supreme Court should tell Manchin to keep his briefs in his pants.

by ziggy Sat Aug 23, 2008 3:35 pm

With regard to plaintiff's lawyers, there is no justice in Spelter. The people who suffer get nothing. The people who who stir it up get rich beyond any measure of success. They produce nothing. Remember the satisfaction of a job well done? What is the product here? $7,000 per resident? The only entity that tried to help - DuPont - is the target of the largest punitive verdict ever. Judicial hellhole? Hell, yeah! Manchin colluded against the sharks? I might even vote for him.

So what do you want to do? Regulate attorney's fees? If so, then I am with you.

But until we do, the problem is not the legal and constitional right of plaintiffs to sue for recovery of damages they can demonstrate to the satisfaction of a jury.

The tactic of CALA, for example, is to lobby to make potential defendants at least partially immune from tort claims. If the problem is plaintiffs lawyers making excessive fees- thus providing them incentive for excessive "frivolous" litigation and unfair legal fees - then go to the root of the problem and regulate those fees instead of punishing plaintiffs who have claims that should be decided by a jury- but who are without the money to hire good lawyers.

by **ohio county** Sat Aug 23, 2008 3:48 pm

You can write an amicus brief. Why should Manchin not be allowed to? Your writing an amicus brief does not violate separation of powers. Why should Manchin lose the right to file a brief that you, yourself can file? He shouldn't lose that right. His standing as a representative of the people might be a little more tenable than yours.

CALA, who you brought up and neglected to respond to on my earlier thread, has every right to exist and every right to petition the court to require an accounting from the law firms Darrell McGraw hired to represent the state. He's not going to require it. You want to take issue with CALA for asking for stricter accounting? But you have no problem with your elected representative brushing off the public curiosity? CALA bad. McGraw good? I wish life were that simple.

Thanks for the road map to arriving at social justice. I'm interested to see that you're okay with plaintiff's attorneys taking thirty percent of the punitive damages while the plaintiffs get squat. Sort of turns the whole concept of "social justice" on it's ear. Looks more like professional justice, plaintiff take what you can. Corporations bad. Law firms good.

by shermangeneral Sat Aug 23, 2008 6:41 pm

"I'm interested to see that you're okay with plaintiff's attorneys taking thirty percent of the punitive damages while the plaintiffs get squat."

Well OC if the lawyers get 30%, then who gets the other 70%?

by Sponsored content

Governor defends his aid for DuPont

Governor defends his aid for DuPont

Re: Governor defends his aid for DuPont

Re: Governor defends his aid for DuPont

Re: Governor defends his aid for DuPont

Re: Governor defends his aid for DuPont

Re: Governor defends his aid for DuPont

Re: Governor defends his aid for DuPont

Re: Governor defends his aid for DuPont

Re: Governor defends his aid for DuPont

Re: Governor defends his aid for DuPont

Re: Governor defends his aid for DuPont

Re: Governor defends his aid for DuPont

Re: Governor defends his aid for DuPont

Re: Governor defends his aid for DuPont

Re: Governor defends his aid for DuPont

Re: Governor defends his aid for DuPont

Re: Governor defends his aid for DuPont