Editor’s Note: Madison County moves to “Purgatory” on Hellhole List

A recent court verdict in Illinois has the Illinois Civil Justice League (ICJL) on its feet proclaiming matters are finally moving in the right direction.

Jurors in a recent Madison County case disagreed with Frank Schwaller’s claims that a drug-making giant’s painkiller Vioxx caused his wife’s collapse and sudden death in 2003, instead ruling that Patty Schwaller’s demise more likely resulted from the 52-year-old Granite City woman’s own poor health, including obesity, diabetes and high blood pressure. The jury then rejected the widower’s request for millions of dollars in damages against Merck & Co. in the death of his wife.

Although the Justice League’s President Ed Murnane will agree that verdict was about the argument on what caused the death of the woman, he still sees the outcome as positive baby step in helping to remove Madison County’s long held description as a “plaintiff’s paradise” and a “judicial hellhole.” (See story on page 12, this issue.)

According to a recent Associated Press story, in March 2003 a Madison County judge issued a $10.1 billion verdict favoring smokers who sued Philip Morris USA in a class-action lawsuit involving “light” cigarettes. The Illinois Supreme Court later threw out that ruling, and the nation’s high court last November let that decision stand.

The AP account also said that President Bush visited here in January 2005 as a backdrop to pressure Congress to pass legislation limiting jury awards for medical malpractice. And in August 2005, Gov. Rod Blagojevich came to Madison County to sign a law seeking to hold down medical malpractice costs for doctors by limiting the amount of money people can collect in lawsuits against hospitals and physicians.

ICJL’s Murnane said recent local rules adopted by Madison County judges that make it tougher for plaintiffs, particularly from out-of-state, to file cases here and moving some cases to arbitrators have weeded out frivolous lawsuits and helped speed cases along.

Numbers provided by AP do show improvement. Major civil cases — those seeking at least $50,000 — last year totaled 1,145, down from 1,297 in 2005, 1,439 in 2004 and 2,102 in 2003. Asbestos lawsuits dropped to 325 last year, nearly one-third of the 953 such cases in 2003. There were three class-action filings in 2006; just three years before that, there were 106.

In fact in Dec. 2006, the most recent listing of six Judicial Hellholes put out by the Illinois Civil Justice League, saw Madison County drop to 5th place (in purgatory and on the way to recovery, was how the ICJL Web site described it). Cook County (Chicago) was number four and St. Clair County was six. Unfortunately, though the news is good on their placements, three of the six counties listed as Judicial Hellholes are still in state of Illinois.

But who can argue that the situation, particularly in Madison County, hasn’t improved? Optimism is not a bad thing and those watching the change, slow as it is, feel more optimistic than ever before.

Topics Lawsuits Illinois