July 10, 2006

In a disturbing but not surprising turn of events, Judge Isadore Patrick, of Vicksburg, Mississippi, denied motions for sanctions against a firm that relied on thousands of suspect diagnoses in its silicosis litigation.

Mary Alice Robbins reports in Texas Lawyer that

On June 27, Circuit Court Judge Isadore W. Patrick of Vicksburg, Miss., denied motions for sanctions against the former firm of O'Quinn, Laminack & Pirtle, now called the O'Quinn Law Firm. In March, a dozen of some 72 defendants in McDuff, et al. v. Aearo, et al. and Braxton, et al. v. Aearo, et al. filed motions in the Circuit Court of Sharkey and Issaquena counties, seeking about $165,000 in sanctions from O'Quinn Laminack for allegedly pursuing frivolous claims on behalf of clients and submitting allegedly unreliable diagnoses to support those claims.

The 12 defendants argued in their motions that Patrick should apply findings that U.S. District Judge Janis Graham Jack of Corpus Christi made in the MDL proceeding and sanction O'Quinn Laminack. The Mississippi circuit court need not engage in independent fact-finding to recognize that O'Quinn Laminack's conduct in the silicosis litigation necessitates sanctions, the defendants argued.

Read the whole thing here.