Judging for the Common Good "The Silicosis Sheriff"
The Wall Street Journal, July 14, 2005 A recent decision by Texas federal Judge Janis Graham Jack shows the way to restoring trust and common sense to American law.
Faced with 10,000 silicosis claims, Judge Jack decided to investigate, and she made some stunning discoveries. As a new Wall Street Journal editorial details, "[O]f the more than 9,000 plaintiffs who supplied information about their 'disease,' 99% had been diagnosed ... by the same nine doctors ... [all of whom] were retained by law firms or 'screening companies' that do mass X-rays on behalf of law firms."
And there's more:
[Some doctors] never even saw their patients. One doctor signed blank forms for the screening company and let his secretary fill out the diagnoses. Yet another performed 1,239 diagnostic evaluations in 72 hours--less than four minutes apiece. Dr. George Martindale, who diagnosed 3,617 patients with silicosis, admitted that he didn't even know the criteria for diagnosing the disease and had simply included in each of his reports a paragraph provided by the screening company.
Another shocker was that more than 65% of the silica plaintiffs had previously been plaintiffs in an asbestos suit, even though it is close to clinically impossible to have both asbestosis and silicosis. Digging deeper, the judge found that many of the same doctors had ginned up the same patients for both asbestos and silicosis cases. One doctor, Ray Harron, received nearly $5 million from 1996-2004 from a leading screening company, N&M, and has supplied thousands of silicosis diagnoses, and at least 52,000 asbestos-related diagnoses.
"These diagnosis were about litigation rather than health care," wrote Judge Jack in a 249-page decision. "These diagnoses were manufactured for money."
Judge Jack's decision did not go unnoticed. "A Manhattan grand jury is now investigating at least one of the screening companies, and subpoenas have gone out to at least two of the doctors involved."
"Which shows," the Journal editorial argues,"how large a public service Judge Jack has performed. She could easily have followed other judges and accepted these mass claims at face value. Instead, she dug into the individual claims and found the corruption underneath."
But it's not only companies faced with fraudulent silicosis and asbestos litigation who stand to gain from Judge Jack's willingness to act. All society will benefit if judges are willing to follow her lead and draw the line on who can sue for what.
In the 1960s, as Common Good Chair Philip K. Howard has detailed, "[T]he American judiciary abdicated its role as gatekeeper ... and started letting anyone sue for almost anything. ... [Judges sought to] be merely referees in a neutral process. Instead of neutrality, however, they left a vacuum. ... [T]hat vacuum has been filled with new theories and escalating claims by those who see justice as an entrepreneurial activity."
Judge Jack's decision begins to fill that vacuum with common sense, and Common Good applauds her leadership.
"The Silicosis Sheriff," The Wall Street Journal, July 14, 2005 (subscription required)
See also,"When Judges Won't Judge," by Common Good Chair Philip K. Howard.
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