Law and Madison County

Law and Madison County

A thriving industry, one that has been in existence for the last 20 years can be found among the rolling hills of two south-western Illinois counties and it has made millionaires out of personal injury lawyers and their clients. In the quiet courthouses in St Clair County, high priced lawyers have won hundreds of millions of dollars in awards and settlements from several corporate giants. Awarded nearly $58 million in compensation were the forty seven workers from one of the huge companies after they were injured during the clean-up of a toxic spill at Sturgeon, Missouri in January 1979. For dioxin injuring people permanently, this is the first verdict issued.

With the jury's help, 32 of the 47 workers who filed suit became millionaires, more than the total number of reported million dollar injury verdicts in any state. As mentioned by an East St Louis attorney who won a $15.65 million verdict against a big company in St Clair County this year, the legal community is an industry in itself. Here is where they go to the grocery stores, live, buy houses, and hire union people. The counties' jurors come from a largely blue collar pool and their reputation for big awards has spread.

According to the research director of a jury verdict research company, the latest verdicts would top the total number of million dollar awards in the entire New York state. Lawyers in the area generally receive about a third of the award in personal injury cases, and about a quarter of what they win for their clients in railroad and barge injury cases. Now that two federal laws have been made, the injured railroad and barge workers can easily contact the talented, high powered lawyers whose specialized offices dot the southern Illinois countryside.

Wherever the railroad does business, it will be possible for the injured railroad workers to file personal injury claims because of the Federal Employees Liability Act of 1910. In Madison and St Clair counties, the tracks of a dozen rail lines crisscross them. Aside from this, there is the Jones Act of 1915 where personal injury claims can be filed by barge and towboat workers in the area in the same way as the crewmen injured on the Mississippi River from Minneapolis to New Orleans. Usually, five to six years is the waiting period for you to get a trial on a personal injury suit in Chicago but in Madison and St Clair counties it is only 33 months.

75 percent went to the plaintiff, 20 percent was kept, and 5 percent was donated to the union's legal defense fund for every settlement won according to the St Clair County Circuit Judge. This was referred to as the ticket system since a lawyer to whom union officials would steer their members was said to have a ticket. As mentioned by the judge who has been either a judge or lawyer in the area for years, the awards stood up on appeal. Working for the railroad and steel mills for two or three generations were the people in this area.

Financially blessing the lawyers and business people in the area and the Madison County government are the suits. With filing fees of close to $100 a case for civil suits greater than $15,000, operating with a surplus of close to $500,000 for each of the past three years was the Madison County Circuit Clerk's office as said by the Madison County Circuit Clerk. Excluding traffic violations, there were 15,294 civil suits filed in the fiscal year ending June 30.

Although this is a multi-million dollar business, one personal injury lawyer said that people did not know this. What they pay for are lots of taxes including corporate personal property tax. Their common action is renting buildings and putting their money from these judgments into the local banks.

Law and Madison County

Law and Madison County

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