Item found in my mailbox this week:
The One Billion Dollar Man: John M. O’Quinn ‘67 earns
record verdict in fen-phen suit
John M. O’Quinn ‘67 has a new nickname these days — The One
Billion Dollar Man. And he hopes the moniker will stick for a long
time.
On April 27, 2004, a jury in Jefferson County returned a
stunning $1 billion award — that’s BILLION, with a “B” — to the
family of a woman who died after taking the now banned fen-phen
drug. O’Quinn led the plaintiff’s trial team and said that the
evidence strongly supported the verdict. The outcome is large
enough to put Wyeth, the pharmaceutical company that manufactured
the drug, out of business.
This little notice was included in my law school alumni
magazine. It was accompanied by a beautiful photograph of the
smiling O’Quinn. Thanks to this case and others like it, O’Quinn is
one of the richest men in Texas. One of the other richest men in
Texas, Joe Jamail, is also a trial lawyer. One might take note of
the fact that O’Quinn first made his fortune suing manufacturers of
silicone breast implants, which were later found not to have caused
breast cancer. Surprisingly, neither O’Quinn nor any of the other
lawyers involved have refunded their share of the damages.
Unlike some University of Houston Law Center alumni, I did not
feel a sense of pride when reading about “The One Billion Dollar
Man.” I felt a different emotion. Shame. While others might dwell
on how skilled a lawyer must be to get a damage award of that size,
I thought about how an entire pharmaceutical company has been
forced out of business. How many researchers, lab techs, clerks,
analysts, secretaries, computer repair specialists, janitors, and
other workers were put out of jobs by this legal action?
A woman died from taking the drug. That is terrible. If I were
her family, I’d want something done, too. On the other hand, a
member of my family took the same drug and combined it with
exercise to lose life-threatening weight. She is now healthier than
she has been in decades. So, was THIS the right answer? John
O’Quinn will be able to line the walls of his home with $1,000
bills, while many other people will be entering the unemployment
bureaucracy. The woman’s family will experience a windfall that
will never bring her back. A productive company that helped a lot
of people and generated useful drugs is no more.
Litigation has become a cancer in the American body politic.
Productive enterprises and professions are endangered by it.
Creativity and willingness to solve difficult problems are severely
penalized by legal action. The result is that those attributes will
dwindle, leaving us impoverished with regard to life-saving drugs,
procedures, and devices. There’s an old saying about how much
easier it is to throw rocks through stained glass windows than it
is to create one in the first place. The same is true in free
enterprise. If a lawyer and a party with a grievance can unravel a
complex and beneficial undertaking so easily and become rich in the
process, there is little point in taking chances in the first
place. Why put yourself (or your capital) on the line?
If America elects the Kerry/Edwards ticket, which is fueled with
trial lawyer money, the problem is highly unlikely to be addressed
in any productive way. With John Edwards in office, a man whose
Senate seat was paid for by medical malpractice award dollars, the
parasitic profession will have its own representative in the
executive branch.
Almost anyone with a smidgen of common sense can see how
litigation has introduced a debilitating x-factor into our free
market economy. Ridiculous verdicts like the one that made “The
Billion Dollar Man” shoot holes in the plans of stockholders and
ordinary employees. And what about the medical malpractice
insurance problem? How many doctors are forced to abandon their
practice or retire early when they have many good years left? How
many people worked for them and have difficulty finding their next
position?
Implementing some type of national litigation reform is utterly
necessary if we hope to continue strong economic growth. George W.
Bush is the only candidate for president willing to tackle the
problem. Give him a few more Senators on his side and something
will be done. When that happens, the Opportunity Society will begin
to celebrate a new phase of prosperity.
