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"<p>For the second consecutive year, Cook County was not listed on the American Tort Reform Association\u2019s annual count of the country\u2019s worst \u201CJudicial Hellholes.\"&nbsp;<br>\n<br>\nHowever, downstate Madison County, thanks in large part to what the group calls an asbestos \u201Crocket docket,\u201D was again subjected to a torching this year, as ATRA released its annual report on U.S. legal jurisdictions it believes are most in need of reform.<br>\n<br>In the report, which is annually scorched upon its release by trial lawyers groups which say the document distorts the reality of the situation, the civil justice reform group defines a judicial hellhole as \u201Ca place where judges systematically apply laws and court procedures in an unfair and unbalanced manner.\u201D<br>\n<br>\nCourts in California topped the list with the New York City asbestos litigation court (NYCAL), Florida, Missouri and Madison County trailing behind in what ATRA perceives as the top five most unfair courts in the country in how civil litigation is handled. Three of the top five judicial hellholes are entire states, while Madison County and New York earned their places on the list based entirely on one jurisdiction.<br>\n<br>\nRounding out the Top 9 were the state of Louisiana; Hidalgo County, Texas; Newport News, Va.; and the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas.<br>\n<br>\n\u201CWith both this annual report and a year-round website, our Judicial Hellholes program since 2002 has been documenting troubling developments in jurisdictions where civil court judges systematically apply laws and court procedures in an unfair and unbalanced manner, generally to the disadvantage of defendants,\u201D stated Tiger Joyce, ATRA president.<br><br></p><p>\nTravis Akin, executive director of Illinois Lawsuit Abuse Watch (I-LAW), reacted to the report, saying that the litigation climate in Madison County is hurting job creation.<br>\n<br>\n\u201CFor far too long, Madison County has been a magnet for personal injury lawyers and plaintiffs from all over the country who clog our courts with junk lawsuits that have nothing to do with Madison County, all in the hopes of striking it rich playing our region\u2019s plaintiff-friendly lawsuit lottery,\" Akin stated. <br>\n<br>\n\"Greedy personal injury lawyers have turned the \u2018Land of the Lincoln\u2019 into the \u2018Land of Lawsuits,\u2019 and that is hurting job creation efforts in the Metro-East and throughout Illinois.\" <br>\n<br>\nThe Illinois Trial Lawyers Association (ITLA) discounted the report. The group called the report an \u201Cunwelcome, holiday-time tradition of stoking prejudice and fear about our civil justice system.\u201D<br>\n<br>\n\u201CATRA works to undermine the independence of our courts to help corporate interest avoid responsibility for their dangerous behavior and reckless actions,\" ITLA reacted in a statement.<br>\n<br>\n\u201CThe real \u2018judicial hellhole\u2019 that ATRA is trying to create \u2013 and that we must demand our elected officials vigorously oppose \u2013 is a court system in which regular men and women have little chance for justice because their rights have been stripped away by politicians doing the bidding of corporate special interests.\"<br>\n<br>\nMadison County\u2019s ranking stayed the same as last year's. <br>\n<br>\nMuch of the report's criticism focused on the high volume of asbestos cases filed in Madison County, amounting to roughly a third of all asbestos lawsuits in the nation despite its recent drop in case filings.<br>\n<br>\nThe vast majority of cases filed in Madison County, the nation\u2019s busiest asbestos docket, have no connection to Illinois. In fact, roughly 10 percent of the asbestos cases are filed by an Illinois resident and only about 1 percent are filed by Madison County residents.<br>\nITLA, on the other hand, argues that the number of asbestos lawsuits has declined by 22 percent since 2013 \u2013 when Madison County saw a record-breaking year of 1,678 asbestos cases filed.<br>\n<br>\n\u201CThe misinformation spread by ATRA\u2019s feeble \u2018report\u2019 is part of a broader and very well financed nationwide campaign to prevent injured or sickened individuals from getting a fair shake in our courts,\" ITLA's statement reads. \"Powerful and wealthy special interests that fear they will be held accountable for their wrongdoing want to severely limit the opportunities for judges and juries to decide cases. Throwing around the disparaging term \u2018judicial hellhole\u2019 is meant to further prejudice the public and prospective jurors against plaintiffs who have suffered horrible injuries and terrible mistreatment.\"<br>\n<br>\nATRA's Hellhole report also takes issue with the hundreds of asbestos cases set for trial in a single asbestos docket, which pressures defense attorneys into settlements because they are unable to properly prepare for every case.<br>\n<br>\n\u201CLike a crack NFL offense sending too many receivers for defenders to cover into a particular part of the field, plaintiffs\u2019 lawyers\u2019 employ a comparable \u2018flooding the zone\u2019 technique with their asbestos cases in Madison County,\u201D the report states.<br>\nAssociate Judge Stephen Stobbs, who presides over the Madison County asbestos docket, has been praised in the past by defense attorneys for making efforts to clean up the docket by implementing a priority system, which requires plaintiffs\u2019 attorneys to select their top five cases most likely to go to trial each week. This allows defendants to focus on five possible trial cases rather than 20 or more.<br>\n<br>\nHowever, in recent weeks, hundreds of asbestos cases have been set for trial on the same day. <br>\n<br>\n\u201COf course, being the nation\u2019s epicenter for asbestos litigation is but a symptom of Madison County\u2019s more serious disease \u2013 a culture of bias wherein local judges and plaintiffs\u2019 lawyers seem to agree that it\u2019s perfectly okay to stack the deck against and fleece out-of-state defendants, even if that may sometimes require willful end runs around judicial election law and the will of voters,\u201D the report states.<br>\n<br>\nMadison County also is criticized for its judicial appointments and elections as asbestos lawyers continue to financially support their favorite candidates with campaign contributions.<br>\n<br>\nThe report adds that asbestos lawyers ask circuit judges to return the favor by appointing their colleagues as associate judges. The report highlighted Associate Judge Jennifer Hightower\u2019s recent judicial appointment at 32 years of age.<br>\n<br>\nMadison County also is criticized for the resurrection of the infamous Price v. Phillip Morris tobacco case, a $10.1 billion judgment entered by a judge, not jury, in 2003. In spite of being overturned at the state supreme court in 2005, lower courts have allowed proceedings to go forward with new arguments. <br>\n<br>\n\u201CWith a vampire\u2019s determination to avoid the light, plaintiffs\u2019 counsel has tried repeatedly for more than a decade to revive a monstrous initial judgment of $10.1 billion, leading to a uniquely disturbing procedural history,\u201D the report states.<br>\n<br>\nThe class action was filed in Madison County in 2001 seeking damages on behalf of all Illinois residents who had purchased \u201Clight\u201D cigarettes since 1971. Former Judge Nicholas Byron presided over a three-month bench trial, delivering the $10.1 billion award. <br>\n<br>\n\u201CSo while the plaintiffs\u2019 attorneys driving this case may or may not see their reflections in a mirror, they\u2019ll most certainly be seen back before the state high court, trying to convince the justices that, even though they lost fair and square under existing law long ago, they should now be granted a win and allowed to take a nearly $2 billion contingency-fee bite out of the original other-worldly damages award,\u201D the suit states. <br><br></p><p>\nAfter more than a decade on ATRA\u2019s Judicial Hellholes list, Cook County was left off the list entirely for the first time in 2014. This year, the county again was not placed in the Top 9 or on ATRA\u2019s watch lists.</p>"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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