Lawyers In Madison County

For the past 20 years, there has been a thriving industry by the rolling hills of two south-western Illinois counties which made millionaires out of personal injury lawyers and their clients. The streets of St Clair County are full of quiet courthouses where expensive lawyers gained hundreds of millions of dollars in awards and settlements from several corporate giants.

Nearly $58 million was awarded to forty seven workers from one of the huge companies after they were injured in January 1979 during the clean-up of a toxic spill at Sturgeon, Missouri. In this case, this was the first verdict issued where dioxin led to permanent injuries for people.

Millionaires were what 32 of the 47 workers who filed suit became thanks to the jury, more than the total number of reported million dollar injury verdicts in any state. An industry in itself is the legal community according to an East St Louis attorney who won a $15.65 million verdict against a big company in St Clair County this year.

What they do is buy houses, go to the grocery stores, and hire union people other than living here. Reputable because of their big awards, the counties' jurors come from a largely blue collar pool.

The latest verdicts would top the total number of million dollar awards in the entire state of New York as the research director of a jury verdict research company predicted. 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. What has allowed the injured railroad and barge workers to have access to the talented, high powered lawyers whose specialized offices dot the southern Illinois countryside are twp federal laws.

Thanks to the Federal Employees Liability Act of 1910, the injured railroad workers can file personal injury claims wherever the railroad does business. What crisscrosses Madison and St Clair counties are the tracks of a dozen rail lines.

Another one is the Jones Act of 1915 where like what the crewmen injured on the Mississippi River from Minneapolis to New Orleans do, barge and towboat workers can also file personal injury claims in the area. Averaging between five or six years is the average waiting period in Chicago if you want to get a trial on a personal injury suit but in Madison or St Clair counties it is only 33 months.

According to the St Clair County Circuit Judge, every settlement meant 20 percent for keeps, 75 percent for the plaintiff, and 5 percent was donated to the union's legal defense fund. Here, a lawyer to whom union officials would steer their members was said to have a ticket and this was what they referred to as the ticket system.

Standing up on appeal were the awards according to the judge who has been either a judge or lawyer in the area for years. A majority of the people here have been employed in the railroad and steel mills for two or three generations.

Financially blessing the lawyers and business people in the area and the Madison County government are the suits. With the help of filing fees of close to $100 a case for civil suits greater than $15,000, it became possible for the Madison County Circuit Clerk's office to operate for each of the past three years with a surplus of close to $500,000 according to the Madison County Circuit Clerk. Not including traffic violations, in the fiscal year ending June 30 there were 15,294 civil suits filed.

As mentioned by a personal injury lawyer, most people do not know that this is actually a multi-million dollar business. Lots of taxes like corporate personal property tax are what they are paying for. In this case, they rent buildings and put their money from these judgments into the local banks as well.