PAXIL lawyers made $16 million from GSK settlement

Tillery and his colleagues have taken home tens, if not hundreds, of millions of dollars in fees, according to court records in lawsuits stemming from the firm's reorganization a few years ago. They will share some $16 million from the Paxil settlement alone



He says he fights for you. Critics say he's after the purse



http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/article_6930a99c-412f-11e0-990b-0017a4a78c22.html

A pack of Marlboro Lights looks a lot like it did years ago. There's the gold crest of Philip Morris, and the surgeon general's warning - quitting smoking is better for your health.




But one phrase emblazoned on packages for decades - "Lowered Tar & Nicotine" - is gone. Lawyer Stephen Tillery asserts he is largely responsible.



In 2003, Tillery and a team of lawyers won $10.1 billion in a class action lawsuit over claims that Philip Morris' "lowered tar & nicotine" marketing was a lie. It was the first win for an attorney fighting a tobacco company over consumer fraud. Almost simultaneously, Philip Morris wiped the proclamation from its packaging.



Anti-tobacco activists claimed a short-lived victory. Two years later, on technical grounds, the Illinois Supreme Court tossed out the case and Tillery's nearly $1.8 billion in fees.



Tillery refuses to admit defeat. He has pushed the lawsuit back to the state high court, essentially arguing the justices got it wrong.



The case highlights conflicting portraits of Tillery and the class action system. Like many trial lawyers, he sees himself as a prize fighter for consumers, keeping corporations honest. Critics say he may be that skilled boxer, but is in it only for the purse.



UNJUST STRATEGIES



Tillery relishes the chance to discuss the Philip Morris case.



In an interview, he talks rapidly about tobacco-specific nitrosamines, the psychology of smoking, nicotine addiction, Philip Morris' strategies, puff sizes and deep tissue lung cancers.



He is no longer just outlining the case that won him the biggest-ever award in Illinois. Tillery is trying to win it again.



His claim is that Philip Morris designed its cigarettes to fool Federal Trade Commission analysis machines to produce a lower readout of tar and nicotine than smokers actually inhale. He argues consumers thought they were getting something safer, because of that little phrase "Lowered Tar & Nicotine."



"Smoking Marlboro Lights, you're actually more likely to get cancer than you are smoking Marlboro Reds, " Tillery says.



The tobacco company denies many of his arguments. Altria, Philip Morris' parent company, declined to comment for this story but opposes reopening the case.



Tillery found motivation in his mother-in-law's death: "She smoked Marlboro Lights, had for years, thought they were better for her. She was just a wonderful, wonderful, wonderful lady and died in less than a year from metastasized lung cancer."



He also has paid to help his own office employees to kick the habit.



PEOPLE'S CHAMP



From his U.S. Bank building offices, 36 floors above downtown St. Louis, Tillery can almost see into the ballpark. Few others have a higher window on this part of the Midwest. Not bad for a man who grew up in Divernon, Ill., a hamlet south of Springfield with a population of 1,145.



The son of working-class parents - his father was a diesel mechanic, his mother worked at a bank - Tillery represented railroad workers early in his career. That work led to allegations he paid union officials to steer cases his way. He was acquitted of some federal racketeering charges in 1993 and prosecutors dropped others.



He eventually focused on class action law, and his firm, Korein Tillery, and its predecessor, Carr Korein Tillery, have claimed more than $1 billion in class action verdicts and settlements in recent years.



Among the victories: a $30 million settlement with Publisher's Clearing House announced in 2000 over misleading advertising; in 2001, a $40 million deal with First USA Bank over improper late fees; and a $90 million agreement with WorldCom Inc. to refund overbilling.



In 2002, AT&T and Lucent Technologies settled allegations of phone sales fraud for $350 million, and Pfizer agreed to pay $60 million in 2004 over false marketing accusations.



Tillery's latest win came in April when GlaxoSmithKline settled for almost $64 million over claims its antidepressant Paxil was more dangerous and less effective for children than marketed.




Tillery and his colleagues have taken home tens, if not hundreds, of millions of dollars in fees, according to court records in lawsuits stemming from the firm's reorganization a few years ago. They will share some $16 million from the Paxil settlement alone.



But some critics say Tillery's success is simply the result of knowing how to work the system. They point to the Lucent settlement: Lawyers got $84 million in fees, but the company reported later that it paid out one-tenth of that - $8.4 million - to the people who claimed harm. In the Philip Morris case, nearly $1.8 billion in fees was roughly $13,000 per lawyer per hour.



After the Post-Dispatch disclosed the discrepancy between the lawyers' fees and the payout to plaintiffs in the Lucent case, Tillery went back to court to try to get Lucent to pay out more money.



Tillery's defenders point to the millions of people who have been eligible for refunds.



"(His career) is not about making the money, " said Judy Cates, a Swansea lawyer, former law partner with Tillery and the past president of the Illinois Trial Lawyers Association. "It's about helping people."



Nonetheless, those figures have prompted a campaign from business interests that want class action reform legislation. President George W. Bush himself came to Madison County to deliver a speech for federal tort reform, including the Class Action Fairness Act passed in 2005.



"Mr. Tillery is the poster child for big-dollar, worldwide, eye-catching, anti-business lawsuits, " said state Sen. Kirk Dillard, R-Westmont, who has sponsored tort reform legislation.



Tillery says that class actions are unfairly maligned. The media only reports fees, not the facts, he says. When asked about the critics of his multimillion-dollar paychecks - he gets flustered.



"If a person came in with a $5,000 claim against Philip Morris and said, 'I want to pursue a consumer fraud claim, not for personal injury, but to recover my damages, ' how could you ever take that case? How could anybody spend millions of dollars in anticipating a verdict for damages that hardly amount to anything?"



TOP ACCESS



For all his success, Tillery is unassuming. During an interview in his office, he is laid-back, wearing a white polo shirt and slacks. He doesn't talk about what he does with his millions.



His political contributions, though, are no secret. In the past 10 years, he has channeled over $150,000 to mostly Democratic state and local candidates and groups in Illinois and Missouri, according to campaign finance reports. He's given tens of thousands more on the federal level.



His and his firm's political contributions, including those to Nicholas G. Byron, the judge who handed down the Philip Morris decision, have opened Tillery up to criticism. Activists allege that the campaign donations from attorneys give the trial bar an advantage in the Edwardsville court house.



Judges and Tillery himself decry that suggestion. But it's clear his money in some instances has earned him access to high-ranking politicians.



"Steve's been a great supporter and a great friend, " said Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards, a successful trial lawyer in his own right, whose recent fundraiser in St. Louis was hosted at Tillery's law office. "People like that play an important role."



But Tillery's donations go beyond politics, friends argue.



Dr. Patricia Wolff heads Meds and Food for Kids, a St. Louis nonprofit that operates a nutrition and health program in Haiti. She calls Tillery her biggest donor. At her first fundraiser, he came uninvited to offer a challenge: "I'll give $30,000 if someone else will match it."



Tillery has since gone to Haiti twice to volunteer. While there, "he basically bought $1,000 of shoes for a village, " Wolff said.



A 'CAREER EVENT'



Philip Morris had many arguments against Tillery at trial, but the state Supreme Court's decision to toss out the award hinged primarily on one point. The justices ruled the corporation was protected from a consumer fraud claim because the Federal Trade Commission had authorized the use of the labels about lowered tar and nicotine.



But anti-tobacco activists say that's not true and cite recent briefs from the U.S. Solicitor General and a unanimous U.S. Supreme Court opinion this summer in a separate case. Those documents may give Tillery enough ground to ask the Illinois Supreme Court to reconsider, said Edward Sweda, of the Tobacco Products Liability Project at Northeastern University in Boston.



It's hardly certain the state court would reverse itself, but Tillery's attempt has already raised alarm bells.



"He is probably one of the most creative and greedy of all the trial lawyers, " said Ed Murnane, president of the Illinois Civil Justice League, a pro-tort reform political lobby that has routinely criticized Tillery and other plaintiff attorneys. "Here's a guy that has a case that has been shot down by the Illinois Supreme Court, and yet, here he is, he's still trying to figure out a way to open the case."



But for Tillery, Byron's verdict was a "career event" that got him named one of the 10 lawyers of the year in 2003 by Lawyers USA, a national legal magazine. He estimates more than $14 million has been spent first to win and then to resurrect the case.



Don't expect him to give up soon. Even if he fails against Philip Morris, he represents plaintiffs in two nearly identical claims; lawsuits against cigarette companies Brown & Williams and R.J. Reynolds have already been filed in Madison County.