Law Firm Belatedly Gets Jury Vindication
By Fred Delkin
A federal jury has decreed an end to a legal
saga that we profiled in a 2001 edition of Oregon Magazine.
The story chronicled a class action claim alleging a conspiracy between
Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad and a small Portland law firm to
settle railroad workers' heraring loss compensation. This case generated
major international press coverage when it was filed. Justice has
now been served, but at severe cost to the Portland firm of Bricker, Zakovics
and Querin that represented the workers. The jury denied the claim
conjured up by the Seattle class action legal champions Hagens Berman (more
about them later).
This action is an expensive vindication of BZQ's denial of any complicity
with the railroad to limit monetary settlements for injured employees.
"We are gratified by the jury's action, but this false accusation has
wreaked financial havoc for our firm," declares former BZQ senior partner
Zig Zakovics, who relates that almost $4 million to date in legal costs
have been incurred to defend his firm and "economic reality" caused BZQ's
settlement in October with Hagens Berman, and has resulted in the partial
dissolution of the Portland law firm.
Zakovics estimates an additional $1 million expense to extend the BZQ
defense into this next year..."to say nothing of the damage to our reputation
already suffered." The class action alleged that almost 3,000 BZQ
clients received less money in claim settlements than they deserved due
to an arrangement between BZQ and Burlington Northern...this despite the
fact that the Portland law firm had achieved the highest average settlement
per hearing loss case of the 26 U.S. law firms handling 25 or more in-service
employee claims between January 1, 1989 and December 31, 1995.
Class Action Kings
Railroad worker hearing loss claims have been a common ocurrence, with
over 25,000 individual suits filed nationally in the past two decades against
17 major rail carriers. This is certainly enough monetary activity
to attract the attention of Hagens Berman, founded in 1993 specifically,
according to that firm's web site: "to represent plaintiffs in class actions."
This aim bore $260 billion in settlement fruit for citizens of 14 states
suing "Big Tobacco." Other Hagen filings have generated $200 million
for Washington Public Power customers, and millions more from such targets
as Jack-In-The-Box foods, Nordstrom, America On Line, Amazon.com, Boeing,
Albertson's, Exxon Valdez Oil, Holland America cruise lines and U.S. West.
No wonder the National Law Annual named Steve Berman "one of the 100
most powerful lawyers in the nation." His legal defeat in the railroad
case seems far overdue and the exoneration of BZQ well deserved.
However, it will take many more such reverses to deter the class action
mania infecting our legal system and inflating the cost of doing business
in these United States. It is also a belated and hollow victory for
a small law firm that has compiled more than 40 years of history as counsel
for railroad labor unions, and which is a pioneer in documenting and winning
hearing loss claims.
© 2005 Oregon Magazine |