Institute Legal Reform ILR Chmbr

Florida's courts are anything but average. A welcome mat to mass torts, asbestos litigation and lottery-like awards have helped create a “judicial hellhole” reputation.

At The Record we hope to provide an objective view of the playing field as well as an active forum for both sides of the argument so that all of us can decide for ourselves.

To that end, we need your help. If you have an opinion, please let us hear it. Don’t hesitate to send us your story ideas, press releases, letters-to-the-editor, or guest columns. We will publish them.

We shall make every effort to be fair and impartial. We shall also do our best to exclude any personal or political bias we have on our news pages.

The Record is owned by the U.S. Chamber Institute for Legal Reform.

https://archive.thinkprogress.org/climate-liability-lawsuits-industry-counterattacks-b2f04bce26bb/

no lnx twt 2/18

as more and more cities are filing lawsuits against fossil fuel companies for their role in perpetuating climate change, the fossil fuel industry and its allies are responding with counterattacks in the courtroom and in the court of public opinion.

And while some legal experts characterize the industry’s actions as an attempt to delay litigation and dissuade other cities from taking similar action, public officials from the cities that have filed the lawsuits have a different perspective — to them, the fact that industry has pushed back against the litigation with such ferocity means that it’s working.

“When we filed these lawsuits against these companies that are represented by major law firms, we figured they would try to do whatever they could to draw out the litigation,” Kate Sears, a county supervisor in Marin County, California, which filed a lawsuit against fossil fuel companies last summer, told ThinkProgress. “What they are doing now is so ridiculous that it really makes me think that they are quite concerned about the strength of these lawsuits.”

Since July 2017, eight cities and counties in California, as well as New York City, have filed lawsuits against major fossil fuel companies for their role in climate-fueled consequences like sea level rise and, in some cases, more frequent wildfires and droughts.

In each case, the plaintiffs allege that the fossil fuel companies created a public nuisance when they extracted and sold their product despite internal knowledge that burning fossil fuels contributed to dangerous climate change. If the claims are successful, the cities and counties hope that fossil fuel companies will help fund climate adaptation projects, like raising roads or building seawalls to protect against sea level rise.

Climate activists have cheered the recent wave of litigation as an important tool to hold fossil fuel companies accountable for their role in climate change, especially as the federal government continues to pursue a deregulatory and pro-fossil fuel environmental agenda. When New York City announced its lawsuit in January 2018, for instance, Bill McKibben, co-founder of 350.org, told ThinkProgress that the move represented “a major tipping point” in the global fight against fossil fuels.

But the fossil fuel industry — as well as its allies in conservative think tanks and industry trade groups — have responded with counter attacks aimed at painting the actions as activist litigation, based not on sound science or legal precedent but a conspiracy by a group of lawyers, public officials, and environmentalists.

In one instance, Exxon — the largest oil company to be named in all nine climate liability lawsuits that have been filed in the last year — has taken its fight against climate liability lawsuits to federal court.

The motion filed by Exxon in January in a Texas district court, alleges that the spate of lawsuits challenging the company’s role in knowingly perpetuating climate change amount to a violation of the company’s First Amendment rights.

In the motion, Exxon also accuses city officials and attorneys of working together in a “conspiracy” to “coerce ExxonMobil…to adopt policies aligned with those favored by local politicians in California.” As part of that conspiracy, the motion also mentions separate cases currently being pursued by New York and Massachusetts state attorneys general, which are investigating whether Exxon broke the law by failing to fully disclose the risks of climate change to its investors.

The list of cities suing major fossil fuel companies over climate change just got longer

Richmond, California — home to a massive Chevron oil refinery — is the latest city to take on fossil fuel companies over climate change.

Michael Burger, executive director of Columbia University’sSabin Center for Climate Change Law, says that, legally speaking, Exxon’s claims of a conspiracy or violation of its First Amendment rights are “nonsense.” But Burger sees something more disturbing in the legal action taken by Exxon against the cities filing lawsuits: another example of a growing trend by companies to try to silence opposition through litigation.

“In my view, it’s quite dangerous,” Burger said of the motion, which he likened to a strategic lawsuit against public participation, or a SLAPP lawsuit, traditionally meant to censor or silence critics by creating an overwhelming burden for potential plaintiffs to overcome. “There is a real risk that these things are intended to and will succeed in chilling speech and intimidating local government officials from taking progressive action.”

Thus far, the strategy does not appear to be working in Exxon’s favor. Just days after the company filed its motion in the Texas court, New York City announced that it would be following in the California municipalities’ footsteps by filing its own lawsuit against five major fossil fuel companies, including Exxon.

“I’ve seen tactics before to try to wear down people representing the public, to have this fight through attrition,” said Marin County Supervisor Sears. Sears previously worked for the California Attorney General’s Office bringing legal action against predatory lenders. “It’s also why I feel so strongly about how important it is to stand up and take action to represent the public when they have been harmed.”

But fossil fuel companies aren’t the only ones working to derail the growing wave of climate litigation: Outside of the courtroom, fossil fuel-associated trade organizations have launched several public relations campaigns aimed at undermining the motives for bringing litigation against fossil fuel companies.

Following New York City’s recent lawsuit against five fossil fuel companies for their role in knowingly perpetuating climate change, for instance, two major trade groups launched a series of public campaigns meant to paint the lawsuits as politically-motivated activist litigation.

Both the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) and the Independent Petroleum Association of America (IPAA) — nonprofit trade organizations with ties to the fossil fuel industry — have publicly attempted to undermine the lawsuit through tweets or op-eds meant to call attention to past statements and actions by New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio.

One series of tweets, sent in late January by Energy In Depth — the public outreach arm of the IPAA — paints de Blasio as both an activist mayor focused on the destruction of the oil and gas industry, and a hypocrite who champions climate action while riding around in SUVs.

Energy In Depth bills itself as an education and public outreach campaign aimed at “getting the facts out about the promise and potential of responsibly developing America’s onshore energy resource base.” It claims the IPAA, as well as numerous regional oil and gas trade associations, among its members. But according to an internal memo obtained by DeSmog in 2011, Energy In Depth was created through funding provided by major oil and gas companies, including BP, Chevron, and Shell — three companies named as defendants in New York City’s climate lawsuit.

Meanwhile, the National Association of Manufacturers’ political action committee has received thousands from Exxon, including a recent $5,000 donation in 2017 from Exxon’s senior vice president Neil Chapman. Of the five companies named in New York’s lawsuit, three have executives that serve on NAM’s Board of Directors: both John Mingé, president of BP, and Andrew Lundquist, senior vice president of government affairs at ConocoPhillips, serve as board members, while Exxon’s Chapman sits on the executive committee.

In California, cities and counties have also been the subject of at least one negative op-ed, published in theSacramento Bee by former Republican Congressman and California Attorney General Dan Lungren. In his op-ed, Lungren accuses the California cities and counties of hypocrisy for suing fossil fuel companies over the cost of climate change while ignoring those same costs in communications with potential investors.

“This is just another example of activists trying to replace the power of the people and their elected representatives with the decision-making of the courts in an area in which judges have no particular expertise,” Lungren wrote. “Whatever their intentions, these cities demonstrate a true legal risk — to their own city budgets and their citizens, rather than to oil companies.”

Lungren currently consults with the Institute for Legal Reform, an offshoot of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. As an organization, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has been vocally opposed to climate regulations, like the Clean Power Plan. In 2012, the Chamber received at least $2 million from fossil fuel companies named in some of the California lawsuits, according to voluntary financial disclosures analyzed by the Center for Public Integrity. Lungren did not disclose that information in his op-ed.

Legally speaking, these public relations campaigns are unlikely to impact the outcome the climate liability cases should they proceed to trial.

“These cases, the plaintiffs here are seeking damages for costs they are incurring as a result of climate change. They are viable claims on their face and there’s no reason, legally, for the court to treat them as anything other than what they, on their face, appear to be,” Burger said. “There’s no reason for a court to treat them any differently just because of some op-eds being written impugning the character of those who are bringing the lawsuits.”

But the tactics follow a well-worn pattern used by the fossil fuel industry and its allies before, one dictated by spreading doubt and misinformation to push the consensus on climate issues to the margins.

“I think we saw in the past this unbelievable campaign they supported to create uncertainty about climate change,” Supervisor Sears said. “Raising these absurd allegations is what looks to be yet another campaign to try to mislead the public about these lawsuits and what they are intended to do, and the intentions and the integrity of the elected officials. It’s unfortunate.”

#CALIFORNIA, #CLIMATE, #CLIMATE LAWSUIT, #CLIMATE LIABILITY, #EXXON MOBIL, #FOSSIL FUELS, #NEW YORK CITY

https://litigationfinancejournal.com/chamber-commerce-ranked-2-top-30-tort-reform-hypocrites-list

U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Institute for Legal Reform (ILR) has ranked #2 on The New York Law School’s Center for Justice & Democracy’s 2018 ranking of the top-30 tort reform hypocrites. The report aims to reveal which tort reform advocates are the most litigious, and thereby hypocritical in their efforts to scale back the litigiousness of other entities. The ILR, which consistently advocates for numerous tort reform measures including mandatory disclosure of third party funding agreements and placing interest rate caps on Consumer Legal Funding transactions, placed second on the list behind only President Trump.

According to the report, the ILR was established in 1998 to pursue the Chamber’s tort reform agenda. Since its inception, however, the ILR “has spent millions on federal lobbying to in an effort to keep victims from having their cases heard before a civil judge or jury.”

The U.S. Chamber is the top lobbying spender in the country, having spent a whopping $109MM in 2017 alone ($22MM of which was spent by the ILR). Yet despite spending all of that money on efforts to scale back the ability of others to litigate, the Chamber itself is one of the nation’s top litigators. Over the last decade, “the Chamber has been involved in over 1100 lawsuits, either as a plaintiff or as an amicus curiae,” according to the report.

The Chamber’s President, Tom Donohue, told the Washington Examiner in 2015: “We spend half of our time trying to reduce the number of suits by class-action lawyers and the other half of our time suing the hell out of the government. We sue the federal government and units of the federal government and some state governments, 180-90 times a year.”

The report cites the Chamber for its hypocrisy, and notes that the Chamber is a longtime member of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC)’s Civil Justice Task Force, an entity “devoted solely to weakening or eliminating corporate liability for wrongdoing.” An investigative report by the Center for Media and Democracy found that bills proposed by ALEC “make it harder for average Americans to access the civil justice system” and “provide relief and protections for the industries who wrote them.”

The #1 tort reform hypocrite according to the report is President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly scaled back access to justice – his de-fanging of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is but one example – while simultaneously suing or threatening to sue anyone and everyone whom he perceives has done him wrong.

Rounding out the top-5 on the list are the National Rifle Association, the National Federation of Independent Business, and General Motors.

The entire report can be found here.

https://www.exposedbycmd.org/2018/06/19/alec-deadly-asbestos-agenda-benefits-koch-industries

The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) named Missouri Republican state Rep. Bruce DeGroot as a “Legislator of the Week” in June.

Why is ALEC so fond of DeGroot? Because he has cheerfully championed ALEC legislation to restrict the right of terminally ill, asbestos victims to sue over mesothelioma. In doing so, DeGroot is helping the many U.S. companies, including ALEC funders Koch Industries and Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company, that have asbestos-related liability.

NATIONWIDE, NOT ON YOUR SIDE

Mesothelioma is an aggressive type of lung cancer caused by exposure to asbestos. Even though the dangers of deadly asbestos have been known for over 100 years, industry worked hard to bury evidence that workers were being harmed by asbestos exposure. Three thousand people are diagnosed each year with mesothelioma in the United States and most die within a year or two. Most victims are public servants, veterans, firefighters, even teachers exposed to asbestos in schools.

In addition to being an ALEC politician, Degroot is an attorney for an insurance defense firm, Brown & James, which represents dozens of insurers who, in turn, have as clients companies responsible for mesothelioma-related claims. One of the firm’s clients is Nationwide. Sources tell the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) that Nationwide was actively pushing the bill in Missouri, although it was not publicly listed as a supporter of the bill.

In many states, a legislator who introduced a bill benefitting his firm’s clients could face ethics charges or worse. In Missouri, “it is unseemly, to say the least, and one of the reasons we need ethics reform in this state,” said deputy director Sharon Geuea Jones of the Missouri Association of Trial Lawyers.

Nationwide has long been a corporate sponsor of ALEC. In 2014 and 2015, for example, Nationwide incurred asbestos-related losses of $148 million and $98 million respectively, giving it one of the largest asbestos liabilities of any insurer for those years, according to Casualty Actuaries of Greater New York.

ALEC PROTECTIONS FOR ASBESTOS COMPANIES

At ALEC, corporate lobbyists and politicians vote as equals behind closed doors on “model” bills that advance corporate interests over consumers’ interests. DeGroot’s bill, HB 1645 or “The Asbestos Transparency Act,” bears a striking similarity to ALEC’s “Asbestos Claims Transparency Act.” The Missouri House passed the bill in March, but the Senate has yet to take action.

The bill would force victims of asbestos to search out bankrupt companies that made asbestos, not just companies still in business. The problem for the injured is that many companies that made asbestos or had asbestos products have sought bankruptcy protection and are now in trusts. These trusts are more difficult to sue, their assets are harder to determine, and the victims often die before their case is heard. The bill would also limit the time victims have to bring a case after diagnosis, even though it takes more time to prepare for a suit against bankrupt companies.

DeGroot can’t say enough about how awesome ALEC’s cookie-cutter corporate legislation is. “ALEC and ALEC model policy are a great resource. ALEC was able to put me in touch with an expert who was willing to travel to Missouri to testify in support of one of the bills I filed, Asbestos Transparency Trust,” DeGroot said in an ALEC interview.

That “expert” was Mark Behrens, a partner of the Kansas City law firm Shook, Hardy & Bacon. The firm has a national reputation for representing deadly industries like Big Tobacco. Behrens travels around the country lobbying on behalf of ALEC’s many asbestos bills, but tells the public that he is representing other clients like theU.S. Chamber Institute for Legal Reform.

EMOTIONAL FLOOR DEBATE

A cheerful DeGroot opened floor debate saying inaccurately that the bill simply stopped “double dipping” by asbestos victims, but the issue quickly turned emotional.

The first legislator to speak was Republican Rep. Steve Cookson, who is suffering from liver cancer. “I have been up here for eight years and most bills that we talk about are about protecting somebody’s money.… This bill is designed to protect out of state companies and insurance companies.”

Cookson went on to say that in the past he had been supportive of some tort reform bills. “I reflect back now, and you know I have a personal situation going on right here. I think a lot more about life and death. I would ask you, did you ever contemplate the way you want to die?” he asked of DeGroot.

“Well that is a bit personal,” responded DeGroot with a nervous laugh.

“Well, so do you want to die a slow death where you lay there in the bed and suffocate to death?” asked Cookson.

“I wouldn’t like that, no,” said Degroot.

Cookson went on to say that for the time he had left in the legislature, he wanted to make sure he was on the side of those “laying in the hospital for a long long time suffering, surrounded by their families…. I can’t bring myself to be in support of anything that would compromise a person’s ability to be made whole, and their family to be made whole because they had to leave this world in a horrible fashion in an abbreviated time they would have been expected to live.”

The ALEC bill offered by DeGroot would mean that many victims would not live to see their day in court. As one opposing legislator, Rep. Jay Barnes explained, “the best evidence in an asbestos case is the plaintiff, and when they die, that goes away.”

Similar bills based on the ALEC model have passed in 15 states: Ohio, Oklahoma, Wisconsin, West Virginia, Arizona, Texas, Utah, Tennessee, South Dakota, North Dakota, Iowa, Mississippi, Michigan, Kansas, and North Carolina.

KOCH INDUSTRIES LIMITS ITS EXPOSURE TO MESOTHELIOMA LAWSUITS

Koch Industries is the largest privately held company in America, with multiple subsidiary firms. When Koch acquired the paper company Georgia-Pacific LLC in 2007, it also became responsible for Bestwall LLC, which up until 1977 made a joint compound that contained asbestos. And because mesothelioma symptoms only appear after 10 to 50 years, Koch knew that when it purchased Georgia-Pacific, it also became responsible for thousands of asbestos lawsuits.

Koch Industries is a big financial supporter of ALEC and has served on the ALEC private enterprise board for many years, including in 2007 when the ALEC board approved the Asbestos Claims Transparency Act. Subsequently, in 2017, Koch Industries put Bestwall into bankruptcy to limit its exposure to mesothelioma lawsuits.

An affiliate of Koch’s Georgia-Pacific, Bestwall, joined “scores of U.S. manufacturers that have filed for bankruptcy due to asbestos litigation, and comes as the U.S. Congress mulls a bill that plaintiffs’ lawyers say would discourage asbestos claims,” wrote *Reuters*. The misnamed FACT Act is supported by ALEC, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and companies with billions of dollars of liability for asbestos claims, including Koch Industries.

Koch now argues that Bestwall was only a minor user of asbestos, but construction workers were exposed to multiple sources of asbestos, and since many of the responsible parties no longer exist, victims’ lawyers are forced to sue more than one company.

Koch complains it is spending $160 million a year defending its subsidiary against asbestos lawsuits. It could have set up a trust fund from the beginning when it acquired Bestwall to pay victims with that money instead of fighting every lawsuit, and is now slowing the process by putting the company into bankruptcy.

Americans for Tax Fairness estimates that the Kochs will get $1.4 billion from the Jobs and Tax Cut Act of 2017, money that could be used to pay asbestos victims before they die.

Instead, Koch and its allies are working hard to pass laws that run out the clock.

Am rising

Jim Barnett’s experience spreads presidential, statewide, local, corporate and issue campaigns. Prior to joining Definers, Barnett served as Vice President for Political Affairs for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Institute for Legal Reform. Barnett is a veteran of Republican politics having managed Sen. John McCain’s comeback victory in the first-in-the-nation New Hampshire primary and U.S. Senator Scott Brown’s $45 million 2012 campaign. He is a past chairman of the Vermont Republican Party and served as deputy campaign manager and communications director for Governor Jim Douglas’s 2002 upset victory.

chamberwatch

Generally, plaintiffs’ attorneys represent consumers and workers to help them seek compensation in court for injuries caused by alleged corporate wrongdoing. In the late 1990s, the Chamber launched a well-financed campaign to malign plaintiffs’ attorneys as part of a wider crusade to implement national and international policies that shield corporations from lawsuits.

In 1998, the Chamber founded the Institute for Legal Reform (ILR), now the largest sub-group within the Chamber. More than half of the $44 million the ILR raised in 2012 came from just 21 large donors, with an average donation of more than $450,000. The Chamber does its anti-consumer work through the ILR and through its **Coalition to Preserve Arbitration**, led by AT&T and comprising trade associations in finance, insurance, car sales and other industries where contracts are complicated and companies often have an advantage in information and expertise.

One of the ILR’s apparent goals is to further entrench the use of pre-dispute binding arbitration clauses in corporate contracts with consumers and employees. The clauses deny individuals’ right their day in court and require them instead to resolve disputes with corporations in private arbitration proceedings. The ILR funds research that attempts to support the claim that consumers do better in arbitration than in the courts, but more credible research shows that consumersand employeesare less successful in arbitration than in the courts. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has found that arbitration clauses are prevalent in financial services contracts and that very few consumers use arbitration to resolve financial disputes. Arbitration is an unpopular choice for consumers because it tends to create an unbalanced playing field that favors corporations.

Arbitration clauses in consumer contracts frequently forbid consumers from participating in class actions against the company. As a result, consumer disputes with companies can be arbitrated only on an individual basis, a method that is often impractical because the individual amount at stake is often small, even where the corporation’s total benefit from the challenged conduct is significant. That means consumers are increasingly unable to challenge wrongful corporate conduct. And if consumers can’t seek redress, companies do not have to answer for predatory or illegal practices.

The ILR also works to place articles on “cases and actions that portend to have an impact on business” in widely read publications through its media outfit, the Legal Newsline, founded in 2006.

Further, 39 states elect their high court judges, and from 2001 to 2003, for example, the candidate backed by the Chamber won 21 of 24 judicial elections. In 2004, the Chamber-backed candidate won 12 of 13 state Supreme Court races.

The Chamber gives financial support to the campaigns of state judges it views as aligned with its interests and attacks judges that it views as opposed to its priorities. Business groups spent about $26.2 million in races between 2000 and 2009, and the Chamber was a major player. In 2000, for example, the Mississippi chief justice, whom the Chamber supported but who was concerned about out-of-state influence on the state elections, asked the Chamber to stop running ads for her — but the Chamber ignored her request.

Chamber-identified ads disappeared in the 2002 Mississippi election season, but similar ads were run by the Law Enforcement Alliance of America (LEAA). The LEAA’s donors are secret, but Mississippi Supreme Court Justice Oliver Diaz suspected the Chamber was still at work, saying, “The ads that the U.S. Chamber ran against me in 2000 were extremely similar [to the ones] that the LEAA ran against me in 2008.” The Chamber had run highly negative ads, including accusing Justice Diaz of “voting for drug dealers and baby killers.”

“Judges who are running for reelection do keep in mind what the next 30-second ad is going to look like,” Justice Diaz said. A 2013 report by the Center for American Progress found that as campaign cash in judicial elections has increased, courts have begun to rule more often in favor of prosecutors and against criminal defendants.

Fewer numbers are available now than when the wave of spending began around 2000. The Chamber’s state high court spending is becoming increasingly difficult to trace, as observers, including former state supreme court justices, believe it has turned increasingly to spending money through opaque third-party organizations like the LEAA. Additionally, as the Center for Public Integrity notes, “Tracking all outside spending is nearly impossible thanks to lax state disclosure rules, as well as a loophole in the federal tax code that allows politically active nonprofits to run attack ads without disclosing who funds them.”

In a 2002 speech to the Illinois Chamber of Commerce, U.S. Chamber President Tom Donohue gave some insight into the rise of the Chamber's involvement in judicial elections. Taking aim at trial lawyers who successfully litigated class action lawsuits for people harmed by asbestos and tobacco companies, he said, “Our approach is simple — implement a multi-front strategy of challenging these unscrupulous trial lawyers every time they poke their head out of the ground.… On the political front, we’re going to get involved in key state Supreme Court and attorney general races as part of our effort to elect pro-legal reform judicial candidates.... We’re clearly engaged in hand-to-hand combat, and we’ve got to step it up if we’re going to survive.”

2011 report http://www.fixtheuschamber.org/sites/default/files/the_institute_for_legal_reform_-_the_u_s__chambers_corporate_conduit_0.pdf

A Report by U.S. Chamber Watch

October 2011

Introduction

Although it went little‐noticed by those who don’t study lobbying reports for a living,

the largest lobbying organization in the country, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, was

signaling something odd in its 3rd Quarter, 2011 report. The Chamber had engaged in

high‐profile legislative fights in recent years—among them, campaigns tokill health care

reform, Wall Street reform, and for a tax “holiday” on repatriated earnings—yet the

latest report showed nearly half of the organization’s lobbying spending as coming from

an obscure body within the behemoth operation, one that had nothing to do with any of

those campaigns: the Institute for Legal Reform.

In fact, it wasn’t the first time the outsized influence of the “ILR,” as it’s known, made

itself clear. Founded in 1998, the ILR was built by newly‐elected Chamber President and

CEO Tom Donohue to pursue a “tort reform” agenda. That is, to allow the new President

to, in his words, “play hardball” against so‐called “frivolous” lawsuits, and to elect

corporation‐friendly judges and Attorneys General. Since then, the mandate of the ILR

has expanded greatly, deliberately, and well beyond the scope of strictly “legal reform”

issues. Today, the ILR lobbies for some of the Chamber’s most controversial positions,

including overturning the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) and opposing political

disclosure of federal contractors.

As the mandate has grown, so has the ILR’s budget. The Institute’s original $500,000

starter funds in 1998 have swelled into a $40 million annual operation, funded by a

handful of exceptionally large contributions from the biggest corporations in America.

While the identities of the donors themselves are never disclosed, a superficial glance at

the ILR’s Board offers insight: the Board includes representatives from the

pharmaceutical, financial and insurance industries. Presumably, these industries are

represented in the more than 60 percent of ILR funding that comes in increments of $1

million or more.

And that is what’s most remarkable about the ILR’s just 436 contributions in the last 6

years: all of them are very large. More than 80 percent of the Institute’s funding comes

from donors who give at least $500,000; the average contribution is just above this

figure.Unlike the U.S. Chamber itself, the Institute makes no claims about their funding

base as indicating a broad measure of support; then again, the Institute rarely has need

to discuss its funding, or its operations in general.

If the Chamber is a black box in terms of its disclosure, the Institute for Legal Reform is

the black box inside that black box. Similar to how the Chamber allows corporations to

anonymously pursue their lobbying agendas by funneling money through the Chamber

(which in turn does the dirty work for these corporations), increasingly, the Institute for

Legal Reform allows the Chamber to anonymously pursue efforts that it wishes to keep

out of the press, in a different pool of money.

...

n March ofthe following year,the ILR stepped up their campaign in a serious way,

hiring Michael Mukasey,the formerU.S. AttorneyGeneral under PresidentGeorge W.

Bush, to lobby on “issues related to possible amendments to the Foreign Corrupt

Practices Act and issues related to criminal law and policies affecting U.S. corporations.”

In the first three quarters of 2011, the ILR has thus far reported paying Mukasey’s law

firm $140,000xii.

...

The ILR and theNewspaper Business:A“Shameful Propaganda Machine”

In addition to its lobbying and political operations, since 2004, the ILR has been in the

“news” business, publishing actual newspapers in various states and cities with content

that reflects its pro‐tort reform agenda—but in large measure, without a disclaimer

about the bias and affiliation of the publisher. In 2004, Stanton D. Anderson, an ILR

advisor at the time, and Chamber President Tom Donohue published the first of these

papers, theMadison‐St. Clair Record in Illinois. As reported by the Washington Post in

2004:

“Anderson said he didn't agonize over ethics when he was thrashing around…for

a new way to bring attention to the increasing burden class action lawsuits place

on companies. He was focused instead on his frustration that Madison County's

court system plays host to more class action lawsuit filings than any other

country in the nation…His brainstorm: buy a newspaper to spotlight the county's

courts. Purchasing an existing publication proved too pricey even for the

chamber's Institute for Legal Reform, which spent $40 million this year to battle

trial lawyers. So he and Thomas J. Donohue, the chamber's president, decided to

start a newspaper from scratch.”xxv

Other publications followed: LegalNewsline.com, the West Virginia Record, the

Southeast Texas Record, the Louisiana Record, and the Pennsylvania Record all bear the

ILR stamp.

Plenty of media outlets‐‐ including the Washington Post, Columbia Journalism Review,

NPR, the Wall Street Journal, the Nieman Journalism Lab at Harvard University‐‐ have

covered the ILR’s lack of transparency in informing readers about its ownership of the

papers and claims of the publications’ bias to the ILR’s agenda.

Yet the ILR itself has not seen a similar need to disclose. Referring to the Madison‐St.

Clair Record, Andersen simply admitted the paper had a “point of view.” The Record’s

publisher, Brian Timpone (who is also on the masthead of the other Records), would

only say, “I'm a biased guy. I'm a Republican.”xxvi The ILR has reported its ownership of

the Madison County Record in its 990 tax forms since 2005, but doesn’t report any of

the other newspapers as separate entities.

The ILR announced its launch of LegalNewlsine.com on February 1, 2007xxvii yet

LegalNewsline’s “About Us” pagexxviii has no mention of the U.S. Chamber or the ILR’s

ownership of the site, as of October 18, 2011. That is also true of the online “About Us”

pages on the websites of the Madison‐St. Clair Record, the West Virginia Record,

Southeast Texas Record, and the Louisiana Record.

Following the 2004 launch ofthe Madison County Record,the Washington Post’sJeffrey

Birnbaum wrote,

“Nowhere was it reported that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce created the

Record as a weapon in its multimillion‐dollar campaign against lawyers who file

those kinds of suits…. The chamber is one of a growing number of advocacy

groups that blur the distinction between legitimate media and propaganda to

promote their causes.”

xxix

Six years and four publications later, Laura McGann of Harvard’s Nieman Journalism Lab

wrote an October 2010 piece on the ILR’s publications entitled, “Using the power of

publishing to influence: The U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s entry into the news biz.”

McGann explained,

“Nowhere on the main pages of the Chamber sites is the Institute or Chamber

mentioned. In 2008, the most recent year available, the Institute spent $41

million (pdf) on various activities pushing for the cause of tort reform. At the

same time, the Institute’s reporters are covering civil cases with large

settlements and other tort reform‐related news — and working for news outlets

set up in some of the nation’s most tort‐friendly jurisdictions.”xxx

The Chamber’s questionable publications have not escaped legal scrutiny. According to

the Houston Chronicle, in 2007, Texas lawyer Brent Coon subpoenaed the editor and

reporter of the Southeast Texas Record, “questioning about whether they were trying to

taint jurors by handing out their paper. ‘This shameful propaganda machine is deceptive

and demonstrates a willingness to misrepresent fact,’ Coon complained in court

papers.”

xxxi Ultimately, Coon’s request to depose the editor and reporter of the

Chamber’s Texas paper was denied,

xxxii but throughout the debacle, editor Timpone

“said the paper's ownership doesn't matter in all this.”

Just five months ago, the ILR rolled out its newest publication, the Pennsylvania Record.

For the first time, the paper acknowledged the ILR connection on its website, noting on

its “About Us” page, “the Record newspapers and Legal Newsline are owned by the

Institute for Legal Reform, an affiliate of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.”

There are scant traces of the U.S. Chamber’s ownership of its legal publications in five

different states and of LegalNewsline.com, but they are overwhelmingly absent.

Furthermore, both the Chamber and editor overtly support this journalistic opacity, and

keeping ownership details under wraps. In a larger context, the Chamber’s legal

publications are yet another example of its extreme tactics to further a corporate

agenda while deliberately choosing anonymity

huffpo

The Secret Chamber of Commerce and its "Tort Reform" Mission

This week, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's "tort reform" branch, with its friendly sounding name Institute for Legal Reform, held its 10th Annual Legal Reform Summit. Among other things, ILR issued some easy-to-follow instructions for states seeking to wipe out the legal rights of people injured by corporate wrongdoing, as well as a "how to" guide to make sure that states appoint the right kind of judges, saying judicial selections shouldn't be "political." Well isn't that rich?

In 1998, the U.S. Chamber created the ILR to pursue the Chamber's so-called "tort reform" agenda: protecting corporations from liability, weakening the civil jury system and blocking the courthouse door for sick and injured Americans. Let's put aside the jaw-dropping hypocrisy of an organization that complains incessantly about lawsuits while :{suing the Yes Men:(style="background-color:#fff200"):}: for punking them, or complaining about climate change litigation (ILR had a whole panel on it) while :{threatening to sue the EPA:(style="background-color:#fff200"):}:.

The Chamber has a several-pronged approach in its campaign to eviscerate the public's right to take the country's more detested industries to court. One is to funnel major industry money into state election campaigns, especially races involving judges and state Attorneys General.

On September 11, 2001, a most unfortunate day for a major news story to appear, the Wall Street Journal ran an eye-opening article by Jim VandeHei about how some of this country's largest corporations were pouring millions of dollars into the Chamber, allowing companies to hide behind the Chamber's logo while the group did their dirty work. VandeHei wrote,

Last fall, for example, Wal-Mart Stores Inc., DaimlerChrysler AG, Home Depot Inc. and the American Council of Life Insurers all kicked in $1 million each for one of the chamber's special projects: a TV and direct-mail advertising campaign aimed at helping elect business-friendly judges.

Indeed, that year the Chamber raised over $5 million targeting judges in Michigan, Mississippi, Ohio, Indiana and Alabamawho had, according to the Journal, "rendered verdicts against one or more of the companies contributing to the effort."

No wonder secrecy is a hallmark of the U.S. Chamber/ILR's strategy when getting involved in these electoral races. Indeed, the organization sometimes goes to great lengths to keep its involvement and funding a secret. The Huffington Post is definitely on the right track with its new "tip line" seeking to find out who is backing them. We're guessing Deborah Sennthinks so too.

In 2004, Senn, who was Washington State's insurance commissioner, ran for state Attorney General. She had been known as a pro-consumer commissioner, committed to protecting the rights of her state's policyholders. She was comfortably ahead in the polls but in September 2004, right before Washington's Democratic primary, a group called the Voters Education Committee (VEC) ran a series of nasty and expensive attack ads against her. The state's Public Disclosure Commission sought financial information about the VEC but was denied. It was only after the state filed a lawsuit that :{the truth came to light:(style="background-color:#fff200"):}: -- that the Chamber was VEC's sole contributor, spending $1.5 million on the anti-Senn ads. Senn won the primary despite the smears, but the damage had been done. After continuing PR attacks, she lost the general election.

The Chamber said that its activities constituted voter education and issue advocacy, not campaigning or political advocacy that can be regulated by election laws. However, the Washington State Public Disclosure Commission disagreed, finding that its ads impugned the character and record of Deborah Senn and thus was "express advocacy" -- not "issue advocacy." The Washington State Supreme Court agreed, telling the Chamber to reveal its donors.

Since then, the ILR has come under heavy criticism in a few other ways. Theodore Eisenberg, Professor of Law and Statistical Sciences at Cornell University, has just published a scathing attack on the integrity, validity and impact of the ILR's annual "ranking" of states, which is simply a survey of corporate lawyers many of whose clients have been taken to court for causing harm.

They have also created several "newspapers" around the country that present readers with biased, anti-victim accounts of cases and pro-"tort reform" commentary. Initially, the Chamber tried to hide that it created the papers to use, as the Washington Post wrote, "as a weapon in its multimillion-dollar campaign against lawyers who file those kinds of suits."

But all of this secrecy has to be expected. After all, think of their goal: to convince average Americans to give up their rights to go to court against reckless corporations and to make sure the insurance industry can keep a little more money in its pocket. That's what "tort reform" is. And that is some PR feat.

Follow Joanne Doroshow on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/centerjd**

http://www.instituteforlegalreform.com/

Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The US Chamber Institute for Legal Reform (ILR) is an advocacy group founded in 1998 by the United States Chamber of Commerce, "representing the nation's business community" with a focus on what it calls "tort reform."^[1][2]

[hide]

Stances on issues

ILR takes a pro-defendant stance, condemning the influence that plaintiff trial lawyers have in expanding common law through tort and securities litigation. Accordingly, ILR promotes arbitration over litigation, increased attorney–client privilege, reduced discovery, and statutory caps on damage awards.^[3]

ILR is affiliated with the United States Chamber of Commerce, a non-profit trade association lobbying group representing businesses and industry associations. Through ILR, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has launched multiple lobbying efforts against trial lawyers.^[4][5][6]

Criticisms

Main article: Tort reform

Critics of ILR and other tort reform organizations argue that the organizations limit the access of ordinary citizens to be compensated for harms done to them by corporations through faulty products and/or harmful services. Critics argue that such interest groups do not promote judicial efficiency, legal ethics, or any other public purpose, but merely protect corporations from the consequences of their misdeeds.^[7]

References

:{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:^ ILR website, About ILR. Retrieved June 22, 2012.
:{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:^ OpenSecrets.org, Lobbying Spending Database^[dead ^link]. Retrieved May 8, 2009.
:{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:^ ILR website, Issue Resource Center. Retrieved May 8, 2009.
:{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:^ Garland, Susan. "Chamber of Commerce Battle Cry: Kill All the Lawyers", Business Week Online. March 2, 1998. Retrieved May 11, 2009.
:{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:^ Murray, Shailagh. "Conservative Appeal Trial-Lawyers Lobby Discovers". Wall Street Journal. July 8, 2004. Retrieved from Texans for Lawsuit Reform, May 11, 2009.
:{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:^ Holzer, Jessica. "Chamber launches effort against trial lawyers", TheHill.com. July 28, 2008. Retrieved May 11, 2009.
:{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:^ Cohen, Andrew.: "Made in America: Corporate Gall", CBSnews.com. Retrieved May 8, 2009.

External links

Official website

Categories: