The Star (UK) reports (here) on a plaintiff from the 1980's class action lawsuit against Dow-Corning involving silicone breast implants who finally received her share of the remaining settlement for a grand total of £207 ($304.50 USD at today's exchange rate).

It's hard to believe that elements of the 2nd or 3rd biggest "whale" of American class action lawsuits are still in existence. I call it 2nd or 3rd because asbestos and tobacco suits have dwarfed it now in overall compensation (Don't even get me started on the claims that smokers had no idea they could get addicted to cigarettes or get lung cancer!). The shenanigans of the trial bar in our country cultivating these proceedings does not reflect well on our legal system.

The person in the Star article had what sounds like subcutaneous mastectomies for painful breast cysts and reconstruction with silicone implants. She's attributed multiple and diffuse symptoms to the fact she had silicone breast implants in. (Keep in mind, large databases of women around the world with implants have failed to demonstrate an increase in any common rheumatologic symptom.)

She was among thousands of women from the USA and Europe who took action against the company claiming their health had been damaged after their silicone breast implants leaked or caused immune system reactions.

Now more than a decade of waiting the cases have finally been settled.

"It is an insult, they might as well have given us nothing at all," said Shirley. Women were originally expected to received thousands of pounds in compensation when the action was first launched. But Dow Corning, which did not admit liability in the legal case, went into bankruptcy and the amount of compensation available fell.

Well, if you believe the overwhelming world scientific consensus (see here) that has shown no linkage of any identifiable disease to breast implants , you might make the argument she received £207 too much. What's most striking is to consider how much the handful of class action plaintiff's lawyers literally stole from investors of Dow Corning (hundreds of millions of dollars) and how little claimants received some 20 years later.

Rob

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Instant Karma meet one John O'Quinn, attorney-at-law of Houston, TX. Mr. O'Quinn is best know as the shake-down artist who fleeced several implant manufacturers in the 1990's for a billion dollars +(USD) over the since dismissed claims of diseases allegedly caused by silicone breast implants. O'Quinn's total attorney fees while his firm represented the plaintiffs was over $260 million.


It seems like a only quarter of a billion dollars was not enough for counselor O'Quinn, who was stung Friday with a judgement for (with interest) nearly $60 million dollars for defrauding his clients with irregular (and undeclared) attorney fees as well as bogus and phantom expense reports.

O'Quinn was a particularly nauseating player in the late "silicone crisis" phantom menace that was driven to ridiculous heights by O'Quinn et. al. To this day his breezy attitude toward the truth (or as best we understand the truth on breast implants) represents the worst stereotypes of the American trial lawyer., ie. "Never let truth get in the way of a class action payday".

In lawsuits against the since bankrupted Dow Corning, O'Quinn made ridiculous leaps of logic during arguments with an over the top closing statement urging jurors to ignore the science and instead rely on “common sense, circumstantial evidence,” and post hoc ergo propter hoc (If "x" happened it must be from "y") reasoning. America, being the home of jackpot justice, rewarded these lawyers with staggering wealth.

From the Houston Chronicle:

An arbitration panel Thursday ordered O'Quinn to pay at least $35.7 million to more than 3,000 former breast implant litigation clients for collecting improper fees. The award includes $10.7 million in improper fees and a $25 million
penalty, the panel said.

The 3,000-plus women joined in a 1999 lawsuit claiming O'Quinn took funds from their settlements for group charges they had not agreed to pay. One of their lawyers estimated that with interest and lawyer fees, O'Quinn could pay up to $60 million out of his estimated $263.4 million in fees from the implant litigation.

$60 million, huh. Couldn't happen to a nicer guy.

Rob

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Found a thought-provoking editorial in The American magazine, titled "Second Thoughts on Breasts." which summarizes some of the history of regulatory issues with silicone implants. The effects of this on the corporation and employees of Dow Corning(which was sued out of existence)are touched upon nicely. It's ironic that if Dow had waited about 15 months (when the first of the large studies not finding links between silicone and disease was published by the Mayo Clinic) they would have not had to pay a dime of the multi-multi billion dollar settlement.

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One of the true victims perpetrated by the American Silicone Breast Implant crisis of the early 1990's was Dow Corning and it's shareholders. Based on nothing but innuendo, a group strong-armed trial lawyers suited the company out of existence. In fact, Dow is still paying settlement money based on claims we have since demonstrated were largely fiction (to the best of our medical evidence).

You don't suppose the law firms who pocketed tens to hundreds of millions of dollars are offering to refund this now that the FDA has officially come around on this (long after science and the rest of the world did)?

An editorial I found asks this same question.

From the editorial page of Midland Daily News:

Something was missing in Friday's announcement by the Food and Drug Administration that it was lifting a 14-year ban on silicone-gel breast implants: an apology to Midland's Dow Corning Corp. That's the least the agency could do, since it was the FDA's ban on the implants in 1992 that sparked an onslaught of lawsuits -- 19,000 of them -- and forced Dow Corning into Chapter 11 bankruptcy to keep the company afloat.

Billions of dollars later, Dow Corning emerged from bankruptcy. Perhaps along with an apology, the FDA should have offered some help in paying those billions the company had to shell out to settle its legal claims. Isn't that the least the FDA could do, since it played such a huge role in casting doubt about the silicone-gel implants the agency now is saying are safe?

Dow Corning officials, in their response to the FDA announcement, took the high road, simply pointing out that this case shows "the critical need for science literacy and its importance in making informed decisions, as individuals, as government agencies and as a society."

We'll take it one step further. This case shows the problems that occur when a government agency becomes a pawn for a class-action-eager civil lawsuit system willing to take down an innocent company for the sake of the almighty buck.

The FDA's announcement Friday was welcome, but it was more than a decade overdue.

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