Asbestos attorneys appeal $1.3M fraud ruling against them

WHEELING – Asbestos lawyers found to have committed fraud against CSX Transportation in West Virginia courts are appealing the recent $1.3 million decision against them.

Robert Peirce and Louis Raimond – formerly of the Pittsburgh firm Peirce, Raimond & Coulter – on Oct. 3 filed a notice of appeal of a September decision by U.S. District Judge Frederick Stamp, of the Northern District of West Virginia. The appeal will be before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in Richmond, Va.

According to the notice, the two attorneys are appealing Stamp’s amended judgment, which included his tripling of the damages awarded by a jury and his denial of the defendants’ motion for judgment as a matter of law or in the alternative for a new trial.

Stamp issued a series of lawsuits on Sept. 25 in CSX’s fraud lawsuit against the attorneys and radiologist Ray Harron, with whom they were found to have conspired to fabricate asbestos claims.

Stamp tripled a nearly $430,000 jury award pursuant to the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act.

“The defendants’ arguments that this Court should deny this motion as it would be premature to amend the judgment prior to this Court ruling on the issues contained in their post-judgment motions are moot,” Stamp wrote.

“This Court has since denied the defendants’ motions as to those issues and thus, it would not be premature to now amend the judgment.

“Further, the defendants’ argument concerning CSX’s statements during trial that this case was not about the money have no bearing on the fact that based on the above-cited law, CSX is entitled to treble damages.”

The resulting amount is $1,287.721.41, plus post-judgment interest at a rate of 0.15 percent per year since the December jury verdict.

Stamp did not make a ruling on the most expensive motion – CSX’s request that the defendants pay its more than $10 million legal bill.

Stamp decided to postpone any decision on the motion until exhaustion of any appeal.

On Dec. 20, an eight-person jury found Peirce, Raimond and Harron committed racketeering, conspiracy and fraud and ordered them jointly and severally liable for a penalty of $429,240.27.

CSX’s original complaint, filed in 2005, said Peirce’s firm hid nine fraudulent claims among other lawsuits filed by the law firm in West Virginia.

The nine lawsuits were filed and settled from 2000-2006. Stamp granted summary judgment to the Peirce firm in 2009, ruling a four-year statute of limitations began when the Peirce firm began targeting CSX.

However, the the Fourth Circuit overturned that decision and gave new life to the lawsuit. The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the defendants’ appeal of the decision.

CSX amended its complaint to include two additional claims it said were fraudulent. The Peirce firm filed counterclaims against the company that said it was engaging in fraud by bringing and conducting the lawsuit, though the jury ruled for CSX on them.

In 2005, federal court judge Janis Graham Jack made national headlines when she uncovered duplicate and fraudulent silica diagnoses in her Texas courtroom. Many of those diagnoses were made by Harron and were made on plaintiffs who had already brought asbestos claims.

In Jack’s opinion dismissing the claims, she said “These diagnoses were driven by neither health nor justice – they were manufactured for money.”

Following Harron’s admission that he did not even make the diagnoses of the patients whose X-rays he read, Jack noted that most of “these diagnoses are more the creation of lawyers than doctors.”

The defendants had also requested that if the verdict was allowed to stand, then the amount should be reduced to $95,368.98 because CSX should not be able to recover any damages on RICO claims that post-dated July 5, 2007. Stamp also denied that request.

From the West Virginia Record: Reach John O’Brien at jobrienwv@gmail.com.