Posted by
Stephen Meister on Thursday, April 09, 2009 9:26:52 AM
When PA decided to bring a civil action drug maker Janssen Pharmaceuticals over its anti-pysochotic drug Risperdall, instead of allowing the State's Republican Attorney General to prosecute the action--prescisely what the lawyers who work for the PA Office of the Attorney General are paid with taxpayer money to do--Democratic PA Governer Ed Rendell thought that instead it would be a good idea to let the Governor's Office of General Counsel handle the case. Sound ok? Maybe--until you learn that the Governer's General Counsel never took on the case. Instead he "awarded" a contract to handle the case to a Houston trial lawyer named F. Kenneth Bailey. Why would a Houston trial lawyer handle a case for the State of PA when the State has many competent attorneys already on its payroll you ask? Oh simple, because the particular Houston trial lawyer awarded the lucrative "contingency fee contract"--on a no bid basis of course--happened to have given $50,000 to the Rendell campaign just before being awarded the contract and another $25,000 right afterwards. To make sure his benefactor was properly compensated, the contingency fee contract actually bars the State from settling the case for non-monetary relief (e.g., Janssen agreeing to pull the drug off the market) without Bailey being compensated. Democrats--you elect them to a position of public trust, they sell their influence to the highest bidder. Janssen's lawyers are now seeking to unseat Bailey. Maybe Rendell should be taking Risperdall instead of fighting the company who makes it.