Massachusetts: Deliberations ongoing in Boston cigarette lawsuit
BOSTON (AP) -- Jurors in a lawsuit by the family of a Massachusetts woman who accused a tobacco company of enticing black children to smoke are scheduled to resume deliberations after saying they were deadlocked.
A Suffolk Superior Court judge asked the jury Friday to keep deliberating after the said they were deadlocked.
Deliberations resumed Monday.
In the case, the son of a Boston woman who died of lung cancer is suing the maker of Newport cigarettes.
Marie Evans' son says Lorillard Tobacco Co. lured her to start smoking at age 13 by giving away cigarette samples at her Boston housing project.
Lawyers for North Carolina-based Lorillard say there is no evidence to support that claim, and that it was Evans' choice to start and continue smoking.
Arizona: Court ruling targets lawyer probate fees
PHOENIX (AP) -- An Arizona Court of Appeals ruling has laid out strict new guidelines for judges to follow before approving legal and professional fees in cases involving adults under court protection.
The ruling rejected $265,000 in attorney's fees billed by the Phoenix law firm Dyer and Ferris. It said a probate commissioner erred in awarding the fees because he did not consider whether they were justified and resulted in benefits to the ward.
Billing practices have come under growing scrutiny in the past two years as The Arizona Republic outlined cases in which lawyer and fiduciary fees were allowed to wipe out the life savings of adults under the protection of the Maricopa County Probate Court. Fiduciaries manage the care and finances of people unable to care for themselves.
The appeals court's decision issued late Thursday is the latest in a series of recent judicial crackdowns on fees in county Probate Court.
Appeals Judge Sheldon Weisberg, writing for a three-judge panel, said a commissioner should also consider whether the law firm's hourly rates were reasonable and whether the firm's bills provided enough detail to justify charges for each task. Commissioners do the same work as judges.
The appeals court remanded the case back to the probate court to reconsider the fees.
"Obviously, fiduciaries and their attorneys must avoid the pursuit of Pyrrhic victories that accomplish little but to bankrupt the protected person," Weisberg wrote. "In a case in which the protected person's estate suffers significant and harmful losses, the Superior Court must exercise its independent judgment to determine what portions of attorney fees were reasonably incurred."
Lawyers with Dyer and Ferris did not return the Republic's calls seeking comment. In court filings, they argued that Probate Commissioner Richard Nothwehr acted properly in approving their fees in the case of R.B. Sleeth, an 81-year-old Paradise Valley man whose care and $1.4 million estate were placed under his son's control in early 2008. The attorneys said the law does not require a protected person actually to benefit from their services.
The appeals court decision and other recent actions by judges signal a shift in the way the probate court is expected to overseeing cases in which the elderly and the ill become wards. In the past month, judges have proposed adopting tough limits on what attorneys and private fiduciaries can charge.
They also ordered lawyers to justify their bills in one case, and in another asked them to waive $300,000 in legal fees.
Sleeth and his wife, Marge, 76, challenged the probate court's decision to pay Dyer and Ferris. The Sleeths argued that R.B. Sleeth's son, acting as his court-appointed guardian, ran up staggering legal bills in an attempt to separate him from Marge before they were married in 2009.
R.B. Sleeth's attorney, Chuck Stegall, could not be reached for comment.
Sleeth had been locked away in an Alzheimer's unit with the approval of the probate commissioner, although he didn't have Alzheimer's disease. In 2009, a judge ruled that he was not incapacitated and no longer needed guardianship.
Sleeth now resides in an assisted-living center; attorney fees would cost him more than $500,000 and care expenses $200,000.
The Republic's stories prompted Arizona Supreme Court Justice Rebecca White Burch to form a committee of judges, lawyers, fiduciaries and concerned citizens to recommend reforms.
But some legal experts say the Court of Appeals may have done much of the job for the committee.
"The Court of Appeals accomplished (in one) ruling what the probate committee has been trying to do for months," Phoenix probate lawyer Candess Hunter said Friday. "Now, the Probate Court just has to follow the roadmap created by the Court of Appeals."
Indiana: Man convicted in 7 murders appeals life sentence
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) -- A man convicted of being the main triggerman in the slayings of seven people in their Indianapolis home is appealing his life sentence.
The Indiana Supreme Court will hear Desmond Turner's appeal Thursday.
The 32-year-old Turner was convicted in November 2009 of killing three children and four adults during a home invasion robbery in June 2006. He waived his right to a jury trial in return for prosecutors not seeking the death penalty, and a judge sentenced him to life in prison without parole.
Turner argues that the trial judge erred in admitting certain evidence and that there is insufficient evidence to sustain the convictions.
Published: Tue, Dec 14, 2010
