A recent Law 360 story by Andrew Strickler, “Pelvic Mesh MDL Fee Committee Accused of Self-Dealing,” reports that a group of firms that worked on cases for plaintiffs in the multidistrict litigation over pelvic mesh implants has accused fee committee members of self-dealing and obscuring the process of divvying up the case's proceeds.  In one recent filing, New Jersey-based personal injury firm Mazie Slater Katz & Freeman said the committee's recommendations on a split of the "common benefit" fees had largely ignored its role as one of the “driving forces and largest risk-takers” in the massive litigation.

The firm also said some members of the fee and cost committee had raised concerns that committee leaders — chair Henry Garrard of Blasingame Burch Garrard & Ashley PC, Joseph Rice of Motley Rice, and Clayton Clark of Clark Love & Hutson GP — had “predetermined” to give themselves the lion’s share of the fund at the expense of other firms.  Adam Slater of the Mazie Slater firm also claimed that in the “most glaring example of self-dealing,” attorney Bryan Aylstock of Aylstock Witkin Kreis & Overholtz pressured Garrard to up his firm’s award by $10 million by threatening to stop an Aylstock firm partner who sits on the committee from backing the award recommendation.

Retired Judge Daniel Stack, who was appointed by the court to oversee fee allocations, “stated that he ‘was sickened’ and ‘angered’ by this conduct, which he described as Mr. Aylstock pressuring [Garrard] when he was particularly vulnerable,” according to the filing.

The litigation accusing Boston Scientific Corp. of making defective pelvic mesh implants was first centralized in West Virginia six years ago as three MDLs covering 150 cases.  It later grew into seven MDLs with some 53,000 lawsuits.  In January, U.S. District Judge Joseph R. Goodwin in West Virginia ordered that 5 percent of all proceeds should be set aside for attorneys at 94 common benefit firms, representing some $336 million.  Stack and the fee committee issued their fee allocation recommendations to the court in mid-March.

In another March 26 filing, personal injury firm Kline & Specter PC also objected to its $3.745 million award from the common benefit fund, and said fee committee members were attempting a “mass taking.”  The Philadelphia-based firm, which has raised previous objections about the fee committee, also accused Stack of “rubber stamping” the committee’s recommended awards and severely underestimating the firm’s contributions in mesh-focused state court litigation.  “Mr. Stack’s methodology, if one exists, is severely flawed,” the firm said, calling his contribution “worthless.”

A third law firm, Ohio’s Anderson Law Offices LLC, also told the court the eight-member fee committee had authorized for their own firms 66 percent of the total pool, leaving the rest to 79 other firms.  Garrard, Rice and Clark “alone are enriching themselves with 41 [percent] of the total fund; an astonishing $143,669,635,” the firm said.  “By definition, this is self-dealing pure and simple.”