Liposuction and Plastic Surgery Information - Breast implant lawyer ordered to refund $35 million

Breast implant lawyer ordered to refund $35 million

Wednesday, 25 July 2007

One of the leading lawyers who took a class action suit against the makers of silicone breast implants has been ordered to repay over $35 million to his clients. The ruling by an arbitration panel found that Houston lawyer John O'Quinn had deducted charges that were not agreed by his clients. With the addition of interest and attorneys' fees, the decision is likely to cost the controversial lawyer nearly $60m.

The ruling follows complaints by his clients in the breast implant suit that he had deducted charges from the settlement that were not agreed by them. The complaint was initiated by three ex-clients in East Texas and was then joined as a class action suit by thousands of other women that O'Quinn had represented. The final arbitration decision said:

"Quite simply, if O'Quinn is allowed to improperly withhold client funds with impunity, other lawyers may believe that they can do likewise. Such a result would destroy the very integrity of the special and unique relationship that exists between attorney and client,"

O'Quinn responded that the decision was unfair and illogical.

``I didn't cheat anybody,'' O'Quinn said. ``We got people record results and charged the least expenses of any law firm in town.''

In addition to the excess charges of $10.7 million, he must pay a $25 million penalty for breaking his contract with his clients. He will be asked to pay the legal costs of the women, estimated at $2m, and interest on the settlement, which could be more than $21 million.

O'Quinn's lawyer Billy Shepherd said that they plan to appeal the decision.

O'Quinn had deducted an extra 1.5% of all the settlements to pay for such items as professional association dues, flowers, fundraising, other lawyer's fees, and his overheads, even though he had already deducted 40% of the settlement for his fee, estimated at more than $260 million.

This decision against O'Quinn is far less than the lawyer's total fees for all these clients, which was estimated in the lawsuit to be around $580 million but which the three arbitrators placed at about $263.4 million

O'Quinn has made millions in breast implant, tobacco and other mass tort litigation. More recently he was in the news for representing Anna Nicole Smith's mother and getting involved in a dispute with the dead woman's lawyer companion.

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