Following up on my post the other day about Dickie Scruggs, did you see that another class-action king, Melvyn I. Weiss, was sentenced to 30 months in federal prison and forced to pay $10 million in forfeitures and fines after pleading guilty to charges of racketeering?
Mr. Weiss is doing time because he and partners in his firm conspired with individuals, including friends and relatives, to serve as plaintiffs in lawsuits. Again, it's a perversion of the civil justice system that gives average people the legal might to press legitimate claims against huge corporations with an army of attorneys at their disposal.
It's a shame it had to come to this. But it was important to send this 72-year-old criminal to prison as a warning to others in the legal profession tempted to scam the system, which undermines confidence in the judicial process and spurs calls for tort reforms that will limit an individual's rights of recovery.
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