HARD QUESTIONS ABOUT TOBACCO-LITIGATION LAWYERS YET TO BE ANSWERED

Attorney General Jay Nixon won a victory this week in the tobacco case filed against the state by a number of hospitals seeking to intervene and grab a portion of Missouri's tobacco-litigation proceeds. The 2-1 decision by the Eastern District Court of Appeals in St. Louis has no direct bearing on the case (Kinder v. Nixon) filed in August 1998 by this writer. My lawsuit seeks to pull the plug on what I claim to be the illegal contract Nixon entered into to hire his campaign contributors as outside counsel to pursue Missouri's stake in the tobacco litigation. Still, the curious reasoning of the divided St. Louis court, if followed by the Western District Court of Appeals in Kansas City, probably doesn't augur well for my case in the latter forum. We wait.

All this raises fascinating questions, "What shall we do if that court rules against my argument? And what will be the consequences for Missouri, and for Missourians, if the court rules against me and sanctions the unprecedented Nixon contract? In short, what are the stakes?"

To the first, we can say that, of course, we will appeal to the Missouri Supreme Court. A cautionary note: The high court doesn't have to take the case. That is, they could conceivably choose to duck this tough and controversial matter with so much cash on the line and a former colleague, who resigned from the Supreme Court in July 1998, among those first in line at the trough. Were this to happen, we might ask why we need a Supreme Court and why we pay them so handsomely and many more questions besides. (A side note in the wondering-out-loud department: Five of the current seven Supreme Court judges are appointees of U.S. Sen. John Ashcroft during his tenure as governor. Is this why such a renowned conservative leader appointed them? To give their blessing to such a deal?) But I get ahead of myself.

As for the the latter two questions, as to the stakes, allow me. Recall other states, where attorneys' demands for tobacco litigation fees have come in at the $500 million level and up. In Massachusetts, the plaintiffs' lawyers demanded $2 billion. In Maryland, Baltimore Orioles owner and Clinton-Gore attorney/fund raiser Peter Angelos is set to receive $1 billion and stands ready to fight like a biting sow anyone who gets in his way.

One consequence of any court's ruling blessing Nixon's contract to hire his friends would be that we won't need your elected representatives in the House and Senate to deliberate on appropriating your tax money for hiring outside counsel, as called for in our Constitution. We can just turn loose Mr. Nixon and all future attorneys general to flip through their Rolodexes in search of campaign contributors to reward. This will then facilitate their hoped-for result: The favored lawyers, on their way to billionaire status, will be more than glad to kick back a few lousy millions of their ill-gotten gains to the politicians who made it all possible. As observed here before, referring to a scandal that sent some folks to the pen short years ago, this is the Second-Injury Fund on steroids.

A distinguished St. Louis attorney, appalled at how the practice of law is being debased, observed to me that the only way this can go down is if the public doesn't know or understand the extent of the pending ripoff, which is quite simply the largest in 179 years of Missouri statehood.

Which returns us to my main effort on this issue: To awaken Missourians. Anyone want to help set up a Web site to relate the identities of the key players and much more in this sordid tale?

~Peter Kinder is assistant to the president of Rust Communications and a state senator from Cape Girardeau.