| November 14, 2001
Dental Case Exposes High Court Decay Like an X-ray, a dental lawsuit is revealing troubling Texas Supreme Court cavities. Defense firms and special interests are accumulating in high court chambers, promoting judicial activism that further decays confidence in Texas courts. Dentists filed a class-action suit to recover losses that they attribute to faulty office management software. After two lower courts signed off on the class certification in Schein v. Stromboe, the defense made an interlocutory appeal for high court review of the class. The court ruled in August that it lacked jurisdiction to hear Schein but reversed itself last week, when it suddenly discovered “conflicts jurisdiction” (thereby asserting jurisdiction because multiple appellate courts disagreed on a point of law). Schein is timely. Two bills that died in House committee this year (HB 2072 and HB 2181) would have granted the high court jurisdiction over all interlocutory appeals of class certifications. Fostering rumors that these bills sought to protect the Schein defendants, Schein defense lawyer Jerry Clement of Locke Liddell ($196,230 to sitting justices) testified in favor of both bills on behalf of the Texas Civil Justice League (TCJL). Akin Gump ($58,875) lobbyist Shannon Ratliff, who testified for TCJL ($37,400) on HB 2072, wrote a TCJL amicus brief in Schein. Even Justice Nathan Hecht testified in favor of this bill—without recusing himself from Schein. While the defense’s arguments in both high court Schein motions did not change, its lawyers did. The defense recruited Vinson & Elkins ($272,000 to sitting justices) managing partner Harry Reasoner to file its second motion asking the court to review the case. In the two weeks after this friend of the court filed his Schein motion, Chief Justice Tom Phillips received at least three phone messages from him. In one, Reasoner offered to give the court more aid responding to the scandal over top law firms subsidizing court clerks. The topic of the other messages—including one dated the day after Reasoner filed his motion—is not known. The defense lobby and the court could use Schein to give these
defendants what they failed to get from the legislature: high court control
over this class action. Instead, the court should listen to the dentists:
it's time to floss.
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