ST. PAUL – State Rep. Matt Bliss, R-Pennington, has drafted a bill to help ensure lawsuit settlement funds awarded to the state reach the intended target.
For instance, legal fees reportedly will consume $125 million of the state’s recent $850 million ground contamination lawsuit settlement with 3M. Bliss called the lawyer bill “obscene” and said a greater share of those funds would be better used maximizing environmental cleanup efforts.
“We were reviewing the settlement in our environment committee and someone just quick mentioned $125 million was going to law firms,” Bliss said. “My jaw just dropped. Here they are, talking about an $850 million settlement and how it’s going to be a tight fit completing the cleanup job on that budget, yet lawyers are getting $125 million. That is an obscene amount of money that should be used for cleaning our groundwater, but instead it is being eaten up by lawyers.”
Bliss has responded with a bill he said would help mitigate Minnesota taxpayers’ exposure to legal fees during future state-based lawsuits by capping them at 2 percent of an award, or $100,000, whichever is higher.
“My bill has nothing to do with the politics of the 3M case, nothing to do with that particular lawsuit itself,” Bliss said. “The same thing happened with tobacco money when $427 million of that settlement was skimmed off to pay lawyers instead of being used for cessation or treatment initiatives. It needs to stop. Why are we spending an insane amount of taxpayer dollars to hire private law firms instead of having the state represent itself? We have a state attorney general’s office and hundreds of lawyers already in position.”
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