Opinion ID: 1353826
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Representation of Chrysler by John Carey and Joseph Danis

Text: John Carey joined Thompson & Mitchell in 1987, after being admitted to practice law in Missouri. While at Thompson & Mitchell, Carey worked under Charles Newman as part of a team of partners and associates that defended Chrysler against product liability and consumer class action cases brought against it nationwide. From January 1992 through December 1995, Carey billed 1,314.6 hours to Chrysler. As part of the Chrysler team, Carey was privy to all aspects of the Chrysler representation and directly participated in nearly all aspects of the Chrysler litigation. In addition, Carey assessed Chrysler's potential liability in pending litigation and helped draft a blueprint for Chrysler to follow in defending class action product defect suits pending concurrently with a National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) investigation. Joseph Danis was licensed to practice law in Missouri in 1993 and began work as an associate for Thompson & Mitchell that year. Carey acted as Danis' mentor while Danis was a summer associate and again when Danis was a new associate. Danis joined Carey as a member of Charles Newman's Chrysler team. As a new associate, Danis' involvement with the Chrysler class action litigation was less extensive than Carey's. However, as a member of the team, Danis was privy to all aspects of the Chrysler representation. Danis billed 513.5 hours to Chrysler from January 1992 through December 1995. Newman would circulate information on the widest possible basis to every member of the Thompson & Mitchell team involved in representation of Chrysler. Carey was the primary associate on four different Chrysler class action cases. [8] Charles Newman testified: John [Carey] was totally immersed in that case [ Osley ], along with me, and played the same role that I played in many respects. And that obviously involved... determining the legal issues that the case presented. It also involved analyzing the jurisdiction .... .... He was also involved with me and others in massing the facts relevant to the claims that were asserted, and that involved contacting and principally working with the personnel in the office of the general counsel at Chrysler Corporation. Newman further testified that in the other three cases, Carey had a similar role with a few additional aspects. Danis was not involved in Osley, but did participate in the other three cases. Danis was involved in the lower level associate functions, but worked extensively with both Newman and Carey. Danis worked principally on drafting discovery responses and obtaining information from Chrysler to respond to discovery requests. The component parts involved in the class action lawsuits Carey and Danis defended while with Thompson & Mitchell were Renault heater coils and Chrysler minivan door latches. Charles Newman and other Chrysler attorneys, William McLelland and Lewis Goldfarb, each stressed, however, that the actual defective component was not materially important in this type of class action lawsuit. Goldfarb testified: The products at issue in class actions are almost irrelevant to how we go about defending class actions. There's almost an identity of process in terms of how we defend class actions, regardless of the nature of the component involved. .... Product-related class action[s], particularly those that follow on the heels of a government investigation, are virtually identical in the way the company handles them. The nature of the component involved is almost irrelevant to these cases because they never go to trial. We're always dealing with the government, that investigation relates to the ongoing class action case. And the class action strategy is almost independent in some respects of the nature of the component involved. These three Chrysler attorneys also testified that respondents Carey and Danis were privy to a wealth of information that would be useful to them in prosecuting a product-related class action against Chrysler. Newman testified that Carey and Danis learned Chrysler's strategy in defending minivan product liability class action suits: Respondents [were] present during meetings with in-house Chrysler counsel when there was a discussion of the strengths and weaknesses of various Chrysler employees ... [and] with nonlawyer Chrysler employees; for example, expert witnesses. .... We would talk with the client about other pending litigation alleging a similar product or defect .... So we would talk to the attorneys at Chrysler about their defense of those cases, what factual defenses were being developed and implemented, what expert witnesses, if any, they were working with there. The legal strategies in those cases, the legal defenses in those cases. Determine their applicability, determine their usefulness, determine whether they could be implemented in the class action .... Newman also said that Carey and Danis knew that Chrysler was very hesitant to interplead or sue a critical supplier because of the way its supply lines were managed. [I]f somebody was thinking of suing Chrysler and knew ... that Chrysler had a predisposition against bringing in third parties, you would know in contemplating a suit against Chrysler that it would be relatively efficient in that Chrysler wouldn't bring in everybody else in the world that might be involved or had a bearing with that particular component or product and that you could tailor your claims accordingly to focus just on Chrysler and not have to worry about suppliers and the like. Newman testified that, although the component parts differed, there were many similarities in available defenses, such as statute of limitations, improper certification of the class, improper class representatives, and improper assertion of claims. Finally, Newman indicated that many expert witnesses overlap: economists, automotive repair experts and human factor engineers. [9] Newman testified that [t]he Respondents ... learn[ed] which experts Chrysler chose to use and not use. He stressed that Carey and Danis helped formulate Chrysler's defense strategy in class action product liability cases involving Chrysler minivans. William McClelland confirmed that Carey and Danis were made aware about the types of information Chrysler kept, the sources of information within Chrysler relevant to the defense of a product liability class action lawsuit involving the minivan. McClelland testified that respondents' specific knowledge of the minivan would be extraordinarily helpful. [T]he minivan was incredibly important to Chrysler. It still is today. I'm not sure the public fully understands its importance to our profitability. They know Chrysler makes solid minivans, but not I think the importance that we attach to it internally. We were just coming out with a brand-new minivan at the time. We had put over a billion dollars investment into that minivan and were very concerned from a marketing and public relations perspective. One of the strategies of the plaintiffs' bar would be to muddy our name. We noticed during that time Ford was coming out with ads touting its safety record. Carey's and Danis' first-hand knowledge of the minivan's importance would allow them to know what hot buttons to push. Lewis Goldfarb also discussed respondents' work for Chrysler. Goldfarb testified that Carey and Danis had access to detailed, internal information and analysis done by the in-house legal department, as well as [Chrysler] engineers and other personnel, regarding the status of a confidential government investigation .... He emphasized that Carey and Danis had a road map as to how we [Chrysler] look at and analyze alleged defects concerning our products. The road map Goldfarb spoke of referred to a matrix or blueprint that the Chrysler teamincluding John Carey and Joseph Danisdeveloped to formulate Chrysler's defense to class action product liability cases involving Chrysler minivans. The team prepared a matrix of all considerations that Chrysler should consider in deciding whether or not to settle the minivan latch cases. This matrix listed relevant criteria and matched those criteria with a factual scenario. For each scenario, the team gave thoughts about the applicability of the criteria and its impact on the company. The matrix also included a form of a decision tree. The decision tree visually described the different scenarios and their implication on important areas of the company like marketing, public and consumer relations, dealer relations, and the recall itself. This information was very important to Chrysler. Charles Newman summed up Chrysler's position on the matrix in saying: [T]his is highly confidential information and it was shared with us by our client in confidence. We had a discussion, extensive discussions with the client that resulted in the creation of this document, this matrix or template. And to have a plaintiff's lawyer know, for instance, of the very considerations themselves what Chrysler's thought process deemed important and deemed material and how I in representing them analyzed each of those aspects would be very sensitive, confidential information that neither the company nor I would want to share with anyone.