Misery Worth Millions

Membership in the Inner Circle of Advocates does not come easy, but this elite society, formed in 1972, is growing fast. To qualify, an attorney has to win a jury verdict of $1 million or more on behalf of a victim in a personal injury case. So far, 72 lawyers have been invited to join the organization. In the past month alone, there were three remarkable cases that merited Inner Circle recognition and will spur a growing concern about huge awards:

> Actor James Stacy, 39, the former co-star of the television series Lancer, was a touching figure throughout a court battle in Los Angeles. Stacy's arm and leg had been amputated after a drunken driver sideswiped his motorcycle in 1973, at the same time killing Stacy's passenger. Insisted his lawyer, Irving H. Green: "Stacy would have been able to command a million dollars a movie had his career been allowed to develop." Basing its decision on a 1953 California statute that persons who knowingly sell liquor to someone who is "obviously intoxicated" can be held liable for damages, the jury ordered the Beverly Hills bar where the driver had got drunk to pay $1.9 million to Stacy.

> The 1970 affair between Margaret Housen, 35, a secretary in Washington, D.C., and Angier St. George Biddle Duke, son of Angier Biddle Duke, former U.S. ambassador to Spain and Denmark, would hardly have ranked as a celebrated coupling had not Housen contracted gonorrhea. When doctors told Housen that she probably could not have children as a result, she sued Duke in his home state of Wyoming. Housen's lawyer, Gerry Spence of Casper, cites his client's courage: "Imagine having the guts to come to a little Wyoming courtroom and cut away the shame and the stigma of the disease, and to say in effect for the first time in American jurisprudence that we can bring matters of this nature out into the open and deal with them publicly." The jury was impressed, ordering Duke to pay $1.3 million. The decision might open an entire new field of litigation: a VD victim of either sex could haul the responsible partner into court.

> Tired after a day of shopping, Laureen Bernstein, now 24, a Brooklyn bank teller, was about to leave a local branch of the Korvettes department store chain when a store detective grabbed her from behind. "Hey, you!" he shouted. "What are you doing? What's wrong?" asked the terrified Bernstein. She told psychiatrists later that she feared she was about to be thrown into a car, stabbed or raped. The store detectives suspected Bernstein of being an accessory of two Puerto Rican girls they had apprehended earlier for shoplifting. Even though no stolen merchandise was found on Bernstein and the two girls denied knowing her, the store insisted on pressing charges. "You might have a false arrest on your hands," warned the sergeant at the police station when Bernstein was brought in and fingerprinted. False arrest it was, and the innocent Bernstein never quite recovered from the ordeal. Psychiatrists found her a "seriously ill young lady who has a tenuous social and psychological equilibrium as a result of the events of Oct. 23, 1972. She will require psychological and financial assistance for some time." The jury made sure Bernstein could get it by awarding $1.1 million in damages.

These whopping judgments are part of a continuing trend (TIME, Dec. 30, 1974). Jury Verdict Research Inc. of Cleveland reports that there have been a total of 98 awards of $1 million or more since 1971, with some attorneys winning more than one such case. Lawyers say that the spiraling awards reflect a growing consciousness by juries of a plaintiffs basic rights, the ability of attorneys to present far more sophisticated cases than they once did, and soaring medical costs.

But how much is too much? Even though the awards are often whittled down later by judges, the American consumer almost always ends up paying the bills (including the one-third of the judgment that frequently goes to the plaintiffs attorney). Action is now being considered to set limits on what plaintiffs can receive. In Texas, for example, a state committee is working on proposed legislation that would restrict awards for pain and suffering to $100,000.

Also troubling legal experts is the capriciousness of awards. Sums up W. Page Keeton, former dean of the University of Texas School of Law: "There are no yardsticks, no rules of thumb for courts to measure, say, pain and suffering. This is a major problem, and we're going to have to do some thinking about it."

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