A federal judge’s findings about suspect diagnoses in thousands of silicosis cases in multidistrict litigation in Corpus Christi, Texas, did not convince a state judge in Mississippi to sanction a Houston firm representing some plaintiffs in those cases.
On June 27, Circuit Court Judge Isadore W. Patrick of Vicksburg, Miss., denied motions for sanctions against the former firm of O’Quinn, Laminack & Pirtle, now called the O’Quinn Law Firm. In March, a dozen of some 72 defendants in McDuff, et al. v. Aearo, et al. and Braxton, et al. v. Aearo, et al. filed motions in the Circuit Court of Sharkey and Issaquena counties, seeking about $165,000 in sanctions from O’Quinn Laminack for allegedly pursuing frivolous claims on behalf of clients and submitting allegedly unreliable diagnoses to support those claims.
