Ronald Motley, Lawyer Who Led Tobacco Lawsuits, Dies at 68

By Jef Feeley
Ronald L. Motley, a South Carolina lawyer who spearheaded lawsuits against tobacco companies that led them to agree to pay $246 billion in the biggest civil settlement in U.S. history, has died. He was 68.
He died yesterday at Roper Hospital in Charleston, South Carolina, Don Migliori, a partner in his law firm, said in an interview. The cause was complications from organ failure, he said.
Motley pioneered the development of mass-tort litigation to sue tobacco makers in the 1990s such as Altria Group Inc. (MO:US)’s Philip Morris unit and companies that sold asbestos-laden building products, such as Johns Manville Corp. He recovered billions of dollars for workers and consumers who blamed the manufacturers’ products for their illnesses.
“Ron Motley changed the playing field for individuals seeking to hold companies accountable in this country,” said Richard Harpootlian, a Columbia, South Carolina-based plaintiffs’ lawyer who had known Motley for 38 years. “He may well have been the best trial lawyer of his generation.”
The son of a gas-station owner in North Charleston, South Carolina, Motley became one of the U.S.’s most feared plaintiff lawyers. He could be seen striding across courtrooms in his “lucky” ostrich-skin boots and often used props to entertain jurors and annoy opponents.

Legal Fees

As part of the tobacco industry settlement, in which companies agreed to make payments to U.S. states to resolve claims that cigarettes caused public-health dangers, Motley’s firm was guaranteed at least $1 billion in legal fees, the New York Times reported in 1998.
William S. Ohlemeyer, a former in-house lawyer for Phillip Morris, who tried a tobacco case against Motley in Indiana, said he was a formidable opponent.
“It was impressive to watch him operate in the courtroom,” Ohlemeyer, now a partner at the law firm of Boies, Schiller & Flexner LLP, said in an interview. “He was a spectacular trial lawyer who worked hard for his clients.”
Filmmakers hired actor Bruce McGill to portray Motley in the movie “The Insider,” an account of tobacco scientist Jeffrey Wigand’s decision to blow the whistle on the tobacco industry’s knowledge about nicotine’s addictiveness. The film starred Russell Crowe as Wigand and Al Pacino as a TV journalist who covered Wigand’s story.

Asbestos Cases

Motley started his career as an assistant prosecutor in Greenwood, South Carolina. In the mid-1970s, he made a name for himself by filing the first suits against Manville and other companies that sold products such as insulation containing asbestos. Studies have shown the material can cause cancer and lung problems.
Motley and his law firm, Motley Rice LLC, have recovered hundreds of millions of dollars for workers injured by exposure to asbestos, said Jack McConnell, one of his former partners who is now a federal judge in Providence, Rhode Island. McConnell tried asbestos and other cases with Motley for 25 years before joining the bench.
“He could take very complicated liability evidence from the corporation’s own files and explain it to lay jurors in a simple and straightforward fashion,” McConnell said. “He despised it when people were hurt through corporate misconduct, and he thrived on getting them justice.”

Remembering Mother

For Motley, representing smokers who developed lung cancer was a personal matter, McConnell said. Motley’s mother was an ex-smoker who died from the disease in 1984.
“Ron said on many occasions that he was out to avenge his mother’s death from tobacco through the litigation,” McConnell said.
To make his case, the raven-haired Motley sometimes turned to unusual courtroom props. In an asbestos case in Baltimore, Motley donned a white lab coat and used a toy doctor’s kit as part of his cross-examination of a company’s medical expert, McConnell said. During closing arguments in that case, Motley used a squirt gun to spray a defense exhibit.
Defense attorneys for asbestos makers called him “the man who took down Manville,’” McConnell said. The company, now owned by billionaire Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (A:US), sought bankruptcy protection in 1982 because of billions of dollars in asbestos liability.

Golden Retrievers

Motley’s lifestyle reflected his success. He owned a mansion on Kiawah Island off the coast of Charleston, a $15 million yacht named Themis for the Greek goddess representing justice, and a pair of golden retrievers named Chrysotile and Amosite, after different kinds of asbestos. In 1999, the lawyer hired the soul group Earth, Wind & Fire to perform at what was then his third wedding.
Motley’s hard-drinking lifestyle was documented in books, such as “Civil Warriors” by Dan Zegart.
“Ron’s vices were well known,” Ernest “Fritz” Hollings, a former U.S. senator from South Carolina, said of his friend yesterday in an interview. “He liked that bottle too much. But it didn’t stop him from being one of the best trial lawyers in history.”
Health problems confined him to a wheelchair the last several years, Migliori said.
Ronald Lee Motley was born on Oct. 21, 1944, in Charleston to Woodrow Wilson Motley and the former Carrie Montease Griffin. His father operated an Amoco gasoline station.
Motley received his bachelor’s degree in 1966 from the University of South Carolina in Columbia and, in 1971, a law degree. After serving as a prosecutor, Motley joined the law firm of Solomon Blatt Jr., a state legislator, in Barnwell, South Carolina. Motley began taking asbestos claims from workers at the nearby Charleston Naval Shipyard while at the firm.
Survivors include his wife, Stephanie Motley, and his daughter, Jennifer Motley Lee. His son, Mark, died in 2000.
To contact the reporter on this story: Jef Feeley in Wilmington, Delaware, at jfeeley@bloomberg.net;
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Michael Hytha at mhytha@bloomberg.net
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