Wall Street security analysts, hedge-fund managers et al. are very interested in the ideological leanings of the Rhode Island Supreme Court. After all, the value of the stocks of Sherwin-Williams, NL Industries and the parent of Millennium Holdings are at issue in what is decided when the case moves from RI Superior to RI Supreme Court.
So, your trusty blogger has gotten out there soliciting informed opinions about how the Chief Justice and the four Judges might look at cases, in general, and perhaps this particular one. One opinion has just come in, off-the-record, from a brandname attorney based in Washington D.C. but very familiar with what goes down in RI, Ohio and New Jersey.
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Opinion of Washington D.C. Attorney on Ideological Leanings of RI Supreme Court, off-the-record:
Immediately when we think about this issue, it's key to recall: The Rhode Island Supreme Court is holding in abeyance the constitutional challenge of the contingency fee arrangement between the state attorney general and private law firm Motley Rice. Superior Court Justice Michael Silverstein had ruled that issues was unconstitutional on its face but had permitted revision nunc pro tunc (Black's Law: done after the time when it should be done) to correct its extra-constitutionality. This, one might say, put some lipstick on the absence of real authority over the case by the state attorney general. And had current attorney general Patrick Lynch decided not to retry the case, the quantum merit bill would have exceeded $30 million, at that point, in all likelihood from Motley Rice.
Moral of the story: When you dance with a bear, the bear is the one who decides when the dance has ended.
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This D.C. attorney is alluding to the arguments presented in RI Supreme Court by the defendants - John Tarantino was the point person, although his client ARCO had already been acquitted - about the legal issues associated with the kind of contingency arrangement between a government body and a private law firm. The Court didn't toss the complaint. The justices went on record as saying that it was delaying a ruling until all the other substantive legal issues had been resolved. That's key: The Court didn't throw the complaint out.
Any comments on the past or present rulings by the RI Supreme Court are welcome, on- or off-the-record. Please contact me at mgenova981@aol.com.
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