Jim Maxwell: Attorney General Ashley Moody should stand up for taxpayers

Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody is generating headlines with her action against pharmaceutical manufacturers, but we fear that in so doing, she may be allowing outside law firms to take advantage of her office and the taxpayers that fund it.

Moody has continued our state’s litigation against drug manufacturers, citing “public nuisance” and other vague violations, while seeking “unspecified damages” that could fall in line with Oklahoma’s recent $572 million settlement in its own opioid case.

While the lawsuit itself is not shocking on the surface, the details deserve a closer look.

Moody has outsourced her office’s lawsuit to private plaintiffs’ attorneys who stand to make tens of millions of dollars off this litigation. It takes just minutes to look across the country at the massive opioid settlements taking place and understand why scores of in- and out-of-state attorneys would line up to get a piece of the pie.

Unfortunately, this isn’t the first time this has happened.

In one of her previous “landmark” cases, she had outside counsel land a verdict of over $100 million on behalf of the state of Florida. The only problem is the taxpayers will never see all of this money or know exactly where it went.

It is likely that the outside attorneys who helped with the case pocketed millions of dollars in litigation fees.

Florida’s outside counsel fees operate on a sliding scale, depending on how large the ultimate recovery amount might be. As such, private attorneys have every incentive to push for damages as high as they can, in the hopes of scoring an even bigger payday.

Often extending far beyond realistic and fair amounts, plaintiffs’ attorneys prey on the sympathies of juries and judges in order to gain higher amounts from companies and pad profits.

Fighting on behalf of the state of Florida has become a lucrative business for plaintiffs’ firms under Moody, but taxpayers end up footing the bill.

Permitting private law firms to profit off the backs of taxpayers is troubling, but we are also concerned about the Attorney General’s lineup of outside counsel for her latest opioid case.

One firm — Kellogg, Hansen, Todd, Figel, & Frederick — was brought in all the way from Washington, D.C. In a hint of just a little more swampiness, a couple of the in-state firms have either donated to Moody’s campaign or organizations like the Florida Justice PAC that worked for her election.

That sends a bad signal.

Floridians will always want transparency from our leaders, and Moody must hold herself and her office to high standards for the voters and taxpayers.

We urge the Attorney General to revisit her dependence on outside counsel and keep responsibility for current and future litigation inside her office.

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Jim Maxwell is vice-chair of Floridians for Government Accountability.