Levin Papantonio Law Firm

Levin Papantonio is an American law firm founded in 1955 by David Levin, Reubin Askew and Fred Levin, originally under the name Levin & Askew.^[1]

Levin & Askew in the early 1960s. David Levin (top, middle), Reubin Askew (top right) & Fred Levin (bottom left).

The law firm received national recognition in 1980 after receiving an $18 million jury verdict against Louisville & Nashville Railroad after one of its trains derailed in Pensacola, Florida, killing a young doctor and his wife, and leaving their two young children orphaned. The jury verdict was the largest compensatory damage verdict in U.S. history at the time. Because of the size of the verdict, the firm was featured in the national periodical US magazine.^[2]

The law firm again made national news in 1989 with its creation of the first live, prime time talk show to air lawyers providing free legal advice.^[3] The show became a lightning rod for potential legal ethics issues, with critics stating: "It's obviously advertising for that law firm that is slanted at having the public believe in higher verdicts, more rights of the injury party and anti-doctor."^[4] The show resulted in two separate Florida Bar investigations, and one prosecution, when a law firm attorney admitted on-air: "I used to enjoy betting on the football games, and now they've arrested my bookie." Another time, a lawyer ranted about the medical profession and accused doctors of having a "God-complex - they think they are above the law."^[5]

The law firm's most controversial act occurred in 1993 when it rewrote a Florida statute that allowed the state of Florida to sue the Tobacco Industry, and then orchestrated its clandestine passing through the state legislature.^[6] After the law was upheld by the United States Supreme Court, the Tobacco Industry settled with Florida for an unprecedented $13 billion. It was this secretive legal maneuvering, which many believed to be immoral, that helped frame the national debate on whether personal injury law was negatively impacting the American business environment, culminating in a July 17, 2000, article in Time magazine titled: "Are Lawyers Running America?". Inside, there was a picture of Fred Levin, one of the law firm's attorneys, wearing a red blazer and sunglasses and leaning on a vintage Rolls-Royce.^[7]

The success and controversy of the law firm is covered extensively in a recent book discussing the pros and cons of personal injury litigation. The author ends by stating: "After spending a year researching and writing this book, I have a mixed perception of trial lawyers . . . . They can be heroes, yet vulgar. Their actions often are motivated by immense financial incentive, but also often result in colossal societal health benefits that could not be attained without them. They can be self-absorbed and egomaniacal, but at the same time unusually empathetic. Without question, they have been historically needed to preserve and protect individual liberties and freedom, and to promote universal safety improvements in all facets of commercial life."^[8]

The four most notable members of the firm have been Reubin Askew, Fred Levin, Mike Papantonio, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. & Joe Scarborough.

Reubin Askew

Askew became the 37th Governor of Florida from 1971 - 1979, and was the first governor in Florida history to be elected to successive terms.^[9] He is widely recognized as one of Florida's greatest governors, promoting racial equality and ethics overhauls. He named African Americans to state commissions and boards, and supported proposals to bus children to desegregate public schools. He appointed the first black justice to the Florida Supreme Court and the first African American since the Reconstruction Era to head a state agency. In one campaign event, a heckler shouted he was a "nigger lover", to which he responded: "The trouble is, I don't love them enough. The difference between you and me is I'm trying to overcome my prejudices and you're not."^[10][11] Askew instituted corporate taxes in Florida, and open government (known as Sunshine) where politicians had to reveal their financial interests. He was a teetotaler who banned liquor form the Governor's Mansion during the eight years he lived there.^[12][13] In 2014 the Tampa Bay Times ranked Askew the second best governor in Florida history, and the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University rated him one of the country's top ten best state leaders of the 20th century, along with Woodrow Wilson and Theodore Roosevelt.^[14][15][16]

In 1972, Askew delivered the keynote address at the Democratic National Convention, and in 1983 announced his candidacy for President of the United States, running as a Democrat.^[17] However, his candidacy never gained traction within the Democratic party because of many of his conservative ideologies. For example, he was pro-life on abortion, against the nuclear freeze, for the death penalty, and against the right of homosexuals to work as teachers. Askew withdrew his bid on March 1, 1984, after he finished last in the New Hampshire Democratic Primary. Askew died at the age of 85 on March 13, 2014, after suffering a stroke.^[18]

Fred Levin

Fred Levin's notoriety and wealth came as a result of rewriting Florida’s Medicaid Third-Party Recovery Act. Levin was at a trial lawyer conference when another attorney explained that he was working with the State of Mississippi to sue the tobacco industry for compensation for all the money Mississippi was spending in Medicaid dollars treating smoking related illnesses.^[19][20] Levin then perused the Florida statute allowing the state of Florida to recover against individuals and companies that harmed individuals where the State had to pay Medicaid. Levin realized he could rewrite the law so that the State could sue the tobacco industry without the tobacco industry being able to raise the numerous defenses it had relied upon in winning the cases against it.^[21][22][23]

Levin made the changes and approached the dean of the Florida Senate. The two then met with the Governor of Florida, who liked the idea. The dean of the Senate then secretly got the law passed on the last day of session and at the last minute. The Senator made it part of another law that everyone supported, and Levin's amendments passed.^[24][25][26]

After the passage of the law, John French, a lobbyist for Philip Morris USA, railed, “This is probably the single biggest issue to ever have been run through in the dead of the night.”^[27] John Shebel, president of the pro-business organization Associated Industries of Florida, told the Orlando Sun-Sentinel, “This law is probably one of the worst laws ever passed by any Legislature.”^[28] And Walker Merryman, vice president of the Tobacco Institute, said, “It’s certainly creative, and it demonstrates how a government will try to impose a significant financial burden on one portion of the economy.”^[29]

Gannett News Service summed up the situation: “What they engineered was a first-of-its-kind bill making it much easier for the state to recoup money it spends for treating cancer patients and others with smoking-related diseases. . . . Its created such an uproar in Tallahassee that tobacco companies have pledged millions of dollars to fight the bill either by getting it vetoed or using the upcoming special session on health care to change or eliminate it.”^[30]

Challenges to the law made it to the United States Supreme Court, but the law was upheld.^[31][32][33] Immediately after jury selection, the tobacco industry settled with the State of Florida for a record $13 billion. Levin Papantonio law firm ended up earning a fee of more than $300 million.^[34]

After receiving some of the tobacco attorneys' fees, Levin donated $10 million cash to the University of Florida College of Law. The law school's name was then officially changed to the Fredric G. Levin College of Law at the University of Florida. The gift was the largest-ever cash donation to the University of Florida; the second-largest gift ever to a public law school when matched with state funds; and more than three times larger than any gift in the college's 90-year history.^[35]

The naming of the law school drew statewide attention because of the vehement criticism of having the state’s prestigious law school named after a person many thought to be reprehensible and undeserving.^[36][37][38] One letter to the then dean of the law school read: "I have no problem with naming the law school in honor of an appropriate person, as other colleges have done, but naming our college after Fred Levin does no honor to him, to the institution, or its constituency, and demeans the efforts of the many deans, faculty, and alumni who have worked for so many years to achieve the vision of making our college one of the top twenty law schools. . . . You degraded the image and prestige of the University of Florida College of Law by selling its good name to Fred Levin, a lawyer who has been castigated by the courts for abusing the rules, and is notorious for commercializing the practice, thumbing his nose at the bar, and otherwise manipulating the system."^[39][40] In response, Levin told the press: "Two hundred years from now the great, great, great grandchildren (of my critics) will be getting their law degrees from a school with my name on it. It's a good feeling."^[41] "It makes me feel great, when their great-grandchildren go up to that stage to get the law degree, they'll know that, dadgum it, that Jew's name is up there on the damn diploma. It's just gotta eat at them."^[42]

Mike Papantonio

Mike Papantonio joined Levin Papantonio (then named Levin Middlebrooks) in 1983. As a trial lawyer, Papantonio became nationally recognized in the field of mass torts, and especially for his efforts fighting for environmental protection. Papantonio and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. became close friends and law partners in creating local environmental groups and also suing polluters. In one West Virginia case, Papantonio and Kennedy won a $380 million verdict against DuPont as a result of air and water contamination. Efforts such as this led to Papantonio and Kennedy teaming up to co-host progressive talk radio on Air America and then Ring of Fire, a nationally syndicated weekly radio program. On this show, Papantonio has conducted hundreds of recorded interviews with guests including Dan Rather, Helen Thomas, Howard Zinn, Arianna Huffington, Mary Chapin Carpenter, David Crosby, Merle Haggard, Morgan Spurlock, John Edwards, Bill Moyers, Rickie Lee Jones, Alanis Morissette, Pete Seeger, Jackson Browne, Chuck D from Public Enemy, Henry Rollins, Ted Sorensen, and Elizabeth Kucinich. Papantonio also is the founder of Mass Torts Made Perfect, a semi-annual Las Vegas seminar dedicated to training thousands of lawyers in successfully handling class actions against multi-national companies. Guests speakers at these seminars have included former President Bill Clinton, Eli Wiesel, James Carville, Al Sharpton, Johnnie Cochran, Bob Woodward, Elliot Spitzer, Jack Kemp, Dick Morris, and Paul Begala.^[43][44]

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