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onstrated. Unlike most lawyers who have no training in public rela
-
tions, O. J. Simpson’s attorneys appeared to be well-schooled in its
use. In dealing with television, “not only is the content critical, but
how it’s said, where it’s said, and your appearance are equally impor
-
tant,” said defense attorney Robert Shapiro at a meeting of the Na
-
tional Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. Further revealing his
sensitivity to public relations, he elaborated:
There is no way to avoid having your client’s picture on television.
Therefore, do everything you can to have yourself and your client ap
-
pear in the most favorable light. I always instruct my clients upon ar
-
rival at the courthouse to get out in a normal manner; to walk next to
me in a slow and deliberate way; to have a look of confidence and ac
-
knowledge with a nod those who are familiar and supportive. Al
-
though the reporters will be shouting questions from all directions,
answer no questions at this time. I simply tell the press a statement will
be given at the end of the court day.
113
In another criminal case, that of Amy Grossberg, who was accused
of killing her newborn baby, her attorney was suspected of encourag-
ing his client to appear in a nationally televised interview on the ABC
program 20/20. The motive for her appearance was presumably to
capture the public relations high ground by humanizing the defendant
and allowing her to assert her innocence. Her attorney considered the
need for publicity so important he was apparently willing to risk being
taken off the case by the presiding judge, who then did remove him be-
cause the attorney had violated a court-imposed gag order.
114
6. Insist on First Amendment rights. A California consumer activ-
ist named Marc Kasky contends that Nike engaged in misleading
speech when responding to public criticism of its treatment of work-
ers in third-world countries. Nike had issued press releases, written
letters to newspapers, and bought full-page ads in major newspapers
to defend its reputation. Referring to a California law designed to pre
-
vent deceptive advertising, Kasky contends that Nike made inaccura
-
cies and misstatements that violated the law.
The U.S. Supreme Court has taken on the issue of whether Nike’s
statements is political speech, which falls under the protection of the
First Amendment, or is commercial speech, which is unprotected by
the First Amendment and must comply with false-advertising crite
-
ria. The California Supreme Court ruled that Nike’s campaign de
-
fending its reputation was commercial speech, not political speech.
The California court contended that the underlying purpose of Nike’s
ads was to sell products. Kenneth A. Paulson, executive director of the
First Amendment Center, argues: “In a society in which the market
-
place of ideas and the marketplace are so often intermingled, the dis
-
tinction between commercial and political speech may no longer be so
meaningful.”
115
7. Work from a timeline. As stated by Lukaszewski, “Trials, litiga
-
tion, events happen over time. Develop a timeline or ‘calendar’ ap
-
332 I CHAPTER 12
proach beginning with today and working through the various
milestone events and circumstances that can be forecast through the
resolution of the problem”
116
He says it is 6 or 7 years for civil litiga
-
tion; shorter for criminal cases (grand jury deliberations, develop
-
ment of evidence, trial conclusions, and appeal). Box 12.5 lists the
typical stages in the legal process. Media interest varies with different
stages of the legal process. In a product liability trial, interest is high
-
est in the presentation of opening arguments and when the jury ver
-
dict is announced.
117
OTHER CORPORATION STRATEGIES
In addition to seeking tort reform, corporations are using the strategies of
waging a campaign against restricting public information (e.g., by gag
-
ging the media), and seeking legal sanctions against defendant lawyers.
Junk Science Campaign
Junk science is akin to a junk bond: It is not assigned high value. Junk sci-
ence lacks clear thinking and objective truth. In the court of law, judges
are debunking some expert testimony and dubbing it junk science.
Since the 1960s, experts have increasingly appeared in injury law-
suits and given them impetus. For a fee, they have identified flaws in gas
barbecue grills, diagnosed toxic side effects from industrial accidents,
and given opinions on tire defects. Until recently, “it was very rare for a
judge to rule an expert’s testimony to be inadmissible,” said Joseph
Sanders, a law professor at the University of Houston. Now federal
judges are moving away from relying on juries to evaluate the credibil-
ity of experts and asking lower court judges to serve as gatekeepers.
LITIGATION COMMUNICATION I 333
Box 12.5 Stages in the Legal Process
1. Pre-event: Troublesome reports, for example, of product deficiencies.
2. Event reported in the media: An accident, an announcement by a
government official that action is being considered.
3. Filing of lawsuit or criminal complaint.
4. Pretrial period, including discovery.
5. Jury selection.
6. Trial: Opening arguments, special witnesses, initial rebuttal/argu
-
ments, motions, summations, jury deliberation, the verdict, post
-
verdict commentary.
7. Appeal.
8. Other posttrial matters.
118
Business rejoices at this tough new attitude and considers it “a kind of
quiet overhaul of the justice system.”
119
“There was a kind of scandal of
junk science in the courts.… It was tainting our system of justice, and we
needed to find an intelligent way of purging it,” said John L. McGoldrick,
general counsel of Bristol-Myers Squibb, probably reflecting the views of
most corporate general counsels.
120
This view is supported by Robin S.
Conrad, an attorney for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, who, in connec
-
tion with General Electric Co. v Joiner (discussed later), said, “The problem
has been that these so-called experts can march into court and testify to
just about anything.… Often, these people have degrees that might im
-
press a jury, but their conclusions are not based on scientific evidence.”
121
This another case is further described in Box 12.6.
334 I CHAPTER 12
Box 12.6 GE v. Joiner Decision Helps Dow Chemical
The court’s ruling in the Daubert case was further fortified in Decem-
ber 1997, in General Electric Co. v. Joiner, by extending the power of
federal trial judges to exclude expert scientific testimony that the
judges believe to be faulty. An electrician, Robert K. Joiner, filed a law-
suit, asserting he had been repeatedly exposed to highly toxic PCBs
on the job—not only at GE but also at Westinghouse and Monsanto,
companies that were also included in the suit.
Two medical experts were ready to testify that “research involving in-
fant mice and studies involving workers in Italy and Norway convinced
them that the electrician’s cancer was linked to his exposure to PCBs.”
Writing for the court, Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist denied the ap-
pearance of the medical experts, saying that “there is simply too great
an analytical gap between these seemingly far-removed animal studies
and the conclusion that PCBs cause lung cancer in humans.”
The eight-to-one decision was widely seen as tilting the law in favor
of corporate defendants and against plaintiffs who are suing them.
“This is very good news,” said the Chicago attorney for Dow Chemi
-
cal, fending off thousands of lawsuits filed on behalf of women who
claim illnesses after having a silicone breast implant. Several dozen sil
-
icone breast implant suits were thrown out by Federal Judge Robert E.
Jones in Portland, Oregon, in December 1996 after he determined
that the testimony from plaintiffs’ experts was not reliable. Since then
state and federal judges in six states have excluded scientific expert
testimony in breast implant cases. Furthermore, to examine the con
-
nection between silicone implants and disease, Federal Judge Sam C.
Pointer of the Northern District of Alabama formed a panel of scien
-
tific experts in June.
Jeffrey White of the Association of Trial Lawyers of America said, “It
is not great news for plaintiffs. The court appears to be imposing an
additional requirement, that there must be a direct link that connects
the studies to the injury of the plaintiff in the case.”
As Fen-Phen and Redux diet class-action suits mount against Ameri
-
can Home Products and its Wyeth-Ayerst division, the company is also
invoking junk science arguments. The company is claiming that allega
-
tions the drugs are linked to heart-valve damage and a rare, but fatal,
lung disease are unsupported by scientific proof. It is launching its own
studies and standing by its warnings to consumers of the risks of these
pills.
122
Furthermore, American Home Products is resisting massive
class-action deals.
Suppression of Public Information
The discovery process in judicial proceedings obliges plaintiffs and de
-
fendants to provide information to each other. Because some of the in
-
formation provided by a corporation might damage its reputation and
make it more vulnerable to future lawsuits, a company is often willing
to settle a case out of court, provided the court records are sealed. As
some corporate lawyers have said, “Opening up evidence discovered in
one case to everyone would allow plaintiffs’ lawyers to piggy-back law-
suit after lawsuit against corporations.”
123
Secrecy Clauses in Settlements. Dow Corning, one of the silicone
gel manufacturers, agreed to a settlement in a 1984 case in which part
of a secrecy clause that sealed court files was a significant condition.
This occurred after the company appealed a San Francisco federal court
jury award of $1.7 million to Maria Stern ($1.5 million of which was in
punitive damages) for having committed fraud by marketing breast im-
plants as safe. Not even the FDA could examine the evidence, and medi-
cal experts who had studied the company’s data were prohibited from
discussing them publicly. Robert T. Rylee, Dow Corning’s health care
general manager, defended his company’s action, saying, “Secrecy is
crucial to guard proprietary data that could benefit competitors.… We
do not want to be overeducating plaintiffs’ lawyers.”
124
How much information courts should keep secret has become a con
-
troversial public policy issue. In 1990 Florida and Texas enacted laws
barring secrecy in settlements that involve possible threats to public
health and safety. The New Jersey legislature also considered bills that
would bar confidentiality agreements that have “the purpose or effect of
concealing a public hazard,” defined as “any device, instrument, proce
-
dure or product” that has caused or is likely to cause injury.
125
On the
basis of this kind of thinking, federal district court judge H. Lee Sarokin,
who once routinely signed orders sealing documents when requested to
do so by both sides in a dispute, no longer does. He refused to seal infor
-
mation obtained through the discovery process in a case brought
against the tobacco industry accusing it of producing a cancer-causing
product. An appeals court subsequently modified his ruling, allowing
access to lawyers but not the press.
126
LITIGATION COMMUNICATION I 335
As might be expected, trial lawyers generally disagree with secrecy
clauses. A lawyer who represents plaintiffs in civil suits against corpo
-
rations said that corporations’ payment of settlements “in return for se
-
crecy is tantamount to hush money.”
127
Gagging the Media. Another litigation strategy is to obtain a court
gag order against the media, forbidding a newspaper, magazine, or
broadcaster to disseminate specified information. A judge issues a gag
order to prevent privileged information attorneys obtained during the
pretrial discovery period from being publicly disclosed. Gag orders pro
-
tect litigants’ privacy rights to trade secrets, proprietary information,
or other information that might be damaging to them (see Box 12.7 for
two examples).
336 I CHAPTER 12
Box 12.7 Examples of Gag Orders
In the DuPont Benlate DF case, ornamental-plant growers blamed
DuPont’s fungicide for killing or damaging their plants. DuPont ex-
tended the protective policy to keep internal documents from surfacing
and, when they were revealed in a lawsuit, to ask the judge to cover
them by a protective order to protect possible trade and other secrets.
The plaintiff’s legal counsel accused DuPont of seeking privacy rights
for more than 1 million documents, including research journals, diaries,
lab notebooks, and computer tapes. Information was withheld from
customers and the government, namely, that its fungicide Benlate alleg-
edly causes crop damage, particularly in ornamental plants.
After ornamental-plant growers filed more than 400 damage suits
against DuPont, a judge issued a gag order prohibiting both the plaintiff
and defendant from discussing matters publicly. When a gag order oc-
curs, companies that eventually speak out often find the media’s pre-
sentation of their views truncated, distorted, or weakly positioned.
Furthermore, scientific documentation by a faceless firm can hardly
compete with the emotional, sentimental story of a plaintiff. Thus, truth
-
ful or not, negative portrayals are used by juries to justify punitive dam
-
ages or aid the plaintiffs in forcing lucrative out-of-court settlements
In another case, GM sought to extend information protection by
seeking to prevent a former disgruntled employee from helping plain
-
tiffs. The employee, Ronald E. Elwell, spent 15 of his 30 years at GM
studying cars that were involved in product liability cases. As part of an
employment dispute settlement, he had agreed not to help plaintiffs
without GM’s consent. The Supreme Court, however, decreed Elwell
could testify in courts other than those in Michigan. As a result, Elwell
served as a witness in a Missouri product liability lawsuit against GM in
which the jury returned an $11.3 million verdict. The federal appeals
court later, however, reversed the decision and ordered a new trial
without Elwell’s testimony.
Sometimes information that is prohibited by the court is deliberately
leaked to the media—which occurred when The New York Times received
and printed the Pentagon papers—or inadvertently becomes available,
as happened when BusinessWeek obtained and printed information
about the Procter & Gamble v. Bankers Trust lawsuit. This case is instruc
-
tive because it explains the rationale behind court gag orders that limit
public communications and because it explains why BusinessWeek
sought exemption from the order.
In this case Procter & Gamble (P&G) alleged that Bankers Trust delib
-
erately misled and deceived it about a financial instrument called deriv
-
atives and caused its finance costs to be $195.5 million higher than they
should have been. P&G asserted that the bank sold it “speculative deriva
-
tives securities without explaining their risks,” and blamed the bank’s
“culture of greed and duplicity” for the behavior. Unfortunately for
Bankers Trust, one of its own lawyers unknowingly provided the file to
an editor at BusinessWeek. Representatives for the publication, defending
its First Amendment right to publish an article about the case, argued
that a protective order entered between two parties should not be
binding on it.
When the employee is an attorney of a company he or she wishes to
blow the whistle on, various state laws vary widely on whether attor-
ney–client confidentiality applies.
128
Some states allow disclosure only
to prevent wrongdoing that will lead to death or serious injury; other
states require disclosure to prevent crime or fraud.
129
Controlling Research. A Canadian research team found that many
scientists who had publicly supported calcium channel blockers, a class
of drugs that treats hypertension and angina, “have undisclosed finan-
cial ties to the companies that make them.”
130
The research team studied
70 published articles on the risks and benefits of the drugs and found
that 96% of the authors who supported them had financial relationships
with the drugs’ makers. Among other benefits provided were money to
attend symposiums (67%), speaking honoraria (71%), money for educa
-
tional programs (46%), funding for research (79%), and employment or
consulting fees (21%).
131
It is not known whether their financial inter
-
ests corrupted their research. Companies that control research are also
able to control the disclosure of research results.
Destroying Records. The ultimate suppression of information is its
destruction. Harry W. O’Neill, vice chairman of the Roper Organization,
reassures clients that once a survey is completed and validated by his or
-
ganization, all respondent-identifiable information is removed and de
-
stroyed immediately. O’Neill advises others to keep lawyer–client
written documents and correspondence to an absolute minimum. He
quotes a lawyer as saying, “The more that is in writing—drafts, corre
-
spondence, written documents, whatever—the more there is documen
-
LITIGATION COMMUNICATION I 337
tation for the other side to pick up and pick upon, the more you will
have to explain.”
132
Seeking Sanctions Against Opponents
Corporations are fighting back in the courts against plaintiff lawyers
who file spurious class-action lawsuits. “We want to send a message so
that lawyers will give pause before filing baseless claims,” said Lewis
Goldfarb, Chrysler’s assistant general counsel.
133
Accordingly, Chrysler
sought sanctions and other relief against five lawyers who brought
class actions against the company. In one instance a group headed by Se
-
attle attorney Steve Berman, who won more than $1 billion in class-ac
-
tion settlements over the past decade, was accused of “inventing the
lawsuit” because Berman filed a case without obtaining the consent of
the named plaintiff in the case. Similarly, John Hancock Mutual Life In
-
surance sued two class-action lawyers who had filed a suit alleging de-
ceptive sales practices and then withdrew it. John Hancock said its
purpose was to generate publicity for a future action.
134
Chrysler was successful in at least one case against lawyers. Two law-
yers, John Carey and Joseph Danis (who operate as Carey & Danis), owe
Chrysler more than $850,000 because of a jury award that accused
them of legal malpractice for filing class-action suits against the auto-
maker. Chrysler had sought that amount as damages for what it spent
defending class-action suits—alleging defects in Chrysler’s antilock
brake system—filed against them by Carey and Danis. However, Chrys-
ler won the case on legal technicalities: Carey and Danis had confidential
information about the automaker’s defense strategy that they failed to
disclose. U.S. District Judge Catherine D. Perry sided with the company
by throwing out the lawyers’ defense in Chrysler’s suit against them.
135
CONCLUSIONS
Public relations’ involvement in court deliberations is likely to intensify
as the news media expand their coverage of big cases that involve public
health and safety or otherwise have emotional appeal. Many of the
techniques of proactive media relations are applicable, but their use
must be carefully coordinated with a corporation’s legal team and tem
-
pered by judicial gag orders.
Lawyers can learn some lessons from public relations practice. One is
that winning or losing in the courtroom is not everything. This short-
term result must be placed in the context of what happens to a com
-
pany’s reputation in the long run. General public opinion counts, espe
-
cially when government considers actions against a corporation. More
important, the opinions of a company’s various stakeholders—espe
-
cially those of its customers, stockholders, employees, and community
citizens—must be taken into account.
338 I CHAPTER 12
A second public relations lesson is that corporate social responsibility
must prevail and its lack cannot be concealed for long by obtaining pro
-
tective court orders. The public must demand that corporate actions
threatening public health and safety be revealed. The best current exam
-
ple is the disturbing behavior of the tobacco industry, which had still de
-
nied that smoking is addictive and that it deliberately seeks to recruit
youth smokers. Judges have begun to respond to public opinion.
As for trial lawyers, they have gone too far, and corporations should
seek modest tort reform, such as curbing the size of contingency fees.
However, tort reform should not go to the extreme of drastically weak
-
ening a powerful weapon that helps customers and others hold compa
-
nies accountable. Many products have been withdrawn from the
market only after litigation; these products include asbestos, the Dalkon
Shield, Rely tampons, the Ford Pinto, phenylbutazone, and the
Bjork-Shiley heart valve.
Class-action suits are likely to increase as the Internet makes it easier
for aggrieved individuals and lawyers to identify problems and to orga-
nize. Just as people will look for manufacturers’ vulnerabilities instead
of reactively waiting for something to happen, companies, too, can
monitor the Internet and take corrective action before a problem esca-
lates into a lawsuit. Among the possible preventive steps is to create a di-
alogue with critics and, when feasible, collaborate in problem solving.
ENDNOTES
1. “Environmental and Public Health Groups Ask Court to Block EPA’s Weakened
‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ Air Pollution Monitoring Rules,” PR Newswire, March
18, 2004. The groups are the Environmental Integrity Project, Sierra Club,
Natural Resources Defense Council, Physicians for Social Responsibility,
Clean Air Council, Our Children’s Earth Foundation, and the Northwest Envi-
ronmental Defense Center.
2. For a description of the Natural Resources Defense Council, see Public Interest
Profiles, 1988–1989 (Washington, D.C.: Foundation for Public Affairs, 1988),
pp. 313, 402.
3. Raymond P. Ewing recognizes this stage in “Issues Management: Managing
Trends Through the Issues Life Cycle,” in The Handbook of Strategic Public Rela
-
tions & Integrated Communications, ed. Carke L. Caywood (New York: McGraw-
ill, 1997), p. 183.
4. Mike France and Lorraine Woellert, “The Battle Over the Courts: How Politics,
Ideology, and Special Interests Are Compromising the U.S. Justice System,”
BusinessWeek, September 27, 2004, p. 38.
5. Ibid.
6. Sheil Kaplan, “Justice for Sale,” Common Cause Magazine, No. 13, May–June
1987, pp. 29–32.
7. France and Woellert, op. cit., pp. 39–40.
8. Ibid., p. 41.
9. Mentioned in Gary C. Woodward, Perspectives on American Political Media
(Boston: Allyn & Bacon, 1997), p. 35. Reference is to “Darts and Laurels,” Co
-
lumbia Journalism Review, May–June 1995, pp. 23–24.
LITIGATION COMMUNICATION I 339
10. John J. Fialka, “How Koch Industries Tries to Influence Judicial System,”
Wall Street Journal, August 9, 1999, p. 20.
11. Dan Carney, “Is the High Court Too High and Mighty? BusinessWeek, October
21, 2002, p. 26.
12. Edward Felsenthal, “Legal Beat: In Blockbuster Cases, Justices Rule for Re
-
straint,” Wall Street Journal, June 30, 1997, p. B1.
13. Mike France, “High Court Anxiety,” BusinessWeek, July 7, 2003, pp. 28–31.
14. Christopher P. A. Komisarjevsky, “Trial by Media,” Business Horizons, Vol. 26,
January–February 1983, pp. 36–43.
15. Vanessa O’Connell and Gregory Zuckerman, “Altria Verdict Unleashes Wor
-
ries,” Wall Street Journal, April 1, 2003, pp. C1, C3.
16. Dan Carney, with Amy Borrus and Jay Greene, “Microsoft’s All-Out Coun
-
terattack,” BusinessWeek, May 15, 2000, p. 103.
17. Stanley Holmes, “New Ads to Bolster Microsoft Image: Software Giant Tries
to Make Up for Lost Time on Lobbying Front,” Ottawa Citizen, April 29,
2000, p. D3.
18. France, op. cit.
19. “An Unsettling Settlement,” Economist, November 10, 2001, p. 57.
20. John Wilke, “Hard Drive: Negotiating All Night, Tenacious Microsoft Won
Many Loopholes,” Wall Street Journal, November 9, 2001, p. A-1.
21. “A Total War Against the Corporation,” Corporate Legal Times, October 1997,
pp. 1ff.
22. Ibid.
23. Ibid.
24. “GM and the Law,” Economist, July 17, 1999, p. 16.
25. Ibid.
26. Ibid.
27. John F. Budd, Jr., “Guilty—Until Proven Innocent: Litigation Journalism
Tests Public Relations Acumen,” Public Relations Quarterly, Vol. 39, Summer
1994, p. 12.
28. John Gibeaut, “Fear and Loathing in Corporate America: Big Business’s Pub-
lic Tribulations Have Led to Skeptical Juries, New Laws and In-House Law-
yers Working to Tighten Compliance,” ABA Journal, Vol. 89, January 2003,
pp. 50–56.
29. Harlan Loeb, “Branding Possibilities Abound in the Litigation Process,” PR
Week, January 20, 2003, p. 8.
30. Ibid.
31. Komisarjevsky, op. cit.
32. A book devoted to this subject is Susanne A. Roschwalb and Richard A. Stack,
editors, Litigation Public Relations: Courting Public Opinion (Littleton, Co.:
Fred B. Rothman, 1995).
33. This literature is listed in Melvin L. Schweitzer, “In-House Counsel: A Matter
of Judgment; A Working Framework for making Judgments,” New York Law
Journal, October 27, 2003, p. 26. Haggerty is published by Wiley, 2003.
34. Christine O’Dwyer, “In The Court of Public Opinion; Winning Your Case With
Public Relations,” O’Dwyer’s PR Services Reporter, September 2003, p. 31.
35. Schweitzer, op. cit.
36. W. John Moore, “The Court of Public Opinion,” National Journal, May 23,
1998, p. 1199.
37. “Judy Leon of the Nation’s Leading Trial Consulting Firm, DecisionQuest,
Comments on the Media’ Influence in the Martha Stewart Case,” Business
Wire, January 16, 2004.
340 I CHAPTER 12
38. Alan M. Dershowitz, “With Lawyers Like These …,” Wall Street Journal,
March 8, 2004, p. A16.
39. Carrick Mollenkamp, “Scrushy Team to Argue Against Gag Order in
HealthSouth Case,” Wall Street Journal, April 9, 2004, p. C3.
40. Bloomberg News, “Scrushy, U.S. Will Restrict Comments About Trial,” Los
Angeles Trial, April 10, 2004, p. C3.
41. Betty Liu, “From High-Flier to Humble Churchgoer …,” Financial Times, May
18, 2004, p. 26.
42. “A Total War Against the Corporation,” op. cit.
43. Ibid.
44. Dirk C. Gibson, “Litigation Public Relations: Fundamental Assumptions,”
Public Relations Quarterly, Vol. 43, Spring 1998, p. 19.
45. In Washington, DC, some legal firms are expanding into the field. One exam
-
ple is Weber/Ryan McGinn of Arlington, Virginia, which recently recruited
Regina Blakely, a former CBS News correspondent and a lawyer, to head up
its litigation PR efforts. Another is Cassidy Cos., Inc., which acquired Bork &
Associates Litigation Communications. Moore, op. cit. Also see Jodie Morse,
“Media People,” National Journal, Vol. 30, February 14, 1998, p. 360.
46. See James E. Lukaszewski’s comprehensive chapter, “The Newest Discipline:
Managing Legally-Driven Issues,” in Practical Public Affairs in an Era of
Change—A Communications Guide for Business, Government, and College, ed.
Lloyd Dennis (Lanham, Md.; University Press of America, 1996), pp.
371–393.
47. From a letter, dated July 16, 2003, to the author, which also presents the
opinion of Judge Lewis A. Kaplan. Nicolazzo & Associates is a strategic com-
munications management firm located in Boston, Massachusetts.
48. Carole Gorney, “Fatal Attraction: Journalists and Lawyers; Litigation Jour-
nalism,” Current, July 1994, and MediaCritic, Vol. 1, No. 2, 1994. Also see
her “The New Rules of Litigation Public Relations,” The Public Relations Strat-
egist, Vol. 1, Spring 1995, pp. 23–29.
49. See Wall Street Journal, May 5, 1995, p. A5.
50. Rick Wartzman and Kathleen A. Hughes, “Northrop’s Image Ads, Televised
on Trial’s Eve, Spark U.S. Objection, But Appeals Court Lifts Ban,” Wall
Street Journal, February 20, 1990, p. A26.
51. Ibid.
52. Cited in David W. Stewart and Ingrid M. Martin, “Intended and Unintended
Consequences of Warning Messages: A Review and Synthesis of Empirical
Research,” Journal of Public Policy and Marketing, Vol. 13, Spring 1994, pp. 1,
19.
53. William Fay, “The Case for Products Liability Reform,” Risk Management,
Vol. 39, July 1992, p. 26.
54. Mentioned in Lawrence Susskind and Patrick Field, Dealing With an Angry
Public: The Mutual Gains Approach to Resolving Disputes (New York: Free
Press, 1996), p. 3.
55. See Fay, op. cit.; also Robert Kuttner, “Don’t Make It Harder to Sue,” Wash
-
ington Post, June 24, 1994, p. A27.
56. Barbara Bowers, “The Next Big Risks,” Best’s Review—P/C, Vol. 99, May
1998, p. 36.
57. Ibid., pp. 37–40. For latex glove cases, also see Joseph Weber and Mike
France, “The Gloves Come off Over Latex,” BusinessWeek, June 16, 1997, pp.
85–86.
LITIGATION COMMUNICATION I 341