Date: Sun, 7 Nov 1999 21:34:41 -0700

10:42 PM 2/17/1998

O'Quinn, former associate settle flap over breast implant fees

By GEORGE FLYNNCopyright 1998 Houston Chronicle Moments before final arguments in their trial, attorney John O'Quinn and former associate Patricia Hill reached a confidential settlement Tuesday involving disputed breast implant fees and legal fights about her 1996 departure >from O'Quinn's firm.

The agreement followed a week of acrimonious testimony before state District Judge Patricia Hancock. It reached back into the earliest beginnings of O'Quinn's Houston-based breast implant litigation empire. Houston attorney Hill, a former state legislator from Dallas, sought $8 million damages. She accused O'Quinn of reneging on payments in a 1991 contract that made her a spokeswoman and media contact for the firm's then-fledgling efforts to attract silicone implant clients.

Hill said O'Quinn paid her nothing for her work, yet brought in an estimated $112 million in attorney fees from settlements of implant cases. Settlements are pending in hundreds more cases in which she deserves payment, she alleged. O'Quinn disputed the legality of the contract and said she was quickly replaced in that media role by partner Richard Laminack. O'Quinn had sued Hill first in 1996. He accused her of pirating away clients of the firm and failing to turn over a $1 million settlement check in a suit unrelated to implants.

"The matters have been resolved prior to jury deliberations," said Hill's attorney Terry Scarborough of Austin. "We are tickled to death." Laminack said O'Quinn and his firm also were pleased with the results. Court documents showed that O'Quinn's firm began concentrating on attracting implant cases soon after 50 clients were referred to it in mid-1991.

Hill said O'Quinn accepted her offer to use her reputation and contacts among women's groups to promote the implant litigation. The firm had Houston public relations consultant Shirley Barr draw up a media plan and budget in an "educational" campaign geared to raising awareness of implant dangers, witnesses said. The contract called for Hill to receive 4 percent of the attorney fees generated in suits in which O'Quinn did not pay referral fees to outside attorneys.

O'Quinn went on to establish himself as one of the foremost national litigators of implant lawsuits targeting makers of the implants for allegedly harming implant recipients. In court documents, he said Hill only served about six weeks as the media contact for implant cases. O'Quinn attorney Jim Leahy attacked the validity of Hill's contract. She also was accused of trying to take away clients when she left the firm in 1996 and of keeping a settlement check in a case.

Hill said that after years of trying to receive her payment from the contract, she placed the settlement check in a trust account, paid the firm its proper share, and took her rightful share of the proceeds. Scarborough argued that the suit against her was in retaliation for her notifying the firm that she intended to sue over the withheld implant attorney fees.