Richard Scruggs

Richard F. "Dickie" Scruggs (born May 17, 1946) is an American former naval aviator and disbarred trial lawyer.

He is the brother-in-law of former U.S. Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott.

Scruggs first came to the public eye after successfully suing the asbestos industry on behalf of ill shipyard workers.

Scruggs was born in Brookhaven, Mississippi, on May 17, 1946, but grew up in Pascagoula, Mississippi.

He told Time that his father left the family when Scruggs was five years old.

Scruggs was then raised by his mother, Helen, who worked as a legal secretary at the Ingalls shipyard.

Scruggs was a member of Sigma Alpha Epsilon as an undergraduate at the University of Mississippi.

Upon graduation and commissioning as a naval officer, Scruggs entered flight training and earned his wings as an A6 bomber pilot in 1970.

Scruggs was assigned to an aircraft carrier in the Mediterranean Sea during the Yom Kippur War, where he was stationed aboard the carrier Franklin D. Roosevelt during the nuclear alert triggered by the Soviet threat to intervene in the Arab–Israeli War.

He graduated from the University of Mississippi Law School in 1976, where he was a classmate of Mike Moore, a close friend who later became the attorney general of Mississippi.

Scruggs began his career with a prestigious law firm in Jackson, Mississippi, where he often defended insurance companies.

Later he moved back to Pascagoula and opened his own office.

One of his first big legal victories was in representing workers at the Pascagoula shipyard who became fatally ill as a result of exposure to asbestos fibers.

He encountered his first client in 1984 when he was approached by a shipyard worker looking for help with a lung disease.

Scruggs paid for the client's medical tests which revealed the medical ailment to be asbestosis.

Scruggs took on 4200 direct clients and served as co-counsel to another 6000.

Soon after taking office as state attorney general, Moore hired Scruggs on a contingency basis to assist in efforts to remove asbestos from public places and pursue efforts to get asbestos producers to fund the necessary renovations.

Scruggs eventually won a settlement and earned $6 million from the state in legal fees.

He later represented the state of Mississippi in the tobacco litigation of the 1990s.

In the 1990s, Scruggs was hired by Mississippi Attorney General Mike Moore to assist with a lawsuit against thirteen tobacco companies for state-borne health care costs.

Scruggs and his colleagues brought a concerted action, representing several states, which resulted in a settlement of over $248 billion.

His performance in this case was portrayed by actor Colm Feore in the movie The Insider.

Scruggs himself, as well as his second house in Pascagoula, Mississippi, also appeared in the film.

In total, Scruggs' firm Scruggs, Millette, Bozeman and Dent earned about $900 million in legal fees from the judgments, with about one third going to Scruggs.

The total in fees Scruggs received resulted in public controversy regarding the amount that lawyers are allowed to take from large settlements.

Scruggs stated that his firm held a reserve to help challenge future cases and cover costs, allowing additional financial leverage in addressing the legal infractions of major corporations.

A short time after the tobacco lawsuit, Scruggs led and became a spokesman for the plaintiffs in the Ritalin class action lawsuits.

He asserted that the makers of Ritalin "manufactured a disease" and that Ritalin "has been grossly over-prescribed. It is a huge risk."

State Auditor Steve Patterson felt the arrangement was unethical, as Moore had no specific legal authority to contract out the work of his office to private attorneys and Scruggs had donated $20,000 to his 1991 campaign fund.

In 1992, Patterson began working with the Hinds County district attorney to build a criminal case against Moore and Scruggs.

Presley Blake, a political consultant who had once been represented by Scruggs in bankruptcy proceedings, interceded and arranged for Patterson and Scruggs to meet.

The meeting resulted in Patterson dropping the inquiry and Scruggs reducing his fee for the state by $63,000.

He also represented hundreds of homeowners in lawsuits against insurance companies following Hurricane Katrina, and a national class action of patients against HMOs in the early 2000s.

Scruggs' legal career was derailed by his indictment in a judicial bribery scheme in 2007.

Scruggs pled guilty to conspiracy to bribe Circuit Judge Henry L. Lackey in 2008.

Scruggs was sentenced to five years in prison on June 27, 2008, by U.S. District Judge Neal Brooks Biggers Jr..; and on February 10, 2009, Judge Glen H. Davidson sentenced him to seven years for the second scheme, to run concurrently.

He also entered a 2009 guilty plea for a scheme to influence Circuit Judge Bobby DeLaughter.

Kings of Tort, by Alan Lange and Tom Dawson, released in 2009, documents the rise and fall of Scruggs.

The Fall of the House of Zeus: The Rise and Ruin of America's Most Powerful Trial Lawyer, by veteran journalist Curtis Wilkie, was published in 2010.

He served six years in federal prison and was released in 2014.