Today is the official release date for “Kings of Torts,” an account of the legal scandals that sent Mississippi trial lawyer and Dickie Scruggs and his tobacco lawsuit partner Paul Minor to prison. The authors are Alan Lange of Jackson, Miss., founder of YallPolitics , and Tom Dawson, the retired federal prosecutor who was lead counsel in the Scruggs cases. (Author profiles.) From the book’s website, KingsofTorts.com:

Kings of Tort chronicles the sordid tale of judicial bribery and political intrigue in Mississippi, birthplace of the tobacco litigation and long known as one of the most tort-friendly jurisdictions in the nation. It features the story of Dickie Scruggs, who was largely credited with bringing down Big Tobacco in the early 1990s. From his ascent to a net worth of nearly a billion dollars to his seemingly unfathomable downfall stemming from his role in improperly influencing two local judges to influence cases involving fee disputes with other lawyers, the book documents how those in Scruggs’s own trusted circle of tort barons turned on him and cooperated with federal authorities. It also shows the political influence he wielded with judges, attorneys general, and even his own brother-in-law, former US Senator Trent Lott.

Press coverage here. The book is being published by Pediment Books.

Elsewhere, movie critic, radio talk show host and author Michael Medved is promoting his newest book, “The 5 Big Lies About American Business: Combating The Most Toxic Myths About The Market Economy.” He blogs about the book at CNBC:

At a time of near universal economic suffering, there should be more openness than ever to the revolutionary and ultimately life-changing realization that you gain, rather than losing, from the progress of the people around you. By the same token, bad luck for the privileged never brings more blessings for the impoverished. Severe losses for the business elite will lead directly to collapsing, companies, communities and even societies.

For some readers, the logic in my book will sound distinctly counter-intuitive – in attacking cherished, ubiquitous, but groundless beliefs like the profound, automatic superiority of small business over big business (actually, every small business yearns to get big), or the common assumption that government responds more directly to public needs and preferences than do private companies (actually, few bureaucracies ever go out of business by ignoring or insulting the people they serve, but arrogant, inefficient corporations close down every day).

Medved is one of the most thorough and calm presenters of information and arguments among the talk radio hosts we’ve encountered. He’s certainly picked a timely topic.

The first presidential debate takes place Friday in Oxford, Mississippi.

Oxford…Oxford…Oxford…Now whom is it we associate, lately, with Oxford, Mississippi?

Right. It’s the home of Richard “Dickie” Scruggs, the giant among trial lawyers. Or at least it was until July.

• “Court Orders Dickie Scruggs to Ky. Federal Prison“

What a perfect venue to debate the merits of tort reform and the economic damages caused by the plaintiff’s bar, kicked off with a discussion of the criminal excesses of Milberg Weiss, Bill Lerach, and Dickie Scruggs. Oxford would be a great setting to detail the differences between the presidential candidates on the causes and cures for the nation’s tort burden, one that costs a family of four nearly $9,000 a year. (From the Pacific Research Institute’s “Jackpot Justice” study.) 

The “Mississippi Miracle,” i.e., reforms of the state’s once egregious legal climate, would also be a fruitful  area to explore.

Unfortunately, the emphasis of this first debate between Senator McCain and Senator Obama is foreign policy, and it would abuse the format to argue the predations of the trial bar. It’s not completely off topic: U.S. attorneys looking for a big payday have supported an anti-American government in Equador and damaged  U.S.-Equador relations through abusive litigation against Chevron, and U.S. foreign policy has been undermined by suits against U.S. companies that did legitimate business in apartheid-era South Africa. But with Iraq and Afghanistan and trade and Russia’s international aggressiveness all making headlines, it’s unlikely moderators will ask questions drawing from the crimes of Oxford’s Dickie Scruggs.

However, domestic policy is on the table during the October 15th debate at Hofstra. The public should demand that candidates address tort reform as one of the evening’s issues.

Roger Parloff, legal writer at Fortune, posts a seven-part series on State Farm’s pursuit of once-titanic, now-imprisoned trial laywer Richard “Dickie” Scruggs, “State Farm v. Scruggs updates.” Scruggs went after State Farm for failing to spend even more money in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, but how he did it…

In overview, in the unsettled remnants of the suits against State Farm that were originally brought by Scruggs (now being handled by other counsel, obviously), State Farm now alleges that Scruggs manufactured portions of his case against State Farm; induced State Farm insiders to violate their contractual duties; illegally broke into State Farm’s password-protected computer database; tampered with his own witnesses’ or clients’ computers to destroy evidence; compensated witnesses in unethical ways; violated one court’s injunction; and violated another court’s confidentiality orders….[snip]

While one judge has already found Scruggs in civil contempt for violating an injunction (a ruling now on appeal) and another has found that he did, in fact, compensate witnesses unethically, most of State Farm’s other accusations remain far from proven.

Normally we go to Insurancecoverageblog for Scruggs/State Farm updates, but this looks to be a useful overview. We do see that Sen. Biden’s campaign donated Scruggs-related contributions to charity before the Delaware Senator accepted the vice presidential nomination.

(Hat tip: Walter Olson)

• Manufacturing Groups Say, Keep Going on Doha: From NAM President John Engler, “We need to see real market access in the advanced developing countries that are charging the bulk of world tariffs through a strong tariff-cutting formula, avoiding exempting entire industries from trade liberalization, obtaining strong participation in sectoral tariff liberalization agreements, and seeing significant reduction of non-tariff barriers (NTBs).” Manufacturing associations signing the statement — available here — represent the United States, Canada, the EU, New Zealand, Taiwan, Japan, Korea and Australia.

• Dickie Scruggs, Mississippi trial lawyer extraordinaire, to be sentenced today.

• From Reuters: “More than three-quarters of big U.S. employers offer formal health and wellness programs, while more than half have disease management programs amid rising health-care costs.” An NAM survey of employers is cited.

• Mostly Absent from the Headlines: Warranting less attention but still notable among the U.S. Supreme Court decisions this week was this opinion in Morgan Stanley Capital Group Inc. v. Public Util. Dist. No. 1 of Snohomish Cty. From the San Diego Union Tribune: “Efforts by utility regulators to reopen costly long-term electricity supply contracts struck at the height of the California energy crisis were deflected by the U.S. Supreme Court in a ruling yesterday.”

• Stop Talking Down the Economy: Now the Finns are getting depressed.