Former American Bar Association President and Local Attorney Wm. T. (Bill) Robinson Dies

Leaves a legacy in the region and nationally

 

May 9, 2017 (Florence, KY) – Frost Brown Todd (FBT) Florence, Kentucky, office Member-in-Charge Wm. T. (Bill) Robinson III has died. Robinson was a respected leader in the legal profession and throughout the business and civic community. He leaves behind a legacy unmatched by most.

“Bill’s impact in the region and his extensive leadership in our profession have been most admirable. His optimism and determination were infectious and will be greatly missed by all. We have lost not only an exceptionally creative and dedicated lawyer, but also a genuine friend. Our thoughts and prayers go out to Joan, Bill’s wife of almost 48 years, and the rest of his family,” says George Yund, FBT Chief Executive Officer.

Robinson joined FBT as the member-in-charge of the firm’s Northern Kentucky office in 2007 and primarily focused on civil litigation. He had extensive experience in commercial litigation, product liability defense, environmental litigation and medical malpractice defense. His leadership in the legal community extended far beyond his law practice. For more than 45 years, Robinson was an active member of the American Bar Association (ABA) and served in numerous leadership positions, including as 135^th President (2011-12); Treasurer (2005-08); 10 years on the Board of Governors; more than 30 years in the ABA House of Delegates; and nine years as a Kentucky State Delegate. He also served as chair of several ABA Standing Committees. In August 2016, he was appointed chair of the ABA Standing Committee on the American Judicial System, created two years earlier to protect the fair and impartial judiciary within the American democracy. Robinson also served as chairman of the National Judicial College (NJC) Board of Trustees, the nation’s leading provider of education to judges across America and abroad. He served in numerous other professional organizations and associations nationally and internationally.

For several decades, Robinson was an avid advocate for regional economic development. Starting in the early 1980s, he served on the board and as chairman of the Northern Kentucky Chamber of Commerce. He was a founding member of both the Regional Economic Development Initiative (REDI Cincinnati) and Northern Kentucky’s TRI-County Economic Development Corporation. He was extensively involved in many other organizations, including the UC Economic Center, the Commonwealth of Kentucky Economic Development Partnership and the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport Board. In March 2017, Robinson was recognized by REDI Cincinnati and presented the inaugural "Wm. T. (Bill) Robinson III Upward and Onward Award (2017)" for more than 30 years of regional leadership in economic development.

Frost Brown Todd’s Chairman John R. Crockett III says, “Bill was among the most committed and accomplished people in our profession. It has been an honor to be his partner, and a privilege to be his friend.” 

Robinson’s service to the community in which he lived and worked was boundless and included serving on the boards of educational institutions, arts foundations, regional faith-based and charitable organizations, among them the United Way of Greater Cincinnati, Boy Scouts of America, the Taft Museum of Art and the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. He served the Redwood School & Rehabilitation Center for more than 45 years, including as president and honorary chair of its campaign executive committee. His countless recognitions over the years included the Lifetime Achievement Award by the Northern Kentucky Bar Association, the Themis Award by the Cincinnati Bar Association, and distinguished service awards from the NJC, the America Jewish Committee, and the National Center for State Courts. He received honorary doctorate degrees and delivered commencement speeches at several universities across the country, including Catholic University of America, Xavier University, Northern Kentucky University Salmon P. Chase College of Law and his alma mater, Thomas More College. Robinson earned his J.D. at the University of Kentucky College of Law, and was inducted into its Alumni Hall of Fame in 2004.

Kentucky’s legal community raised more than 350,000 pounds, or 175 tons, of food through donations for families and children across the state, Attorney General Andy Beshear said Friday.

The effort is part of the inaugural Kentucky Legal Food Frenzy that takes donations of food, money and volunteer time during the competition announced in February by Beshear and partners.

Lawyers and staff competed outside the courtroom for two weeks – March 27 to April 7 – to raise food and funds for Kentucky’s food bank network. Northern Kentucky University's Chase College of Law, the Risk Firm, and Graydon were among the top donors.

A total of 125 law firms and legal organizations representing more than 2,500 attorneys and staff competed for the grand prize – the Attorney General’s Cup – Beshear said.

GE Appliances’ legal department won the grand prize by raising the equivalent of 33,379 pounds of food. Paducah’s Bryant Law Center, who won the Small Firm Award, missed winning the grand prize by 156 pounds of food; they donated 33,223 pounds total.  

The Office of the Attorney General, the Prosecutors Advisory Council (PAC) and several local prosecutors joined the competition to raise food and funds for local food banks. The Office of the Attorney General donated the equivalent of 6,792 pounds of food, and PAC and the offices of county and commonwealths attorneys combined donated the equivalent of more than 51,000 pounds of food.

Fayette Commonwealth’s Attorney Lou Anna Red Corn and her staff won the Government and Public Service Award by donating 16,109 pounds.

Kentucky’s three law schools held their own competition. NKU’s Chase College of Law won the division title this year by raising the equivalent of 1,610 pounds.

“Congratulations to the Attorney General’s Cup winner GE Appliances’ legal department, NKU Chase College of Law, and all of the 2017 Kentucky Legal Food Frenzy winners,” Beshear said. “I could not be more proud of Kentucky’s legal community for its generosity toward those in need in our state. The true winners of this competition are the children who will receive healthy, balanced meals this summer.”

Tamara Sandberg, Kentucky Association of Food Banks executive director, said Beshear issued the challenge to the state’s legal community to take action against hunger, and “the Kentucky Bar Association Young Lawyers Division answered that challenge with zeal.”

“On behalf of Kentucky’s food bank network, I want to express our gratitude to the Young Lawyers Division, Attorney General Beshear and all the firms, legal organizations and law schools that worked hard to help stock the shelves of food banks,” Sandberg said.

The Kentucky Legal Food Frenzy, a partnership between the Office of the Attorney General, Kentucky Bar Association Young Lawyers Division and the Kentucky Association of Food Banks, is timed to help food banks prepare for increased demand during the summer months when children do not have access to school meals.

Nearly all (94 percent) of Kentucky’s food bank client households with school-aged children receive free or reduced-price school lunch through the National School Lunch Program.

Only one in 13 school-aged children who receive free and reduced-priced lunch during the school year, however, have access to such meals during the summer months when school is out.

Kentucky’s seven regional food banks serve 53,000 Kentuckians each week. All of the food and funds collected during the Legal Food Frenzy benefit the regional food bank that serves each competitor’s community.

Beshear said a large part of the campaign’s success was the leadership behind the competition. 

“I would like to thank the Kentucky Bar Association Young Lawyers Division Chair Rebecca Schafer and campaign co-chairs Lee Metzger and Miranda Click of the Young Lawyers Division as well as Susan Rieber in my office,” Beshear said. “Their hard work and dedication made the inaugural Legal Food Frenzy a success. I appreciate the generosity of all Kentucky lawyers and legal staff who contributed to this important effort.”

Winners of the 2017 Kentucky Legal Food Frenzy

Corporate Legal Department/Grand Prize Winner: GE Appliances: 33,379 pounds. (Louisville)

Small Firm: Bryant Law Center: 5,537 pounds per attorney,33,223 pounds total (Paducah)

Large Firm: Wyatt Tarrant & Combs: 165 pounds per attorney, 19,645 pounds total (Lexington and Louisville) 

Government and Public Service: Fayette Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office: 16,109 pounds (Lexington)

Medium Firm: Graydon: 386 pounds per attorney, 9,640 pounds total (Fort Mitchell)

Solo Firm: The Risk Firm: 2,063 pounds per attorney, 4,125 pounds total (Covington)

Law School: NKU Chase College of Law: 1,610 pounds (Highland Heights)

“My first priority is to protect Kentucky families and children, and each day far too many are struggling to obtain enough food for a healthy, active life,” Beshear said. “The Legal Food Frenzy will continue to be an opportunity for the state’s legal community to challenge each other outside the courtroom for the noble cause of reducing hunger.”

Please join KDC and DRI members at Parlay Social, Lexington, for a happy hour on Thursday, May 4th from 4:30 to 6:00 pm.  Learn more about DRI's Young Lawyer Seminar being held in Austin during June, and meet some individuals attending prior to the event.

The following is a DRI News Release dated May 1, 2017.

The Supreme Court today adopted the view advocated in a DRI amicus curiae brief that, to prove a violation of the Fair Housing Act, a plaintiff must do more than show that the harm suffered was a foreseeable consequence of the defendant’s actions. The brief had been filed by DRI’s Center for Law and Public Policy.

 The City of Miami brought separate Fair Housing Act suits against Bank of America and Wells Fargo in the Southern District of Florida.

 The City alleged that the banks provided loans to minorities on less favorable terms than to non-minorities; that some of those loans defaulted because of those allegedly discriminatory terms; that some of those defaults led to foreclosures; that some of those foreclosures led to decreased property values, not only at the foreclosed property but at other nearby properties, as well; and that those decreases in property values in turn led to decreased tax revenue (and increased municipal-service costs) for the city government. The City claims “hundreds of millions” of dollars in damages.

 The banks each moved to dismiss and the district court agreed, dismissing both cases. The Eleventh Circuit reversed holding that proximate cause is satisfied so long as the plaintiff’s injury could have been foreseen by the defendant.

 The DRI brief asserted that to date, the Supreme Court has consistently held that the proximate cause requirement Congress is presumed to include in federal causes of action requires not only that the plaintiff’s injury be foreseeable, but also that there be some degree of directness between a plaintiff’s injury and defendant’s conduct.

 The Court reversed the Eleventh Circuit’s proximate cause analysis and reiterated that damages claims under the FHA are analogous to common law tort actions, and thus require a direct relationship between the injury asserted and the injurious conduct alleged.  The Court remanded the case to the Eleventh Circuit to apply the principles set forth in the Court’s opinion.

 The Court’s decision has implications beyond the FHA.  The decision is part of a phalanx of cases imposing traditional principles of proximate cause to various federal statutory causes of action including the Clayton Act, RICO, and now the FHA.  Today’s decision should be cited for the proposition that proximate cause for violations of federal statutes requires a direct connection between the purported misconduct and the alleged harm (absent contrary statutory language).  And according to the Supreme Court, mere foreseeability of the alleged harm is not sufficient. 

 “As the district court recognized, it is exceedingly difficult to determine with any reasonable certainty what amount of lost tax revenue and resource expenditures were attributed to (alleged) unfair lending practices, given all of the other economic factors responsible for the City’s losses,” DRI’s brief stated.

 DRI brief author Matthew Nelson of Warner Norcross & Judd LLP in Grand Rapids, Michigan, is available for interview or for expert comment through DRI’s Communications Office.

 For the full text of DRI’s amicus brief, click here.

About DRI – The Voice of the Defense Bar

For more than fifty-five years, DRI has been the voice of the defense bar, advocating for 22,000 defense attorneys, commercial trial attorneys, and corporate counsel and working to defend the integrity of the civil judiciary. A thought leader, DRI provides world-class legal education, deep expertise for policy-makers, legal resources, and networking opportunities to facilitate career and law firm growth. For more information, log on to www.dri.org

KDC welcomes its newest member:

Adam E. Fuller of Vaughn Petitt Legal Group, PLLC, Pewee Valley, Kentucky.  Mr. Fuller graduated from the University of Louisville Brandeis School of Law and practices in the areas of Civil Rights, Government, Insurance and Tort.

Congratulations to KDC member, Melanie Marr, on her recent defense verdict.  The following is reprinted from the 4/19/17 issue of DRI's The Voice:

Melanie S. Marrs

Fulkerson, Kinkel & Marrs is pleased to announce a recent unanimous Defense Verdict it obtained on behalf of a hospital in Whitley County, Kentucky. Firm partner and DRI member Melanie S. Marrssuccessfully defended the lawsuit that included claims of medical negligence by the hospital’s nursing staff and by the co-defendant doctor.

The lawsuit claimed that the hospital failed to provide appropriate care and treatment of a 22 year-old woman who was admitted with a suspected urinary tract infection, hypokalemia, and symptoms of nausea and vomiting. She remained in the hospital for five days, during which she underwent surgery to treat kidney stones. Following her surgery, the woman’s condition improved sufficiently, including normalization of her potassium levels, such that her treating physician determined she could be discharged. The physician prescribed the woman the antibiotic Levaquin, noted to have a risk of QT wave prolongation in patients with unresolved hypokalemia, to treat her UTI and a case of pneumonia that had developed during her hospital stay. The following day the woman collapsed due to a cardiac event sometime after she took her first dose of Levaquin. Consequently, the woman suffered an anoxic brain injury. The plaintiffs alleged that the hospital nursing staff failed to administer potassium appropriately as required by a standing protocol. With respect to the co-defendant physician, plaintiffs alleged that he improperly discharged her with a prescription of Levaquin. Ms. Marrs defended the nursing staff’s conduct by presenting evidence that the nurses did not administer potassium per a verbal order from the on duty physician to suspend the standing protocol. They also presented evidence that the woman’s cardiac event was the result of stress cardiomyopathy (Takotsubo) rather than due to Levaquin-induced QT wave prolongation. The jury found unanimously for both the hospital and the doctor on standard of care after deliberating for little more than an hour. Plaintiffs had sought $50,000,000.00 as total compensation for the injury.

KDC is pleased to welcome its newest member, Kathleen E. Watson of O'Bryan, Brown & Toner, Louisville.  Ms. Watson graduated from Northern Kentucky University Chase College of Law and practices in the area of Medical Malpractice.  She is sponsored by KDC member, Scott Burroughs.

The following is reprinted from ABA's Tech Publication of March 27, 2017.

FEDERAL JUDGE DISMISSES LAWSUIT AGAINST HOMEOWNER WHO SHOT DOWN HOVERING DRONE

POSTED MAR 27, 2017 08:40 AM CDT

BY DEBRA CASSENS WEISS

A federal judge in Louisville has dismissed a suit seeking damages against a property owner who shot down a hobbyist’s drone in 2015.

Senior U.S. District Judge Thomas Russell dismissed the suit against self-described “drone slayer” William Merideth, citing a lack of federal subject matter jurisdiction, Ars Technica reports.

The suit by hobbyist John David Boggs had sought a declaratory judgment that a drone is an “aircraft” under federal law, that Boggs’ drone was operating in U.S. airspace, and that property owners can’t shoot at drones in this airspace. The suit also sought $1,500 in damages.

Russell wrote in a March 21 opinion that the suit was essentially a garden-variety state tort claim that should not be in federal court. Although the Federal Aviation Administration has an interest in enforcing regulations governing federal airspace, “its interest in applying those regulations in the context of a state tort law claim for trespass to chattels is limited or nonexistent,” Russell said. At most, the FAA regulations are ancillary issues in the case, he concluded.

Ars Technica spoke with two legal experts who said the judge’s decision was sound and not surprising.

Boggs’ lawyer, James Mackler, told Ars Technica that he will speak to his client about whether to appeal. “This remains an extraordinarily important issue,” Mackler said. “We desperately need clarification from this issue and that has to come from the federal level. Drones are continuing to be shot down. There have been many incidents. This has to be an issue that is addressed, but we have not decided whether we are going to file our appeal.”

KDC members, Ron Green of Green, Chesnut & Hughes, Lexington and Jeffrey Phillips of Steptoe & Johnson, will both be speaking at the upcoming IIK Seminar, being held next week in Louisville.  KDC members may attend the seminar at the IIK member rate.  Here is the information provided to us by IIK:

The 2017 P & C seminar jointly sponsored by Insurance Institute of Kentucky and Eastern Kentucky University's Risk Management and Insurance Program is now set, and this year will be a bit of a departure from the format we have done in past years. This year we have combined the seminar with EKU's Morgan Insurance Conference which had formerly been held on the EKU campus.

This year's Morgan conference will be held in Louisville on April 13, and the program is titled Acting in Good Faith: Insurer Best Practices. CLE and CE have now been approved. CLE for attorneys has been approved for 6.25 units, and CE for adjusters and agents has been approved for 6 hours.

Following are the details of the conference: seminar for attorneys, paralegals, in-house counsel, adjusters and other insurance claims professionals, and other interested parties

Burke A. Christensen, JD, CLU, Eastern Kentucky University

Ron Green, Green, Chesnut, & Hughes, PLLC

J. Dale Golden, Golden Law Office

Ancil G. Ramey, Steptoe & Johnson, PLLC

Michelle E. Gaston, Steptoe & Johnson, PLLC

Jeffrey K. Phillips, Steptoe & Johnson, PLLC

 Registration is only $100 and you may register online here if you want to pay by credit card. To pay by check you may use the registration form included in the attached brochure. 

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact Debbie Ellis of EKU at (859) 622-1579 or debbie.ellis@eku.edu.

​​We look forward to seeing you there!

------------------------------------------------- Mark Treesh, Executive Director
Insurance Institute of Kentucky
PO Box 54542
Lexington, KY  40555-4542
(859) 543-9759  Office
(859) 285-0555  Cell
mark@iiky.org
https://iiky.org/

KDC welcomes the following new members:

Matthew Michael Allen of Reminger Co., LPA, Ft. Mitchell, graduated from the University of Cincinnati College of Law.  Mr. Allen practices in the areas of Auto, Education, Employment, General Liability, Insurance, Product Liability, Tort, Trucking & Workers' Compensation.  He is sponsored by KDC member, John Dunn.

Danielle J. Lewis of Reminger Co., LPA, Louisville, graduated from Northern Kentucky University Chase College of Law.  Ms. Lewis practices in the areas of General Liability, Insurance, Medical Malpractice, Nursing Home, Premises, Product & Professional Liability, and Trucking.  She is a member of DRI and sponsored by KDC Director, Todd Page.

Robin D. Neace of Adams, Stepner, Woltermann & Dusing, Covington, graduated from Indiana University, Maurer School of Law.  Ms. Neace practices in the areas of Government and Tort.  She is a member of DRI and is sponsored by KDC Director, Claire Parsons.

Zachary Chase Richards of Sewell & Neal, PLLC, Louisville is a University of Louisville Brandeis School of Law graduated.  Mr. Richards practices in the areas of Insurance and Tort.  He is sponsored by KDC member, Charles Walker.

Natalie E. M. Wais of Young & Alexander Co., LPA, Cincinnati, Ohio is graduated from the University of Louisville Brandeis School of Law.  Ms. Wais practices in the areas of Insurance and Tort.  She is a member of DRI and sponsored by KDC member, Aaron J. Silletto.