Supreme Court candidate Menis Ketchum is trying to be all things to all people. The personal injury lawyer says one thing to some people, and the exact opposite to others. Now, it looks like Ketchum’s tall tales are catching up to him. West Virginia Public Broadcasting has issued a scathing report on how several of Ketchum’s recent statements are turning out to be untrue. It looks like Ketchum hasn’t been honest about his record, making trumped up claims about his experience. Perhaps Menis isn’t being up-front about his record because he fears voters won’t support a personal injury lawyer who has made a living filing lawsuits against local businesses, doctors and everyday citizens involved in car accidents.

Click here to check out West Virginia Public Broadcasting’s full report.

Good for Charleston’s WCHS-TV 8/Fox 11 newsman Kennie Bass. In this past weekend’s broadcast Associated Press debate, he asked state Supreme Court candidate Menis Ketchum to explain how the Huntington personal injury lawyer’s close friendship with Justice Starcher, before whom Ketchum’s firm has brought cases, is any different than Justice Maynard’s friendship since boyhood with Massey Energy’s chief executive officer.

Ketchum’s painful grimace at the question preceded his plea to focus on “the issues” in the race, the courtroom car crash king obviously distracted by official phone records showing how he and Starcher seemed to be feverishly discussing anything but the issues in the days preceding release of photos used to malign Maynard.

It’s just like how Ketchum told the West Virginia State Medical Association he is “conservative,” but told the West Virginia Record he is “moderate.”

Sorry Menis. You can’t have your cake and eat it too.

Drama in the legal profession that could rival a passage from a John Grisham novel: a West Virginia personal injury lawyer throwing one of his own under the bus.

With reference to a law on the books this summer, William Druckman told the Charleston Daily Mail he doesn’t “like to read about a $10 million burger suit,” like the one filed by one of his trial bar brethren Tim Houston over an alleged allergic reaction to a slice of cheese.

“It’s embarrassing,” Druckman declared, which explains House Judiciary chairwoman Carrie Webster’s carrying his water to keep dollar amounts under the radar when going after deep-pocketed defendants.

Druckman compared the multi-million-dollar Mountain State Quarter Pounder case to the $54 million lost pair of trousers lawsuit against an immigrant couple’s dry cleaners in Washington, D.C.

Webster tells the Daily Mail she doesn’t want West Virginia caught with its pants down, hoping her bill will change “the icy perception,” as the newspaper put it, of the state’s court system.

“It’s a baby step,” Webster said of her bill. But it takes a giant leap to keeping those huge payouts to plaintiffs under wraps until it’s too late for anyone to notice. In reality, this is lipstick on a shark bill that will only hide personal injury lawyer greed.

Nothing invites voter confidence like a judicial candidate who doesn’t know the law. When the Charleston Daily Mail recently exposed the Menis Ketchum Supreme Court campaign for running television ads featuring the personal injury lawyer-turned-High-Court-wannabe with uniformed police officers, a violation of state law, Ketchum told reporter Justin Anderson “I didn’t know it” and pretty much blamed the damned law librarian.

According to Anderson, Ketchum said “the law isn’t in the elections section of state code, but is in a set of laws governing city police forces.”

Shouldn’t a candidate for the state’s highest court know the law? Now we have two Supreme Court candidates in the May 13 Democratic primary who have been slapped on the writ for advertising infractions: Ketchum for using police officers as “pawns,” in the words of one longtime political observer; and Margaret Workman, who was advised by the State Bar not to continue advertising for her law practice with photos of her in a judge’s robe.

Click here to read the full Daily Mail story.

Though it is April Fool’s Day, the following lawsuits are no joke. These true life lawsuits highlight West Virginia’s need for meaningful civil justice reform. Let us know which lawsuit you think is most outrageous. Just click the “Submit Comment” button below to cast your vote.

* The $50,000 lawsuit against a Putnam County eatery filed by a woman who claims she bit into an unshelled pecan and damaged her tooth. The plaintiff claimed medical bills of $8,647.00, with the balance for damages. Her husband is a plaintiff here too on the ground that he lost the consortium of his bride for her oral incapacitation.

* From the same personal injury lawyer who filed the above “nutty” lawsuit, a claim against a retailer from a woman who says she was trapped underneath a defective two-drawer filing cabinet.

* The railway worker who sued his employer for $75,000 because a Jackson County goose took flight while he was on the job and allegedly attacked him.

* The $40 million lawsuit filed against the makers of the movie “We Are Marshall” for allegedly misappropriating the tragedy of the deadly plane crash.

* The Kanawha County high school graduate who is suing on the grounds that he is “unprepared for life.”

* The personal injury lawyers who raked in fees and expenses of $135 million in a verdict where the plaintiffs presented no evidence of actual injury.

* Attorney General Darrell McGraw, whose refusal to deliver restitution to the state Medicaid program is threatening to cost the state nearly $5 million in funds for West Virginia’s poor and disabled.

* AG McGraw for telling the West Virginia Legislature to come up with the millions of dollars due state agencies McGraw named as plaintiffs in a lawsuit he settled for $10 million, yet refuses to reimburse those agencies from the lawsuit proceeds.

* To state cheerleaders who have retreated from their “Open for Business” slogan among recurring announcements of high-dollar lawsuit awards, jobs leaving the state, and a bottom-of-the-barrell ranking of our state by potential employers.