Recent U.S. Census Bureau figures seem to further debunk our state’s temporary “Open for Business” motto. The Charleston Gazette reports this morning that only two of West Virginia’s largest cities – Morgantown & Martinsburg – have experienced significant population growth over the last seven years. Much of Martinsburg’s population growth can be attributed to the Eastern Panhandle’s growing number of Washington D.C. commuters – people who live in our state but drive out-of-state for their jobs. Nothing says closed for business like a large sector of the population willing to leave the state on a daily basis to work elsewhere.

West Virginia is also suffering through a “negative natural increase” in population. In other words, there have been more deaths than births in West Virginia over the past seven years. Surely, this figure is caused in some part by the fact that so many younger West Virginians have left the state for greener job markets. Chances are there are more native West Virginians living in Charlotte, NC than there are in many of our state’s smaller cities.

Politicians need to get smart when it comes to our state’s declining population. Snappy slogans and shifting city limits won’t actually solve the problems facing our state. It’s about time for meaningful reforms that would energize our state’s job market and attract younger natives back to their home state.

Click here to check out the Gazette’s article.

With the ambulance lights flashing at Sago, Charleston personal injury lawyer Tim Bailey took a page from New Martinsville colleague H. John Rogers’ playbook. Remember Rogers’ Rule: “if somebody can make $50 million by running to Yeagar Airport while the ashes are smoldering, why not?”

Bailey, according to the Wall Street Journal, was camped out at Sago in a playpen of personal injury lawyers, trolling for clients, shamelessly seeking to profit from the grief of the mining families and tragedy of their local community.

His imitation of the H. John tactic, it seems, has paid off. Bailey has reached a confidential settlement with a manufacturer of mine materials used to seal Sago.

Meanwhile, other Sago plaintiffs are miffed that the lawsuit they hoped would reap at least $10.5 million, before punitive damages, was settled for less than a fifth of that. With West Virginia courts delivering punitive damage verdicts in the quarter-billion dollar range these days, no wonder.

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.