Bush Says Death to Trial Lawyers

Politics International Politics
1

This is a damned fine start and I hope that he seriously looks at privatizing the post office as well. A govt company worth 60 billion per year with 800,000 workers that loses billions in a field where others are making tons of money. Why are we protecting this behemoth against the successes like Fedex, DHL and UPS? Why?

[quote]This attempt to limit payouts also informs plans to reform medical-malpractice lawsuits. Awards against doctors and hospitals have spiralled: since 1975, medical-malpractice costs have grown nearly twice as fast as overall tort costs, pushing up insurance rates and the cost of medical care. Doctors practice

2

I don’t think that a cap of 250k is going to be the death of trial lawyers.

It may just spur them to do MORE business.

3

Well then how abouts a few of us gets a posse together, hog ties a coupla them and teaches them some manners. Perhaps, the rest of em will get the message loud an clear.

4

Fred, that sounds remarkably like anti-abortion activist who get together and bomb or shoot Drs who provide abortions because they don’t like the abortion industry. In a word: :loco:

5

Yes, Fred, :loco:

6

They’d probably sue you :wink:

7

On behalf of the trial lawyers of America let me sit you straight. The one major reason you do not have bullshit like the Jen Ai Hospital “run the kid around till she is brain dead” we saw here in Taiwan a couple of weeks back is because in America there is aggressive medical malpractice attorneys and big damage awards.

War Monger Bush has it backwards, the reason medical cost are going to the moon is because of profit driven hospitals and profit driven doctors (just like here in Taiwan). Dipshit Bush’s friends who bought him the presidency and who own many of these hospitals want to find a scapegoat and trial lawyers make an excellent choice that fit in nicely with Bush’s brainless blue collar hype.

Brian
p.s. no I was not a tort attorney, I was a prosecutor and public defender but I have lots of respect for how tort attorneys and unlimited jury awards have made America a safer and better place. And if you want to see a world without tort law----this stinking island is a great example.

8

A world without tort is a world where your actions have no consequence unless they are seriously criminal. As Brian says, like Taiwan.

A few of my favourites:

Right to peaceful enjoyment of my property

Public nuisance

Private nuisance

Trespass

Trespass to the person

Conversion

There is a happy medium somewhere between anarchic tort-free Taiwan and litigation-addicted America.

9

On the broad question: Which direction should we take with regard to tort awards?

(a) Move from where we are now toward making awards smaller

(b) Keep awards at about the level they are now

(c) Move from where we are now toward making awards larger

my own choice would be (a).

However, I do think that the gentleman from Massachusetts raises a very important factor to keep in mind. I used to work with very large corporations and powerful individuals who’s behavior was, without a doubt, heavily influenced by the power held by the trial attorneys in the US. In some cases, the primary incentive for them to follow the law and behave honorably was not the threat of government action, but the threat of civil litigation. (The majority of them chose to follow the law because they thought it was the right thing to do – but I have long ago given up trying to convince people that this is the case.)

In any event, for those who were waivering as to whether to follow the law, there was always in the back of their minds the knowledge that sitting down there in San Diego were a group of people who were just as smart, and just as well-financed, and just as ruthless as themselves. These plaintiff firms had vast resources and very sharp radar, and were always waiting to pounce if they could prove that a corporation had acted improperly (or indeed, even for the chance that they might be able to convince a sympathetic jury that an innocent corporation had done something wrong :s ).

The same effect is felt throughout the legal system, to the extent that the local landlord in a small town will think twice about refusing to buy salt to springle on an icy walkway – not because the police would have forced him to, but because he was afraid of getting sued.

As I said at the begining, I still believe that the current system could benefit from reform – so I won’t be getting invited any John Edwards cocktail parties any time soon. But when looking at the issue, a serious observer should keep in mind the important beneficial role that the plaintiff’s bar plays. And when we (hopefully) cut back on some of the damage awards that the system hands out – we should take care not to get on a populist bandwagon and ride it over a cliff.

So good point, Mr. Kennedy. :bravo:

10

I still disagree with Kennedy’s characterization of trial lawyers. They are not interested in anything but finding loopholes to shake down corporations. I mean why should a corporation be sued when someone has no commonsense. Do we really need labels on food saying eating it will make us fat? Do we really need any warnings about cigarettes causing cancer and heart disease. Do we really need to know that driving while under the influence may cause a crash or during pregnant birth defects?

The problem these days is that anyone can file a suit and they are not responsible for it. They have a chance that the hospital or corporation in question will settle out of court to get rid of what would cost them more in a trial.

No insurance company can provide coverage if the risk is not limited. This is why so many doctors are going out of business or quitting. Most recent case Pennsylvania. This is a problem and 90% of it is caused by greedy trial lawyers stalking unprepared corporations and doctors rather than greedy corporations and incompetent drunk doctors butchering patients. The simple remedy? Put corporate officers or doctors in jail rather than handing out such big awards. If I kill you, should your family “sue” me or should the courts put me in prison? I think we need to get more toward serving justice rather than paying out huge cash awards.

Remember that corporate officers may be guilty of malfeasance but their employees are not and when you charge that much money to a corporation let’s face it someone pays and that is often the lowly employee or customer who faces higher costs. Jail rather than money should be the disincentive but then where would the money be for the lawyers. Fuck them.

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That’s his answer to everything.
Bush Says Death to Trial Lawyers
Bush Says Death to AIDS patients
Bush Says Death to Social Security
Bush Says Death to Iraqi civilians
Bush Says Death to Balanced budgets
Bush Says Death to Protected wilderness

He is the death president.

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[quote=“fred smith”][quote=“The Economist”]Doctors practice

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The US holds in great repute con artists, and it’s no secret that people in the US have made money from gullible people. Barnum coined the phrase “There’s a sucker born every minute.” I believe that corporations can act as con men do, exploiting the masses in quest of money.

Stripper Wins Damages After Tiger Attack, Reuters, Sun Jan 30, 2005

[quote]A stripper mauled by a tiger in an Ontario safari park has won $650,000 in damages because her scars meant she could no longer work, Canadian media said on Friday.

Her musician boyfriend, David Balac, won C$1.7 million, because his injuries left him unable to work as an accordion player.[/quote]

While I believe there should be uniformity of awards for not only medical malpractice but corporate malfeasance, I believe that laws should enable civil awards. It may seem like a lot of money to get $1.7 million, but it’s not winning the lottery. You have to lose a hand, or in some way lose something you had before. To actually get that money, a court must rule and, based on laws that we have and on other cases, determine that the amount will be fitting.

I don’t believe that the owners of the park should go to jail - they instituted a high level of safety. However, in this case the shield of safety was penetrated. The park should award the couple something that can allow them to change their profession.

400,000 cigarette smokers die in America every year. I don’t believe that laymen, whether they are in fred smith’s camp or not, should decide what is a problem not of commonsense but of wrongdoing. A court makes decisions on the basis of evidence. If you believe courts are making larger than necessary awards, you should have a commission investigate the matter rather than roll it into your election patter, do the minimum to stand against it, leaving the problem there to help your party in election years to come.

If a cigarette is only mildly harmful in the short term and more addictive than heroin, yet long term studies were covered up by cigarette corporation, then in no way should RJ Reynolds or other cigarette mega-corporations be freed of obligations. The burden of recompense shouldn’t be left to the taxpayer and to the “sucker” who started smoking when he was 16 because of peer pressure or because his father was a smoker. On earth, a sucker was born every minute, and ten cigarette smokers die prematurely every minute.

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Fred I am going to do something I rarely do, which is answer replies in these kind of threads. I have I few moments and am kind of in work avoidance mode.

You wrote:
still disagree with Kennedy’s characterization of trial lawyers. They are not interested in anything but finding loopholes to shake down corporations.

Read the post Fred, I talked about tort law being a good thing. Tort lawyers are without a doubt some of the biggest pieces of garbage I have ever seen in my life. Each and every serious legal ethics violation that I personally witnessed had a tort lawyer as the culprit.

But, be that as it may they are a very necessary, very valuable evil. Here is the basics:

The law is complex
Joe Six Pack gets medical malpracticed on
Alone Joe Six Pack stands no chance, the hospital has lots of defense attorneys
To the rescue comes scumbag tort attorney who has the skill, the aggressiveness and because he is getting one third of the take (1/3 of the damages), the motivation to press the claim.
He does so.
Joe Six pack gets compensated and the hospital/doctor gets a clear message “do your damn job right”.

You go on to say:
The problem these days is that anyone can file a suit and they are not responsible for it.

That is flat out wrong. Judge imposed sanctions for frivolous lawsuits are high enough (in both California and Federal civil courts) that no attorney is going to risk it. I can speak more intelligently about California

15

Brian:

Thanks for your reply. What would you say about the doctors strike in Pennsylvania and the low number of doctors who are willing to perform deliveries these days? What do you say about the excessive numbers of tests that doctors feel that they must perform to cover their asses? What do you think about a cap on damages? And I notice that you did not respond to my suggestion that doctors who commit malpractice should be jailed rather than having the hospitals in question fined. That could be a strong disincentive. But this is regarding medical malpractice only.

Then, looking at damages, are you aware that one county in Illinois is home to many of these suits because the judge there is so lenient? Why should cases in other states be referred for trial or have the suit filed in a county which has nothing to do with the actual case at hand. This is my point about legal loopholes.

While I understand that you think these trial lawyers are a necessary evil, I firmly believe that damages should be capped. My point regarding the insurance companies is that they price the risk so highly for doctors who must then pay enormous malpractice insurance premiums precisely because they do not know the risk and therefore must price the uncertainty accordingly. This means the doctors suffer disproportionately. I also take issue with the idea that all things in life should be riskfree. Adults have to calculate risk each and every day when they do something. Why should companies be expected to pick up the tab when such risk does result in an accident. They are called accidents because they are accidental no? Does someone always have to be responsible? to pay? Just curious.

16

Actually, if one wants a place with no lawyers, PRC under Mao, USSR, and today’s Cuba all were/are lawyerless states. Nazi Germany also eliminated lawyers by torturing any that didn’t rubber stamp the policies of Hitler and Goebbels. Mao learned from this and eliminated all lawyers in 1959 as a first step towards eliminating the class most likely assert individual rights and subvert the totalitarian communist state. Even today, Hillary Clinton’s book was published in PRC but her reference to lawyer Henry Wu was turned around so the PRC published the book saying the lawyer was an enemy of the state rather than a hero as HC described him. Japan also has almost no lawyers; defendants are held in solitary for 23 days by law without access to an attorney until the defendant confesses. Lawyers are not allowed any access or fair chance to speak/investigate. In this manner, JP has eliminated lawyers because no one bothers to enter the profession. If the government doesn’t like a case(such as the lawsuits of Chinese comfort women) the government just stalls until the statute of limitations runs out(as they have done for TW’s sex slave suit).

From a government perspective, control in one or a few people needs a system with few or no lawyers.

And from a business perspective if one wants to make money, PRC is the best place to set up a factory. One can do almost anything both to workers and consumers. The bribes to the local communist party officials, necessary for setting up a foreign business in PRC, are a small expense cost of doing business and tiny compared to the cost of fair treatment of workers or consumers. PRC presently represents a golden opportunity to go back to a time when a businessman could have almost slave labor and make out like the barons described in Dicken’s books.

Less lawyers, more profits.

17

It is not NO lawyers but death to TRIAL lawyers. They know who they are and exacting justice is not what they do.

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Trial lawyers aside, isn’t it funny how we hate lawyers until we need a good one. Then when you find a good one and he’s on your side you love him.

As for me, I think divorce lawyers are the scum of the earth. But that’s a personal matter… :fume: