Change We Can Believe In?
January 21, 2009
Millions of Americans watched President’s Obama’s gracious inaugural address with a sense of hopefulness that our nation’s political leaders can work together on a bipartisan basis to address the serious economic challenges facing America. But Les Weisbrod – a Texas trial lawyer and president of the American Association for Justice (formerly the American Trial Lawyers Association) – had something else on his mind: $$$$$.
For Weisbrod and the thousands of personal injury lawyers he represents, the Obama Administration means one thing and one thing alone: the chance to sue more companies. According to a report in the Dallas Morning News, Weisbrod was told by none other than House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that Democrats will soon push President Obama to make it easier for trial lawyers to sue drug companies whose products have been reviewed and approved by safety regulators at the Food & Drug Administration.
Next on the trial bar’s agenda – pressing Congress to overturn a 2008 8-1 Supreme Court decision that barred state tort claims against manufacturers of medical devices which have received FDA approval. In that case, the Court wisely decided that medical experts at the FDA were better capable of balancing potential risks and prospective health benefits for patients than non-technical juries inflamed by trial lawyers in state courts.
According to the Morning News, attorneys poured more than $42 million into the Obama presidential campaign. Now we know that, at least as far as Trial Lawyers Inc. is concerned, this quid comes with a quo. Let’s hope that the Obama Administration understands that turning more American companies into targets for the ravenous trial bar is hardly the kind of stimulus our economy needs.