Obama’s Auto Task Force Fails To Protect New GM From Tort Lawyers
July 9, 2009
In today’s editorial pages, the Wall Street Journal reports that Obama’s Auto Task Force tried to keep the new General Motors from having liability for future tort claims. Chrysler was succesful in securing such an arrangement, “[b]ut 11 state Attorneys General and a group of tort lawys creid foul.”
Here’s an excerpt:
In its original reorganization plan, the Administration even proposed to leave behind in the old GM all tort claims arising from cars manufactured before bankruptcy. That would have meant that all past, present and future claims related to cars GM produced before June would have had next to no chance of meaningful recovery, as they would have had to stand in line with every other unsecured creditor of the bankrupt firm.
Read the full editorial here.
More Dissatisfaction With “Merit” Selection
July 6, 2009
There are only a few days of vacation left, but I thought I would draw your attention to an Alaskan news story that is important, but is not about Sarah Palin.
Voters in Alaska have filed a lawsuit to dump the state’s “merit” selection process and give citizens a greater say over who runs the state’s courts. The James Madison Center has a press release with the details (I’ve copied it below the jump too). Says James Bopp, Jr., lead counsel for the Alaska plaintiffs:
The current system “gives the Alaska Bar Association a stranglehold on the judiciary. Lawyers in Alaska have enormous influence over who the state judges are, while the ordinary voter is denied the right to an equal voice.”