What America’s Legal System can Learn from the Greeks
October 10, 2011
With modern day Greece teetering on the edge of default, it’s easy to think we have nothing to learn from the Greeks – unless, perhaps, we look back to our democratic forerunners of 2,400 years ago. In her new book, The Hemlock Cup: Socrates, Athens and the Search for the Good Life, Bettany Hughes informs us that Athens circa 399 B.C. had already anticipated and adopted remedies to protect against the ancient equivalent of what we all recognize as a scheming trial lawyer.
“It is in democratic Athens that the sycophant is born: a man on the make who brings a trumped-up court case; someone who thinks he’ll be able to score off the very presence of a justice system. Sycophantai were the fifth-century legal equivalent of ambulance-chasers; citizens who brought cases on flimsy charges so they the could be paid for attending court, and might possibly even net damages. And so steep fines have been introduced – if you don’t succeed in getting any more than one-fifth of the votes, you have to pay the state back.”
That’s right. The ancient Greeks invested loser pays legislation!
Trial Lawyer Payback (Continued)
September 28, 2011
As part of his job creation package, President Obama is proposing to allow unsuccessful job applicants to “sue if they think a company of 15 or more employees denied them a job because they were unemployed.” In other words, “give me a job or I’ll sue!” Maybe job applicants should just bring a trial lawyer along on their next interview.
More Trial Lawyer Payback?
September 23, 2011
Is it just my imagination or does every new Obama jobs bill include at least one little nugget for his allies at Trial Lawyers, Inc.? Joel Griffith of Big Government points out that a clause buried inside Obama’s American Jobs Act “exposes states to frivolous lawsuits” by requiring states that receive federal funds under the bill to give up their “sovereign immunity rights” guaranteed under the Constitution’s 11th Amendment. Translation: trial lawyers have a new loophole to gouge state governments (and, by extension, taxpayers).
By far the most generous contributors to President Obama’s 2008 campaign were – you guessed it – lawyers and lobbyists, funneling nearly $44 million to elect a president who has been, to put it kindly, sympathetic to their interests. So far in the 2012 election cycle, the Obama campaign has secured over $6 million from 54 lawyers known in modern campaign parlance as “bundlers.” Bundlers, OpenSecrets helpfully points out, are “people with friends in high places who, after bumping against personal contribution limits, turn to those friends, associates, and well, anyone who’s willing to give, and deliver the checks to the candidate in one big ‘bundle.’”
You’d think any individual wealthy enough to rise to the exalted status of Bundler to the President of the United States would be one of those our president is targeting to pay his/her “fair share” to the government. Of course it’s easier to pay your fair share when higher taxes are returned to you in the form of higher legal fees.
Will Lawsuits be the Next Big U.S. Import?
April 14, 2011
As if we didn’t have enough home-grown lawsuits clogging U.S. courts, the trial bar is hard at work trying to import foreign-based claims. According to U.S. Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Tom Donohue, there has “been a sharp rise over the past 15 years in lawsuits brought against U.S. companies based on alleged personal or environmental injuries that occur overseas,” including cases against Dow Chemical, Shell Oil and Dole Foods. In Nicaragua, writes Donohue, the trial bar:
“lobbied to change Nicaraguan law retroactively to deprive the defendants of due process, fabricated testimony from plaintiffs who never worked at a banana plantation, and conspired with a local judge to rig judgments.”
Even as they work to import overseas lawsuits into the U.S., the trial bar is also actively trying to export America’s broken legal system so they can sue American companies in foreign venues. The sleazy tactics of the trial bar don’t just undermine justice, Donohue rightly points out, “they will destroy jobs, competitiveness, and economic growth.” But as far as Trial Lawyers, Inc. is concerned, that’s a small price to pay for a Powerball-sized contingency fee.
Hate Your Boss? The Obama Administration’s got a Trial Lawyer for You!
February 7, 2011
Under a new “alliance” between the Obama Department of Labor and the trial bar, anyone who complains to the government about their bosses will be patched through to the American Bar Association so they can get a contingency fee lawyer to take their case. Fox Business News has the full story. (Hat tip to Ed Murnane’s Illinois Civil Justice League).
The ABA calls the move “unprecedented” – which it is, but not in the way the lawyers mean. Getting more fee-grubbing lawyers in between employees and employers will doubtless spark more lawsuits. More lawsuits against small businesses means fewer jobs.
Vice President Joe Biden hailed this litigation stimulus plan because “most all” of the fees” will be “contingency on the back end.” Biden’s son Beau was a heavy-hitting trial lawyer before he traded in his famous name to become Delaware’s Attorney General.
It’s a pretty good bet that the Obama re-election campaign will get cut in on any additional contingency fees generated by this cozy arrangement. During the last election cycle, lawyers funneled more than $90 million (thanks Open Secrets) into campaign coffers – the vast majority to Obama.
Unprecedented indeed.
DC Power Shift Not Good for Trial Lawyers
January 3, 2011
A recent article in the Washington Times reported on what a resurgent GOP means for the trial bar. In short: Washington has become a lot less trial-lawyer friendly. For instance, the incoming chair of the House Judiciary Committee, Rep. Lamar Smith (TX), intends to make tort reform one of his top five priorities.
But the trial bar still has many friends in Washington. Tiger Joyce, head of the American Tort Reform Association, believes plaintiffs’ lawyers will merely shift their efforts from Capitol Hill to the Obama Administration:
“Mr. Joyce noted that [trial lawyers have] started a campaign through the Treasury Department to get a tax break that will allow trial lawyers to deduct costs advanced to clients immediately. Repeated attempts to persuade Congress to enact the tax break, valued at an estimated $1.6 billion over 10 years, have failed.
“Mr. Joyce said the Obama administration has given a sympathetic ear to trial lawyer concerns about ‘pre-emption’ - by which federal law, considered less friendly to plaintiff interests, supersedes state law. The White House in 2009 issued an executive memorandum instructing federal agencies to avoid the practice and to review cases over the past decade in which their position has supported pre-emption.”
With a divided Washington, many also are predicting reform battles will be fought in the states - particularly in Texas and Florida.
Stay tuned.
The Case for Tort Reform in Florida
December 10, 2010
Florida businessman John R. Smith makes a compelling case for tort reform in Florida and demonstrates why seizing the state’s civil justice system from Trial Lawyers Inc. is at the top of the agenda for incoming Governor Rick Scott and the new legislature. Money graphs:
“Lawsuit abuse is a threat to our small businesses, where lawsuit costs drive up the price of goods and services, which consumers pay for. Plaintiff lawyers get rich while economic growth declines. Kids can’t play in schoolyards because of the hundreds of claims for playground accidents. Our reputation dissuades many businesses from locating here, and convinces professionals to move away.
“What’s to be done? Well, I’m a fan of reducing the personal injury bar to rubble, then bringing them to a boil.”
Smith quickly concedes that his “shock and awe” plan for Florida trial lawyers isn’t politically correct, so he’ll settle for capping Powerball-sized damage awards, curbing “junk science” in the courtroom, medical liability reform and other reforms to dissuade frivolous lawsuits.
Elections Have Consequences: Taking Back our Courts from Trial Lawyers Inc.
December 8, 2010
Newly elected governors in Pennsylvania and Florida are counting on strong Republican majorities in their legislatures to quickly push through meaningful tort reform early next year.
In Pennsylvania, Governor-elect Tom Corbett has called on the GOP majority in both houses to deliver a bill within six months. One key reform: reinstating Pennsylvania’s Fair Share Act, which modified abusive liability rules that allowed plaintiffs’ lawyers to hold a defendant liable for 100 percent of any damage award even if that defendant was only responsible for 1 percent of an injury. Corbett has also called for an end to venue shopping, which allowed trial lawyers to file claims in tort-friendly jurisdictions. Business groups such as the NFIB and Pennsylvania Manufacturers Association are rallying behind the plan.
In Florida, William Large of the Florida Justice Reform Institute says the election of a Republican supermajority has created a “tremendous opportunity” to pass legislation bottled up for years by the state’s trial bar and its former allies in the legislature. One bill likely on the fast track is a common sense measure that would allow a jury to apportion fault among all responsible parties, not just corporate defendants. As Jose Gonzalez of Associated Industries of Florida told one reporter:
“It’s a fairness issue. Right now, a jury [in an auto liability case] only heard about a faulty seat belt or bad roof. They don’t hear that the driver was on 10 different kinds of drugs and ran off the road.”
Elections have consequences – and it seems one message voters sent this November is that it’s time to take back our courts from Trial Lawyers Inc.
Trial Bar Shifts Focus from Congress to Obama Admin
December 6, 2010
The trial bar has lost its tort-friendly majority in Congress, so Tiger Joyce, head of the invaluable American Tort Reform Association, expects the personal injury lobby to shift its focus to the Obama Administration.
First on the agenda: getting the Obama Treasury Department to create a new loophole in the tax code to encourage speculative lawsuits. Under a scheme being pushed by the national trial bar lobby, U.S. taxpayers would actually underwrite lawsuits by giving contingency fee lawyers the ability to write off the costs of investing in new cases. Cost: $1.6 billion.
How the Trial Lawyer-Litigation Complex is Killing the American Spirit
October 11, 2010
Philip K. Howard has a gem of a piece outlining how the Trial Lawyer-Litigation Complex is destroying the American spirit of entrepreneurship, individual opportunity and civic responsibility. A few highlights:
“The sheer volume of law suffocates innovative instincts, while distrust of lawsuits discourages ordinary human choices. Why take a chance on the eager young person applying for a job when, if it doesn’t work out, you might get sued for discrimination? Why take the risk of expanding production in another state that requires duplicating legal risks and overhead? Why bother to start a business at all?”
“Over the generations, the American spirit of individual opportunity has been manifested not only in new businesses, but in the civic and public life as well – in the culture of barn-raisings and boy scouts and cake sales. These deep roots of our culture … have also atrophied before our eyes. Hardly any social interaction is free of legal risk.”
“America can’t move forward until it cleans out this legal swamp. The accretion of law has made democracy inert – a sludge heap of programs and entitlements swarming with special interests – while also slowly suffocating the American spirit.”