THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume VII, Issue # 60, March 27, 2005
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
DESTROYING THE ECONOMY ONE LAWSUIT AT A TIME
By Alan Caruba
THE LAWSUIT INDUSTRY & THE AMERICAN ECONOMY -- LAWYERS SEEKING TO ENRICH THEMSELVES BY SERVING CLIENTS WHO
SEEK TO BE PAID FOR EVERYTHING THEY THINK IS WRONG WITH THEM, PRESUME IT TO BE THE FAULT OF SOMEONE ELSE, &
BELIEVE THE HARD-EARNED WEALTH OF THE LATTER SHOULD BE TRANSFERRED TO THE FORMER: A PRACTICE THAT IS
ABUSIVE TO THE RULE OF LAW & TO THE HEALTH & ECONOMIC WELL-BEING OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE -- HIGH TIME FOR TORT
REFORM & PROVISION FOR EFFECTIVE PROTECTION OF THE U.S. ECONOMY AGAINST PREDATORY LAWSUITS
FULL STORY:
I suspect most Americans think that the $368 billion penalty extracted from the tobacco industry was inherently unfair. They sell a
product that is legal. State governments benefit from the taxes on the sale of that product. Some states even invest in tobacco
companies to benefit their pension funds. People may freely choose to either purchase the product or not. Smokers voluntarily assume
the inherent and widely known risk of using that product. The verdict against the industry simply does not pass the smell test.
For years now we have been hearing about outrageous amounts of money being awarded to people who were too stupid to avoid
spilling a hot cup of coffee on their lap in a moving car, but a far more insidious penalty is being paid by everyone as the result of the
20,000,000 civil lawsuits annually filed in America. That’s right; twenty million!
A new book, The Lawsuit Lottery: The Hijacking of Justice in America, by Douglass S. Lodmell and Benjamin R. Lodmell
($15.95, World Connection Publishing, Phoenix, Arizona) is so astonishing that, were it not for its careful documentation, one would
read it in a complete state of disbelief. “In less than 50 years,” write the brothers Lodmell, “these increasingly powerful litigators
transformed the lackluster tort business into more than a $200 billion a year industry. By the end of the 20th century, the litigating
public was filing as many as 150 lawsuits every minute of every working day — with a take-home pay for plaintiffs’ lawyers
approaching $45 billion a year in 2002.”
The key word here is “public.” This lawsuit industry would not exist, if it were not for clients seeking to be paid for everything they
thought was wrong with their lives and was presumed to be someone else’s fault -- someone whose hard-earned wealth should be
transferred to them!
“The harsh reality is that many, if not most, of the estimated 70,000 lawsuits filed every day in America target small business owners
and mid-to-upper income Americans with less than $1 million in net worth.”
This has become so abusive to the rule of law and the economic welfare of the nation that Congress, in February, passed legislation
that would transfer most large, multi-state class action lawsuits to federal courts. This has long been one of President Bush’s goals.
The legislation bans state courts from hearing such lawsuits, such as the one that resulted in the horrendous tobacco industry verdict.
This may deter proposed lawsuits against, for example, the fast-food industry and food manufacturers who are charged by critics as
responsible for people getting fat.
Democratic Party leaders denounced the bill. “It’s the final payback to the tobacco industry, to the asbestos industry, to the oil
industry, to the chemical industry at the expense of ordinary families who need to be able to go to court to protect their loved ones
when their health has been compromised,” said U.S. Reprepresentative Ed Markey (D-Mass). This is pure sophistry and betrays the
Socialist theology that drives the Democratic Party, forever seeking the destruction of elements of the economy. U.S. House
Democratic leader, Representative Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), called it “a payback to big business at the expense of consumers.”
In truth, these thousands of civil suits represent trillions of dollars in a “hidden tax” on the U.S. economy as the result of our being
the most litigious nation on the face of the earth. It is consumers who pay this tax.
There was a time when lawyers could not advertise, as they commonly do these days. They could not troll for “victims” or engage
in “ambulance chasing.” It was deemed unseemly and unprofessional, to the point that those who did faced disbarment, if not jail.
So, how did this major change in the practice of law come about? Specifically, it occurred on June 27, 1977, when the U.S. Supreme
Court, under Chief Justice Warren Burger, ruled in Bates v. State Bar of Arizona. Yes, the top court overturned hundreds of
years of legal opposition to lawsuits and/or law as a business. In time, the courts made such litigation even more attractive by
introducing the concept of joint and several liability. Now, anyone cited as having contributed in any way to the payout a lawsuit
demanded could be dragged into court.
Does anyone benefit? Yes, lawyers have pocketed millions in the process. While doing so, whole industries have been destroyed.
Asbestos is one of them. Halfway through the construction of the Twin Towers, a law was passed prohibiting the use of asbestos
to protect the steel beams that were the skeleton of those structures. When the two hijacked planes crashed into the North and
South towers, the heat they generated brought them down. As for the asbestos industry, as many as 60,000 people lost their jobs
and many more jobs were not created in the wake of the bankruptcies that followed.
If you want to know why the costs of healthcare have gone out of sight, you can again look at the insanity of civil lawsuits. “At
$1.55 trillion in 2002,” write the Lodmell brothers, “the annual cost of healthcare in America leaped by 9.3% to about $5,400 per man,
woman, and child. That’s 14.9% of the U.S. economy.” By 1999, 40% of physicians had been sued and 25% of them had been sued
more than once.
By 2002, the figure had climbed to 58%! By then, the average jury award for medical malpractice had tripled to $3.5 million — three
times the average jury award for all torts combined! Little wonder insurance companies elected to stop insuring physicians or
required premiums so high the practice of medicine was no longer possible. And, in some parts of the nation, people with real health
problems often found they were unable to find a doctor to treat them.
Thus, we all pay a hidden tax on everything we purchase. Tort costs this year could approach $1,003 per U.S. citizen. “Since 1950,
(the earliest year for which comprehensive tort costs are available) the American people have paid an aggregate of about $3.3 trillion
for the privilege of suing each other.”
Americans are paying too high a price for being subject to too many laws, too many rules, and too much regulation. The law has
become the enemy of the founding principle that we are all equally protected by the rule of law. The time for reform is overdue, but
reform must come, if the economy is to grow and the risks involved in providing products and services of every description are not
protected against predatory lawsuits.
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
Legal Issues, Lawyers, & America's Judiciary
Government & the Economy
Alan Caruba is a veteran business and science writer, a Public Relations Counselor, and Founder of the National Anxiety Center, a
clearinghouse for information about media-driven scare campaigns. Caruba writes a weekly commentary, "Warning Signs," posted
on the Internet website of the National Anxiety Center, which is located at
www.anxietycenter.com.
© Alan Caruba 2005
Published with Permission of Alan Caruba
ACaruba@AOL.Com
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Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
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