Bush Takes A Swing At Frivolous Lawsuits

[Kennedy 0]

***Bush hits 'frivolous lawsuits'
By James G. Lakely

President Bush said yesterday he is "passionate" about protecting the business community from "frivolous lawsuits" and will work hard to get legal reform through Congress, including making the issue a topic of his State of the Union address next month.

Mr. Bush was the star attraction of a two-day economic summit filled with speakers who praised the president's first-term economic record and touted his new, aggressive agenda of tort reform, restructuring Social Security and making permanent the tax cuts he pushed through Congress in the last four years.

Mr. Bush chose to sit in on the panel discussing liability reform, a favorite topic of his stretching from his days as governor of Texas in the 1990s through his re-election campaign this year.

"I told you then and I'm going to tell you again: This is a priority issue for not only me, but for a lot of people in the Senate," Mr. Bush said, predicting an easy road in the House for restrictions on class-action suits against businesses and doctors, but a struggle in the Senate.

"It is being blocked by a few in the United States Senate, and the trial bar has made this the number one issue for them," he said. "We cannot have the legal system to be a legal lottery.

"We want the legal system to be fair and balanced so people can get good health care, so small businesses can afford to stay in business, so we don't hear these horrible stories about someone drug through this class-action meat grinder that has caused [many] to go out of business," the president said to applause from his hand-picked panel.

Democrats in Congress called the summit all but pointless because Mr. Bush was not likely to hear any opinions that didn't match his own.

"Unfortunately, day one of the administration's 'economic summit' seems little more than a collection of like-minded individuals who are intent on pushing a preordained partisan agenda rather than conducting an open, honest dialogue on issues that require broad bipartisan support," said House Minority Whip Steny H. Hoyer, Maryland Democrat.

South Carolina Rep. John M. Spratt Jr., ranking Democrat on the House Budget Committee, said he wished the summit was like the "real conference" President Clinton convened with Republicans and Democrats alike in 1997.

"That was a genuine bipartisan effort," Mr. Spratt said. "There has been no effort by this administration to reach out to involve us in the process. We haven't even had an invitation to a conference like this, much less to a real working conference where there is a true exchange of ideas and give and take and bargaining. It's simply missing, and there's no indication that there's going to be anything like that this year."

After hearing legal horror stories from a small-business owner, law professors, the CEO of Home Depot, a doctor and a pregnant woman who struggled to find anyone who would take the legal risk of delivering her baby, Mr. Bush promised to push hard for tort reform.

"I am passionate on the subject because I want America to be the best place in the world for people to find work or to raise their family or to get good health care," he said. "And I can assure you all that I intend to make this a priority issue, as I stand before Congress, when I give the State of the Union, and as I talk to leaders of the Congress about what I think ought to be done in the upcoming legislative session."

The first day of the economic conference — held at the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center three blocks from the White House — was opened with a brief speech by Vice President Dick Cheney, who credited Mr. Bush's four tax cuts in four years for righting an economy that slid into recession in 2001 and was damaged further by the September 11 attacks.

"We've created an environment in which firms and entrepreneurs are more willing to take risk, innovate, invest and hire more workers," Mr. Cheney said. "If we stay on that path, the years ahead will bring even greater progress and prosperity for the people that we all serve."

Mr. Cheney's comments were followed by a string of sunny economic assessments and praise for Mr. Bush delivered by some of the president's most prominent political supporters.

"I'm pleased to say the economy is now in very good shape," said Harvard economics professor Martin Feldstein, a Republican who is eyeing a presidential appointment to succeed Alan Greenspan as the head of the Federal Reserve Board.

Home Depot CEO Robert Nardelli, a Bush supporter who raised $3.2 million for the Republican National Committee this year, told the president, "There is no better person than you" to lead the economy and the fight for tort reform.

"We're tickled to death that your exodus from Washington has been postponed for four years," Mr. Nardelli said.

A priority for the administration will be cajoling Congress to make permanent Mr. Bush's tax cuts that are all set to expire in 2010.

Treasury Secretary John W. Snow told CNN after convening one of the day's panels that he is confident Mr. Bush will include a measure to make his tax cuts permanent in the first budget he submits in February.

He said the president will also submit a plan to simplify and reform the federal tax code before the end of the year.

"I don't have a particular timetable," Mr. Snow said, but indicated the plan will be out "as soon as possible" so it can wind through Congress in 2005.

Mr. Bush indicated yesterday that he will largely bypass Democrats in Congress — which is easier in the House with the Republicans' 30-seat majority, but harder in the Senate, where the Republicans only will have a 55-44 margin with one Democrat-leaning independent.

Another major domestic- agenda item in the second term will be Social Security reform, which will be the main topic of conversation as the summit closes today.

The White House hasn't outlined details of Mr. Bush's plan, but a linchpin will be allowing younger workers to opt out of Social Security, which will begin to run a deficit in 2018 and will be insolvent by 2042.

witty subliminal message
Guard your honor, let your reputation fall where it will, and outlast the bastards.
1*

[mr2mk1g 10]

Hmm, a worthy idea - so long as it's done right. Article doesn't actually say a great deal though - any idea what he's planning on doing?

I realise there might not be any info in the public domain yet though, so I'd accept "no" as an answer.

[rmsmith 1]

The powerful special interest groups will lobby for liabiliy exclusions eventually leaving only the average small business to shoulder the joint and several liability burden.

[masterrig 1]

I feel, one reason there are so many 'frivilous' lawsuits is that, judges have 'awarded' outrageous sums in so many cases. I feel also, many judges are afraid of being over-turned in a higher court. Now, some folks 'look' for reasons to sue... looking to get rich quick. Suing tobacco companies because someone's uncle died as a result of smoking 4-packs a day. Suing McDonalds over a cup of coffee that was spilled. Duh! Coffee... it's hot! Gimme a break. Suing hamburger places because their kid is 9-yrs. old and weighs 300lbs. and eats nothing but McDonald's all day. Let us not forget the lawers who file these suits and get a 'big' percentage (if, they win). Yeah, it needs changing, all right.

[ianmdrennan 2]

Another reason for these is out of court settlements. Sums are often paid out cause it's simply cheaper and faster to settle in the end.

Sad but true. The current system almost "encourages" it.

Performance Designs Factory Team

[masterrig 1]

Hear, hear! Thanks, I forgot that part. Come to think of it, there have been some 'huge' settlements. Makes sense. Sue for say, $120mil. Settle for $30mil. Not bad! Deals like that also, add to the cost of things. Sheeesh!

[mr2mk1g 10]

Get rid of Jury awards and you'll be half way there. Then institute a system of guidance for judges as to the appropriate award. This would give a good deal of control over settlement figures and ensure everything stays proportionate.

Ditch punitive damages - or have them paid to state or charitable coffers, they just encourage claims.

Cut down on inappropriate out of court settlements (note that out of court settlements of themselves are actually a VERY good thing… just not when the case should be fought) create quick mechanisms by which Defendants and or Courts can strike out weak cases.

Further deter weak cases by creating mechanisms for cost sanctions on the losing side and allow surety for costs to be taken to ensure no one loses out on their costs when they win.

So long as each of the above is done with the appropriate checks and balances they shouldn’t obstruct access to justice (which is something worth fighting and dieing for).

I should add that while I am aware that some of the above is absent in the US justice system I do not know about the presence or otherwise of all[/I] of the above – so if I’ve included something which already exists then my bad.

[quade 3]

Quote

President Bush said yesterday he is "passionate" about protecting the business community . . .

Might as well just stop right there.

Yes, there definately are "frivolous lawsuits" (at least in my mind), but there are also a lot of lawsuits that get labled as "frivolous" by businesses which are, in fact, very serious lawsuits by the plaintiffs. The one that instantly comes to mind is the McDonalds hot cup of coffee lawsuit.

Who decides?

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[Kennedy 0]

The reason out of court settlements work is because layers are so damned expensive (the good ones anyway). Seeing as that is a universal truth, it can often be less costly to negotiate a payoff before a trial than to go to trial (even when you know you'll win).

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Get rid of Jury awards and you'll be half way there. Then institute a system of guidance for judges as to the appropriate award. This would give a good deal of control over settlement figures and ensure everything stays proportionate.

That treats the symptom not the cause. I also have a problem with removing the "average" citizen from the process. If you can't trust twleve people to do the right thing, then the whole system is fucked anyway.

witty subliminal message
Guard your honor, let your reputation fall where it will, and outlast the bastards.
1*

[ChasingBlueSky 0]

I'm sure that the California Utility company thought that those that claimed being poisoned were frivolous when in fact they were. Like you said - who decides?

I will agree, we are a lawsuit happy country - everyone is looking for a free ride. But if reform happens that protects the companies, the little people will get stomped on.

Why is it that Bush has such a stick up his ass about letting the Judicial system interpret the law? Last I checked that was their job. Why didn't he just become a judge if he cared about it so much?

_________________________________________
you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me....
I WILL fly again.....

[nathaniel 0]

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Another reason for these is out of court settlements. Sums are often paid out cause it's simply cheaper and faster to settle in the end.

Amen. And sometimes settlements deliver more justice than can reasonably be expected of Justice system in the states. Case in point is the financial industry, where the technicalities of investments & markets are beyond the average judge or jury. The NASD, a non-profit company, does a brisk business in issuing "fines" to businesses and people who break a set of voluntary rules, without any real jurisdiction. And people typically pay them.

The current Justice system is simply not prepared to deal with the volume & complexity of the issues...taking someone to court in the finance business is a bit akin to using nuclear weapons due to the costs & bad publicity generated for all parties involved.

nathaniel

My advice is to do what your parents did; get a job, sir. The bums will always lose. Do you hear me, Lebowski?

[storm1977 0]

Quote

Why is it that Bush has such a stick up his ass about letting the Judicial system interpret the law? Last I checked that was their job. Why didn't he just become a judge if he cared about it so much?

I don't think he wants Judges to stop interpreting laws, I think he wants to stop judges from Making laws !!!!

-----------------------------------------------------
Sometimes it is more important to protect LIFE than Liberty

[ChasingBlueSky 0]

Quote

Quote

Why is it that Bush has such a stick up his ass about letting the Judicial system interpret the law? Last I checked that was their job. Why didn't he just become a judge if he cared about it so much?

I don't think he wants Judges to stop interpreting laws, I think he wants to stop judges from Making laws !!!!

I must have missed a judge signing a law into existence. Bush is just pissed that they are interpreting the laws he doesn't want changed. Bush is trying to decide how laws should be interpreted - thats not his job.

_________________________________________
you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me....
I WILL fly again.....

[AndyMan 7]

I just posted this in the other thread. I'm going to repost it here.

Why should corporations be protected by lawsuits from consumers, when those corporations are the worst offenders?

Every time the discussion of frivolous lawsuits comes up, the example cited is ALWAYS the case of a person suing a corporation. Ever wonder about why all frivolous lawsuits are people against corporations? Answer: They're not.

Most sucessful trial-lawyer consider marketing and "press management" a big part of their responsibility. Many corporate lawyers write the press releases that end up heavily quoted in articles like the this one. www.groklaw.org had a great article discussing this last week, but I can't get the clicky because they're down.

Not surprisingly, any talk of "tort reform" tends to revolve around the issue of stopping people from suing companies. That disturbs me.

If you ever dig into the issue of frivolous lawsuits, by far the worst cases are almost always businesses against businesses.

Here's a great example, Allstate sues Kraft because a toaster strudel caught fire while being (over) heated, and did significant damage to the house... Because somehow Kraft is responsible for a dumb-assed person over-cooking a pastry. http://www.record-eagle.com/2003/mar/31toast.htm.

Here's another one: Caterpillar sues the Walt Disney Company for portraying bulldozers in a negative light in their movie "George of the Jungle 2." http://www.boycottriaa.com/article/8472

A third: Mattel also sued the recording label MCA when musical group Aqua released the song "Barbie Girl." Mattel claimed that the song defamed Barbie becuase her name was used as a sexual innuendo. Both suits were dismissed. http://news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/ip/mattelmca72402opn.pdf

On the contrary, the most oft cited example of a consumer-lawsuit gone wrong is the McDonalds hot coffee case. In reality, this is a great example of how lawsuits to work, to help people fight when they've been legitimately wronged. http://www.lectlaw.com/files/cur78.htm

I have no idea if this above Walmart lawsuit is merritted. I DO know that the press article attached would have been largely quoted verbatim from a press release written by the defending attorney. We, as consumers of media, are horribly ill-equipped to judge the merrits of the case. I do know that judges are very well equipped to "judge" the validity of the complaint. That's their job. Let's leave it to them to judge, then we can all arm-chair quarter-back after the game is over.

Corporations are using the notion of "Frivolous lawsuits" to get out of very legitimate lawsuits every day, while launching countless ones of their own.

A good primer on this notion is here http://www.atla.org/homepage/bizvsbiz03.aspx.

__

You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

[3ringheathen 0]

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Suing tobacco companies because someone's uncle died as a result of smoking 4-packs a day. Suing McDonalds over a cup of coffee that was spilled. Duh! Coffee... it's hot! Gimme a break.

Some of the tobacco lawsuits have merit. Don't forget that the tobacco industry knew how dangerous cigarettes were way back in the 50's. They made a conscious decision to actively suppress this information, and spent enormous sums of money purposely trying to make their product as addictive as possible because they knew it killed there customer base. Some executives should have been charged with criminal offenses.

The MickyDs coffee lawsuit is also far less frivolous than most people seem to think.
IIRC, McDonalds corporate made it policy that the coffee be maintained at 190 degrees (?) specifically so that people would scald their tongues and not seek refills. There were scores of serious burns accross the nation, and the woman in question suffered 3rd degree burns to her genitals. Ultimately I think she had 3-4 rounds of reconstructive surgery.
Finally, the huge judgement was based upon one days profits from coffee sales. Anything less is hardly any incentive for such a large corporation to be responsible. Remember the Pinto? The bean counters knew it could explode and calculated that it would be cheaper to pay the lawsuits than fix the problem. Sadly, you've got to hit them in the pocketbook or they won't behave.

Even with this in mind, the McDonalds settlement was drastically reduced. A sign in my opinion, that the current system isn't as broke as some would have us believe.

The above is from memory, so check it out for yourself.
-Josh

If you have time to panic, you have time to do something more productive. -Me*
*Ron has accused me of plagiarizing this quote. He attributes it to Douglas Adams.

[PhillyKev 0]

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Even with this in mind, the McDonalds settlement was drastically reduced. A sign in my opinion, that the current system isn't as broke as some would have us believe.

There was a big write up in the WSJ a couple weeks ago about malpractice lawsuits. The gist of it was that even though you hear about these huge judgments, the final settlement is almost never anywhere near that amount. They had a bunch of figures in there that attributed less than 1/10th of the cost of malpractice insurance to lawsuits, I believe. Contrary to the hype about lawsuits making it too expensive for doctors to stay in business. The reality is the insurance companies are doing that on their own.

[Kennedy 0]

Basically I would say the most common frivolous lawsuits are based around third party misuse following a normal transaction.

Examples:
-It's somehow a pastry maker's fault when some asshat sets his kitchen on fire for using a toaster incorrectly?
-It's somehow a gun maker's fault that a criminal stole a gun from a cop and used it in a crime?


The second most common ridiculous suit (but much harder to distinguish) are defamation/slander/libel suits. Some have merit, but so many of them are complete BS.

Examples:
-Caterpillar Disney
-Matel MCA
-a businessman sued a cop for arresting him at work (bad image costing him a contract) yes, he was guilty and it was on warrant


I have the biggest problem with lawsuits intended to bankrupt a company/industry through court costs or settlement fees. Death by a thousand cuts, constant defense fees for baseless suits, that even the accusers know are BS.
(more rare but obviously they exist)

witty subliminal message
Guard your honor, let your reputation fall where it will, and outlast the bastards.
1*

[masterrig 1]

You make a good point. I am not going to sit here and say that ALL lawsuits are frivilous. When negligence is proven... go for it. There was not realy a lot mentioned on the news or in the press about the McDonalds - hot coffee suit. The 'late night' T.V. guys had a field-day with it. Still, to me, when I order coffee, anywhere, I 'expect' it will be hot and think a little more of myself than to put hot coffee between my legs. Even on the coldest of days! I feel, there must be some way of separating the 'grain from the chaf' in regard to lawsuits. As for the tobacco companies, I agree! They did in fact, supress information regarding their products. Also, the fact that tobacco IS addictive. Quitting tobacco products can be one of the hardest things to get off of. For those who smoked for 10 - 20 yrs. and just 'quit'... Damn, That, is an accomplishment. What about the Corvair? Ralph Nader, 'made' his name with that one! That's another story.

[PhillyKev 0]

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When negligence is proven... go for it.

How exactly do you prove negligence BEFORE filing a suit?

[nathaniel 0]

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Contrary to the hype about lawsuits making it too expensive for doctors to stay in business. The reality is the insurance companies are doing that on their own.

So would you follow through on that and assert then that insurance requirements as they exist today ought to be abolished?

nathaniel

My advice is to do what your parents did; get a job, sir. The bums will always lose. Do you hear me, Lebowski?

[PhillyKev 0]

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Quote

Contrary to the hype about lawsuits making it too expensive for doctors to stay in business. The reality is the insurance companies are doing that on their own.

So would you follow through on that and assert then that insurance requirements as they exist today ought to be abolished?

nathaniel

No. For the simple fact that no doctor in his right mind would practice without insurance. They they would have to settle lawsuits personally out of their own pockets. And no hospital would employ them because then they would be the targeted deep pockets.

Seems to me the problems surround the insurance companies themselves. For two reasons. They overcharge for malpractice insurance using highly publicized jury awards as justification, when in reality they never pay anywhere near that amount. And secondly in the way that HMO type health insurers encourage and often force health care providers to do what's best for their profit margin instead of what's best for the patients.

[masterrig 1]

Rather than 'proven', I should probably have used 'found'... most commonly through investigation.

[masterrig 1]

My bad! I should have used the word 'found' or 'evidence of' rather than proven.

[kelpdiver 2]

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Ditch punitive damages - or have them paid to state or charitable coffers, they just encourage claims.

There's much to be said for the second part here. Punitive damages are essential because otherwise the company will often opt to pay the damages for the few that can successfully litigate (cheaper than solving the problem), but that this money tends to go to the first litigant can make it closer to a lottery.

Having the judge designate an appropriate vehicle for the excess monies would be a big improvement, esp with class actions where giving each class member $7 accomplishes nothing.

[PhillyKev 0]

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Having the judge designate an appropriate vehicle for the excess monies would be a big improvement, esp with class actions where giving each class member $7 accomplishes nothing.

I have a win-win solution for that. Man, I'd kiss Bush's feet if he went for this.

All punitive damages in lawsuits are used to pay down the national debt.