The Right Wing's Drive for 'Tort Reform'

http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20041025&s=zegart

The Right Wing's Drive for 'Tort Reform'
by Dan Zegart


Just as the GOP convention was about to kick off in late August, the US Chamber of Commerce made an unusual announcement. Although it had never in its 92-year history endorsed a presidential candidate, the organization vowed to help pump $10 million into ads in seven battleground states urging voters to support lawsuit restrictions endorsed by George W. Bush and opposed by John Kerry. Calling it "a make-or-break election for legal reform," chamber president Thomas Donohue charged that "lawsuit abuse destroys jobs, drives doctors out of business and forces companies into bankruptcy."

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In Texas, however, the future is already here, thanks to several generous helpings of "reform." Anyone who wants a glimpse of what's in store for the rest of us would do well to look at Bush's legacy in his home state.

Jacqueline Smith has a hard time with the idea that suing over her mother's rape in a nursing home is "frivolous." Smith voted against Proposition 12, a constitutional amendment on the Texas ballot that capped medical malpractice awards. No state in history had ever taken the radical step of changing its constitution to restrict lawsuits. Smith, a 54-year-old freelance writer, didn't believe the TV commercials claiming that suits by greedy lawyers were driving up malpractice insurance premiums to the point that doctors were quitting medicine. Nevertheless, in September 2003 Proposition 12 passed by a razor-thin majority.

Smith herself had never had reason to sue anyone, until 2:30 am on November 7, 2003, when a male nurse noticed that a patient's door at the Heritage Duval Gardens Nursing Home in Austin was closed when it should have been open. He heard crying, and when he snapped on the light, he saw a man leap from the bed of an elderly woman. The woman was naked. The man's pants were around his ankles. The man, according to police, was Kevin Arceneaux, a 6-foot, 190-pound nurse's aide. Still sobbing softly in her bed was Smith's mother, an 85-year-old Alzheimer's patient. Two months later, police arrested Arceneaux and he confessed.

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Republicans new Pop Torts

saw to it through the SCOTUS that he got appointed president.

...pharmisutical, for profit health-care providers and health care technology industries are responsible for 95% of the health-care cost increases and they must be brought under direct control.

Department of Justice Study Disproves Tort "Reform" Myths

A report recently released by the Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Statistics deflates many of the myths that so-called "tort reformers" use to condemn our civil justice system. The August 2000 report, "Tort Trials and Verdicts in Large Counties, 1996," is the third in a series of reports based on a survey of the 75 largest counties in the United States. Report highlights include the following:

Tort "Reform" Myth: Punitive damages are awarded too often and are too high, resulting in a plaintiff’s lottery tort system.
Study Says: Wrong! Punitive damages are very rare, and when awarded they are small. Punitive damages are only awarded in 3.3% of the tort trials won by plaintiffs. According to the report, the median punitive damage award in 1996 was only $38,000, not the millions awarded in rare but highly publicized cases covered by the media. The likelihood of a punitive damage award varied with the kind of tort alleged. Of the cases studies, only 3 asbestos trials, or 3.2% of asbestos trials, resulted in a punitive damage award, and those plaintiffs received only $1,100 each in punitive damages. Only 3, or 1.1%, of the medical malpractice cases resulted in punitive damage awards. Of the products liability trials (excluding asbestos) studied, only 11, or 12.5%, resulted in punitive damage awards.

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http://www.citizen.org/congress/civjus/tort/myths/articles.cfm?ID=5671

This is a great site to pass on to those who spew hatred about trial attorneys.