rraley/Gude debates; Tort Reform

[Larry Gude]

...alright young 'in.

I'll let you start.

Explain to me how this does NOT need to be reformed;

http://www.monkeycube.com/article-25

 

[Bruzilla]

I've got a good one for you! There's a personal injury lawyer down here in Jacksonville who's running an ad on TV. It features a heavy-set, older, black woman looking at the camera and asking "have you ever been injured? I was... and I got CASH!!!" As she says CASH! she waves a folded up wad of bills in front of the camera. Then she turns around and gets into a Mercedes convertible and drives off whooping and hollaring as the lawyers details are mentioned.

Un-freakin' believeable!

 

[rraley]

Tort reform is one of those issues where Republicans take a molehill and make it a mountain and use it as a scapegoat to hide their own inability to effectively address the crisis of rising Health insurance costs.

First of all, let me say, there are terrible instances of abusing the court system in regards to personal injury lawsuits. We can all remember the woman in Florida who received millions of dollars because of the injuries she sustained after her unconvered cup of McDonald's coffee spilled onto her legs. We all know the trial lawyer stereotype of being an "ambulance chaser" and staying at busy street sections to see if there is a car accident that injures a driver. I can tell you that some lawyers are like that; but is it the sort of epidemic that President Bush makes it out to be? Absolutely not. And is there a correlation between this small amount of frivolous lawsuits and the recent 17% rise in health care insurance? Absolutely not.

I should make it clear that I support effective tort reform that provides a sound solution for the abuses of some lawyers. What I oppose is President Bush's plan for tort reform that amounts to demonizing the trial lawyers of this nation.

The current system is basically sound concerning large, personal injury lawsuits. The United States Constitution provides our people with the right to sue a person or entity that has wronged them in front of a jury of his peers, which decides initially the amount that has to be paid out to the plantiff. Sometimes these juries provide far too much money out in punitive damages, which President Bush has proposed capping in federal courts. What President Bush fails to tell us is that many cases that seem to award excessive judgements are often overturned upon further review. Take a look at this and see if it looks familiar. Furthermore, an arbitrary limit on punitive damages removes certain intangibles that cannot be reflected upon in a law. There are some cases that are so terrible that you cannot help but feel for the families of the plantiff and believe that more than a certain level should be paid out.

An increase in medical insurance is not the result of some trial lawyer who represents some poor girl who has lost a leg due to the negligence of corporation/doctor X. Half the states in this nation already have instituted malpractice caps, but these states have the same insurance rates as states without caps. Medical insurance increases are the result of greedy insurance companies that are out to soak the most they can out an unknowing public. They discourage people from filing legitimate claims and they base their premiums on a trade-group loss calculation that they understand that the rest of the industry will follow. Insurance companies are exempted from anti-trust legislation and the FTC has never been permitted to seriously investigate insurance company practices.

Rather than blaming lawyers, we should also take a hard look at the doctors involved with malpractice lawsuits. Since 1990, only 5% of doctors have paid malpractice claims, but this 5% makes up over 50% of the claims paid out in the same time period. Let's make state medical boards more responsible for the actions of their members and have their standards be stricter against doctors who consistently make mistakes during their operations.

 

[Pete]

must refrain

 

[Larry Gude]

Thank you Pete...

...Sorry Bruz, please allow the youngster and I some room.

So far, as a matter of public policy, you and I flat out disagree on the economy, especially taxes.

Not sure where we stand on defense yet.

On this, tort, we have common ground.

I completely support and acknowledge a right to redress when a citizen has been wronged. Right now, you and I have a matter of degree issue, it seems.

You did NOT address the 'molehill' of the tobacco settlements at all. As far as your snopes bit, I don't recognize a single one. But I sure as hell recognize Angelos. And the coffee. And the guys BMW scratch and on and on...

Maryland, as you may have kept up on, has a malpractice insurance crisis on our hands. A real one. Doctors are stopping practice. No mole hill here.

I personally know a doctor and his wife who closed a Maryland practice years ago due to the ever increasing demands of regulations, forms, insurance complexities and malpractice costs. This man is a great doctor. Not the 'specialist' we all get shipped to like cattle but a real doctor who didn't need a machine to have a real good idea of what was wrong.

He got sick, as it were, of not being able to be a doctor. You are forced to become a conglomerate replete with an army of non medical personel or...leave. There is no more family doctor, only medical 'groups'.

The vast majority of what we all go through for a trypical trip to the doctors is all about CYA. COVER YOUR ASS.

You see the problem as more doctors than lawyers. I say put the horse before the cart. If you are sick, do you want a so so doctor or a great
lawyer?

Effective tort reform begins and ends with a hippocratic oath for lawyers;
First, do no harm.

Bad law got us to this day of robotic specialists instead of doctors. Only good law will fix that.

 

[Pete]

Pssst Larry,
Don't forget to mention;

"strict liability" laws that add millions of dollars to consumer goods for "anticipated lawsuits" because some goober is too stupid to not put the dry cleaning bag over their heads and breathe heavily.

The cost assiciated with defending a multi million dollar law suit even though it gets dismissed.

The disproportionate awards given out by juries who think business is nothing more than an oportunity to milk a cash cow.

That many companies are actually moving out of the US because of "strict liability" concerns most notably pharmacuticals.

and a good punch line would be "Our judical system has become more of a goober lottery where morons are awarded for sheer stupidity instead of dolling out justice."

Thanks

 

[ylexot]

Nice restraint Pete

 

[Pete]

Nice restraint Pete

I tried, I am weak.

 

[SurfaceTension]

I tried, I am weak.

HAVE YOU BEEN LED INTO A RESTRICTED THREAD THROUGH NO FAULT OF YOUR OWN? FORCED TO OPINE BEYOND YOUR CONTROL? CALL SurfT ATTY AT LAW NOW, BEFORE YOU LOSE WHAT COULD BE LEGALLY YOURS!

 

[rraley]

You did NOT address the 'molehill' of the tobacco settlements at all.

Maryland, as you may have kept up on, has a malpractice insurance crisis on our hands. A real one. Doctors are stopping practice. No mole hill here.

Bad law got us to this day of robotic specialists instead of doctors. Only good law will fix that.

Well, I did not really intend for this section of our debate to focus on individual cases, but I suppose that it has to in order to be comprehensive. First of all, I support the concept behind the tobacco settlements. Yes, it was a personal decision for people to start smoking cigarettes (and a bad one at that, if I may interject), but tobacco companies, rather than leave cigarettes more natural, decided to add over 250 toxins to each one, making them more addictive and they did it on purpose to keep older people hooked and to hook younger ones. Now this lawsuit involved more than mere money, it also involved forcing the tobacco corporations to change their ways and it helped to make the public more aware of the dangers of smoking. Thankfully, teenage smoking is on the decline and nearly 86% of Marylanders are non-smokers. The settlement that the tobacco corporations reached can be attributed to helping in this. Furthermore, tobacco companies are not some lobby that we should be sympathetic for. They make billions of dollars by keeping tobacco prices from farmers artifically low and abuse their way to the top. I have absolutely no sympathy for this multibillion dollar industry.

As for the Maryland, and by extension American, crisis involving health care insurance and malpractice insurance, I am not trying to say that that is not a mountain. It is, but what people place too much emphasis on is the role that trial lawyers and torts have on that.

In conclusion, from everything that I have seen, placing limits on the damages that plantiffs may receive (which is the most common form of tort reform) not only circumvents the rights given to the people in the Constitution, but it won't even address the actual problem and will not provide an effective solution.

 

[Larry Gude]

rr...

...I don't see any suggestions as to how to fix the problem but I do see acknowledement that there is a serious problem.

You opinion on tobacco companies illustrates why we are not a democracy. Just because you have no sympathy for them and don't like anything about them does not give you the right to deny due process or equal rights. Just ask blacks or gays or women about your attitude.

'Big' tobacco, even if they did wrong things, were backed into a corner and threatened with endless lawsuits if they didn't go along with the lawyers scheme of a huge settlement. This was a HUGE abuse of the coersive power of government under the guise of puplic health.

Nobody is allowed to use lead paint and just pay a higher tax.

Nobody is allowed to use asbestos and simply pay a higher tax.

If they are so awful and terrible, ban them. Right now.

Lawyers did NOT help one sinlge smoker.

There are more, as of 10 years ago, living ex smokers in the US than living smokers. People quit.

You wanna lump in other risky behaviors, optional, chosen behaviors, as well and make them a legal issue to?

People do not object to an individual reaping a windfall nearly as much as they object to a slick lawyer using others pain and suffering to make millions and sometimes BILLIONS.

Find me someone, a victim, who gained justice or fairness in regards to asbestos.

I can give you a laundry list of lawyers who gained. Just check out the roster of donors to the DNC.

You say nothing of my solution of holding lawyers to a standard of doing no harm.

You know as well as I do that plenty of lawyers game the system because they've become the system.

You hold dr's responsible for mal-practice. What about lawyers?