No Justice, No Rights
A diary at Daily Kos gives a good run-down on the Senate's 72-26 vote on Friday for the "Class Action Fairness Act." Clearly, the White House is just getting warmed up in its assault on the right of ordinary people who are victims of corporate negligence to have their day in court. Ah, whatever happened to that nice Ford Pinto?
The corporate lobby realizes the time is right for "tort reform" (a phrase badly in need of progressive re-framing). They pushed through a dangerous repeal of legal rights in Mississippi last fall (which, like Texas, they are holding up as a national model) and look close to doing the same in Georgia.
As others have noted, this is more than just your typical right-wing dismantling of measures that might reign in corporate wrong-doing. It's political, an attempt to inflict damage on a key Democratic fundraising base.
Last fall, Mississippi native Curtis Wilkie wrote a thoughtful piece in the Boston Globe about the special role of trial lawyers in the South. In a region where states advertise their "business-friendly climate" and lax regulations, trial lawyers have served as rare populist heroes and public advocates -- a voice for the "little guy."
The right knows this all too well.
The corporate lobby realizes the time is right for "tort reform" (a phrase badly in need of progressive re-framing). They pushed through a dangerous repeal of legal rights in Mississippi last fall (which, like Texas, they are holding up as a national model) and look close to doing the same in Georgia.
As others have noted, this is more than just your typical right-wing dismantling of measures that might reign in corporate wrong-doing. It's political, an attempt to inflict damage on a key Democratic fundraising base.
Last fall, Mississippi native Curtis Wilkie wrote a thoughtful piece in the Boston Globe about the special role of trial lawyers in the South. In a region where states advertise their "business-friendly climate" and lax regulations, trial lawyers have served as rare populist heroes and public advocates -- a voice for the "little guy."
The right knows this all too well.
6 Comments:
Thanks for posting that link to my blog on the Pinto debacle, Chris. Sorry to say we actually had a '73 Pinto, though it was a wagon, not an exploding hatch.
This nonsense, along with the pending legislation to limit damages in malpractice awards should put consumer rights back to square one. Big Pharma is also overjoyed.
One of the most disappointing aspects to this vote is that none other than Barak Obama, in his only ninth vote in the Senate, was one of the 18 Democrats making this gift to corporate America. Not encouraging.
Personally, I think punitive damages should be levied in the form of fines. While I absolutely support the right of anyone, including classes of people, to sue those who wrong them negligently or deliberately, I also believe that there is an "award crisis," especially in medical malpractice.
One idea to restrain the size of damage awards would be to have a fraction of the award paid by the *government* as an acknowledgment of its failure to police. After all, we expect government, not prisoners, to pay the cost of imprisonment! In that case, maybe juries awards would be rather more restrained since some of the money would in effect be coming out of their own pockets!
Opening corporations up to expensive lawsuits IS the way that the government has historically "policed" unsafe practices.
The purpose of punitive damages is to de-incentivize bad behavior. If corporations are not subject to these lawsuits, then often it is simply cheaper to allow serious workplace injuries and deaths and pay a relatively small fine than it is to fix the problems that cause these injuries.
Multi-million dollar awards are not as much about making it right with the defendant as they are about making sure it doesn't happen again.
It is easier for politicians to argue about medical malpractice lawsuits, because those have the effect of making our healthcare coverage more expensive. But if the problem is medical malpractice, then why must these reforms also immunize corporations?
Yes, punitive damages work as a disincentive. Stiff fines would have the same effect.
The fact that eighteen Democrats voted for the measure aggravates the hound out of me.
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