Will we ever get tort reform?

Question

When will the day come that our Republcian leaders stand up to liberal lawyers and shut down this BS of suing and hitting the lottery for every accident? Comp rates thru the roof, auto insurance at an all time high,hell even Marine insurance is the highest ever due to some dipchit suing Yamaha because their stupid kid got killed riding a jetski she wasnt old eneough to drive! God figure. ARRRR I HATE LIBERALS AND LAWYERS!

Answer 1

HOPEFULLY SOON. I'M SICK OF THESE LAWYERS GETTING THIS RIDICULOUS LAWSUITS FOR MILLIONS, AND DRIVING UP INSURANCE FOR THE REST OF US. JOHN KERRY SUCKS.

Answer 2

I agree that it is a tort system run amok. The problem is that the standard of liability is so low that even the hint of a potential claim is enough grounds to bring suit. In the UK, it is very differnent. First, of it is near-impossible to bring a class action suit because the test for liability and grounds to file aclaim is very high. This prevents a floodgate of unmeritious law suits. Also, unlike the U.S., lawyers fees are determined strictly by a schedule provided by the court. There are very few lawyers who work on a contingency basis (and there is a cap on fees charged in this manner). In the U.S. the thought of earning a % of the claim creates alot of ambulance chasing and again, unmeritous claims.

Answer 3

We finally agree on somethng. I hate lawyers too. But, I have a question, are you wriiting GODLESS II? What's the matter, are you having penis envy of Anne Coulter? You need prime time! Your ugliness needs national network polarization. Bullies always show up in the school playground: Yahoo?

Answer 4

I hope someone in your family gets a terrible accident and is left paralysed for life. Then I want to see you not suing anyone.
When the time comes, capitalist pigs like you will beg for mercy.

Answer 5

Not any time soon. The Liberals are in control of the court system. Don't believe me? How many conservative Judges would release convicted sex offenders? None!!

Answer 6

We have upwards of 40 lawsuits everyday from patients and other pharma comapies who sue us but we have enough brains and Ivy League educated lawyers to defend us.

Answer 7

A wise man once said, "When an honestly mistaken man is shown the truth, he will either cease to be mistaken, or he will cease to be honest." I will give you the benefit of the doubt, and assume that you are honestly mistaken about so called "tort reform." Now I'll show you the truth about so called "Tort Reform," and we will see if you cease to be mistaken, or you cease to be honest.

First of all, the justice system has not "run away" nor has has it been taken over by "liberals" or "flooded with frivolous law suits." There are many many safety features built into the legal system, to ensure that "frivolous" law suits very rarely, if ever, get brought. First of all, personal injury attorneys work on a contingency fee basis. That means that they don't get paid unless they win, and they typically forward all the expenses on a case. Expenses on a personal injury law suit typically run into the thousands of dollars, and often into the tens of thousands of dollars. No attorney is going to gamble that money on an illegitimate case. Second, even if they did risk that, and file the suit, the defense can file a motion to dismiss his case for failure to state a claim upon which relief may be granted. That means that before the case gets to trial, the plaintiff's attorney has to prove that he has a valid case. Then he has to go through the trial, and prove to a whole jury full of strangers that the case is legitimate. That means proving that 1. the defendant had a duty to the plaintiff, 2. the defendant breached that duty, 3. the plaintiff was injured, 4. the injury was caused by the defendant's breach of duty, and 5. the plaintiff's injury is worth as much money as he says it is. After all that, the defendant can appeal and a judge can still decide that the jury was wrong, and make them redo it or reduce the amount of the verdict.
Now, while trying to do all this, there are about 1000 legal rules that stack the deck against the injured person. For example, the plaintiff is not allowed to ever mention or even hint to the jury that the defendant has insurance. That means that if you're rear-ended by a sixteen year old kid, the jury thinks you're suing the kid himself. You are never allowed to tell them that the kid is backed by a multi-billion dollar insurance company. So the jury is wrongly thinking "oh, that poor kid can't afford to pay the plaintiff's $20,000 medical bill."

Here is the truth about the most famous "frivolous" law suit everyone is "familiar" with -- the McDonald's coffee case. I'm sure you've heard something like this: "some old lady spilled coffee in her lap, and got a million dollars from McDonalds for it." Here's the truth: a 79 year old lady was a passenger in a car when she got coffee from McDonald's drive through. The car pulled up and stopped, and she held the coffee cup between her legs while she put creamer in it, when she spilled it on her lap. The coffee was so incredibly, inedibly hot that she immediately suffered first, second, and third degree burns (full tissue thickness) on her thighs, anus, and vaginal lips. She spent 8 days in the hospital, and had to have skin graft operations to repair the damage. McDonald's had previously had over 700 complaints of similar injury from their coffee being too hot, but they refused to lower the temperature because by running it that hot through the coffee filter, they got a little more milage out of each filter. The lady offered to settle for $20,000, but McDonald's told her no. She won about $750,000, including about $250,000 for her injuries, and the rest was what are called "punative damages." The punative damages are designed to punish McDonald's for putting their profit margin ahead of the safety of their customers. The punative damages amounted to 2 days worth of McDonald's coffee sales. McDonald's appealed the case, and eventually settled with her for a much smaller amount of money. Does it still sound frivolous to you?

If you said "yes" it's undoubtedly because you said something like "she still spilled it on herself... it wasn't McDonald's fault." But the law is based on what is called the "but-for" argument. It's true that the lady spilled the coffee, but if McDonald's hadn't served the coffee so hot, then she wouldn't have gotten hurt. She just would have had damp pants. But for McDonald's breach of duty (they have a duty to serve safe food to their customer), she wouldn't have been injured.

Now, the insurance industry knows that paying claims for personal injuries amount to less than 1% of annual health care costs nationally. And the insurance industry has consistantly reported RECORD profits for the past four years in a row. The insurance industry has also admitted that enacting "tort reform" will NOT save consumers any money, and will NOT save doctors any money. Yet they continue to pay off politicians to preach that tort reform will do just that. Tort reform has been enacted in many states throughout the country -- some states have had tort reform for decades. And in EVERY state where it's been enacted, the result is the same: insurance companies save money, and get richer, but do NOT decrease insurance premiums for doctors or the general public. They just get richer, and raise everyone's premiums anyway, and then continue to cry about the evil personal injury attorneys as a scapegoat. Insurance companies paying personal injury claims literally costs you NOTHING because they do NOT raise your premiums based on what they pay out to personal injury claims. It's all a lie.

There is only ONE factor that is consistently correlated with whether or not insurance companies raise premiums. That one factor is how well they do investing their money. Insurance companies invest the premium money, and when they lose, they raise premiums. In California, they enacted Tort Reform, then had to enact Insurance Reform later.

That's it. Tort reform is a lie. You are being lied to by several prominant politicians, who have been bought off by the richest lobbying group in the world -- the insurance industry. So, are you going to stop being mistaken, or are you going to stop being honest?