Posted on 05/09/2005 8:16:05 AM PDT by SierraWasp
Dan Walters: Lawsuit dilemma redux: Once again, a real-world problem ignored
By Dan Walters -- Bee Columnist Published 2:15 am PDT Monday, May 9, 2005
A melodrama that played itself out over two years in the Capitol, and eventually in the November election, reflected the polarized and unresponsive nature of California's political apparatus.
A real-world problem was presented to the Legislature. Some unscrupulous attorneys were conducting ill-disguised shakedowns of small businesses - auto repair shops, cafes, nail parlors and the like - by misusing the state's "unfair business practices" law. Business owners, many of them immigrants, were receiving harshly worded letters from the attorneys, threatening to sue them for big bucks for violating the law, citing some obscure and/or minor violation of state regulations, but offering to go away for payments.
State Attorney General Bill Lockyer accurately summarized what was happening, telling a legislative hearing: "There are abuses. I think they are extortionate, and we have to do something about it."
However, Lockyer and the Legislature's dominant Democrats said the remedy should be professional discipline of the law firms involved, not any changes in the law itself. They rejected a very mild corrective bill offered by a Democratic lawmaker and at one point, fashioned a substitute that would have actually made it easier to sue.
Why? Because the Consumer Attorneys of California, the lobby for lawyers who specialize in plaintiffs' lawsuits, didn't want to dilute a law that had been a handy catch-all tool for actions against big business. And CAC is very influential among the liberal Democrats who control the Capitol.
(Excerpt) Read more at sacbee.com ...
Hmmm. I see that this article is about the abuses of the Disabilities Act. I thought the earlier anti-shakedown ballot measure had taken care of those too, but apparently not. The ability to sue small businesses for punitive damages for ADA violations is one of the worst scams in this state. I think every restaurant that I frequent has had one of these extortionate lawsuits at one time or another.
Without qualification, I have been of the opinion for 20 years that ADA should be killed and a wooden stake driven through it!
Without qualification, I have been of the opinion for 20 years that ADA should be killed and a wooden stake driven through it!
The main reason I posted this is that I just love how they had to change their organizational name to keep the intials from spelling "caca!" (as in poopoo!)
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