Posted on 11/17/2004 5:51:45 AM PST by OESY
...For years trial lawyers have so dominated this legal arena that the companies they sued have taken to collaborating with their persecutors -- just to be put out of their misery. Some 70 of these firms are in bankruptcy, many of them willing partners in a racket that hands most of their assets to the tort bar and the 90% of plaintiffs who aren't ill, while the truly sick waste away in an overcrowded court system.
Yet there are a few hopeful signs. Most concrete is Ohio's decision to pass the first statewide reform demanding that plaintiffs meet certain medical criteria to proceed with claims. Also encouraging are developments in federal bankruptcy court, where trial lawyers have conducted their most outrageous asbestos scams. A group of commercial creditors -- who stand to lose if the trial bar and healthy plaintiffs gobble up every last corporate asset -- are waging a principled battle against asbestos shenanigans, and have made some headway.
This includes the retirement this summer of federal District Court Judge Alfred Wolin. He had been overseeing some of the largest asbestos bankruptcy cases in the country, until creditors in the Owens Corning case took the brave if risky step of asking the Third Circuit to remove him. His critics noted that a few of Judge Wolin's "advisers" were simultaneously representing asbestos plaintiffs in another bankruptcy case, and that the judge routinely met outside the courtroom with trial lawyers. The appeals court dismissed Judge Wolin for a "perception of bias," and within a few months he had gone to work at the law firm of one of the very "advisers" who caused the conflict.
His replacement is Judge John P. Fullam, who now has a huge opportunity to reshape the asbestos landscape....
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Find a way to launch a class-action lawsuit against tort lawyers for various "constitutional damages." It will require someone brilliant to tie in "pain and suffering," or even "deaths," but believe me it can be done. If they can get $$$ for hot coffee, there is big money to be made in this.
The obvious drawback is that THIS tort lawyer will be out of a job after this . . . but does he or she have the guts and brains to do what is right?
To make a long story short: It doesn't work that way. Sorry.
That's what lawyers always say. That's why it will take a brilliant lawyer.
"The solution to all these tort suits is simple"
Kill all the lawyers.
That's like saying that we could develop a perpetual motion machine, if only we had a brilliant lawyer. It doesn't matter how smart he is - the system doesn't work that way.
Trust me, in the 1950s, NO ONE would have ever thought it possible in America to sue fast food outlets or cigarette manufacturers or gun manufacturers.
Because the law properly didn't allow such suits. Then the political perspective of the decisionmakers (judges, academics and legislators) changed to make such suits possible. That same mindset will prevent anyone from successfully suing the trial lawyers, unless there is a huge change in the culture of our legal system.
Again, you just said it: the "mindset" will prevent it only so long as no one really attempts it. If there is a court and/or jury ANYWHERE who would hear the case, then the door is open. And believe me, there is always a judge or jury who will hear any case.
Is that the same mindset that thought Kerry would win this election...
Care to take a guess what percentage of lawyers and judges voted for Kerry and Edwards? That is the audience you are going to have to convince if you want to try and sue the trial lawyers. If you want to try, by all means go ahead.
Well considering they are on the losing side of the election, this should be interesting.
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