Posted on 03/10/2006 10:02:59 AM PST by Isara
...
...the lawyers signed up tens of thousands of "victims" for class-action lawsuits — picking up along the way some plaintiffs who had also filed claims as victims of asbestos. U.S. Silica, the country's largest sand maker, was flooded by more than 20,000 lawsuits in a short period that began in November 2002...
But some judges, notaly Clinton appointee Janis Jack of the Federal District Court in Corpus Christi, Texas, aren't letting the trial lawyers run freely with silicosis as they did with asbestosis. Lawsuits on behalf of people diagnosed with asbestosis (which isn't always the same thing as actually having it) have made some lawyers rich, left plaintiffs with just a few dollars and bankrupted an estimated 70 companies. Overall cost to the economy: $70 billion.
It was last year, while presiding over a silicosis case, that Jack stood athwart trial lawyer history and shouted, "Whoa." When she learned that nearly two-thirds of the plaintiffs had also filed asbestos claims, the former nurse became skeptical. She knew it would be rare, though not impossible, for a person to have both.
In a 250-page ruling, Jack bluntly said the 10,000 claims of silicosis before her were part of a "scheme" that was "manufactured for money." Since then, more than half of those 10,000 claims have been pitched out of court or voluntarily pulled by trial lawyers — a tacit admission, we'd say, that the claims were bogus to begin with.
Some doctors' shameful willingness to make questionable diagnoses of silicosis to fill up class-action lawsuits has caught the attention of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. On Wednesday, the panel invited a few physicians in for a chat. Two were forced to testify by subpoena, and all three took the Fifth. The committee is also taking a look at some of the lawyers involved.
...
(Excerpt) Read more at investors.com ...
This is the key. Without a technical background of any kind, judges are clueless, lacking an installed and calibrated BS meter when confronted with "expert" testimony. This woman is the exception that proves the principle.
Should we be expecting about 5000 people to do some time for attempted fraud?
IDB's editorials are some of the best around. As a lawyer, I find this disgusting. There are enough people out there who really need help that lawyers should not go around manufacturing new torts. Our system was not designed for judges to have to question the validity of every claim filed and to have to accept the probability that the claim has been concocted by some thieving attorney. The judges have let this go on for way too long and the entire judicial system has lost respect and been greatly undermined as a result. One can only hope that this is a wake up call that will quickly put an end to the fake mass torts.
Fact is, these fraudulent attorneys are going to be big consumers of Merck products when they get older and if Merck can't expand and get more useful drugs pushed through an already idiotic approval process, these guys will be slitting their own throats.
Forgive the rant!
The problem is that the courts are kept ignorant by policy, unless the judge happens to have a particular point of expertise. Every field of human endeavor may be subject to litigation; no judge can be an expert in everything, but any judge may end up drawing any case (and thus any topic).
Plaintiffs hire expert witnesses; defendants hire expert witnesses. Perhaps we need to establish a procedure to allow the court system to do likewise, to protect the interests of justice for all.
As the project wound down, many of the remaining workers dutifully went to see the "doctor," were certified as unable to work and joined the lawsuit. A number of them went out and purchased big pick up trucks right before they were laid off, and allowed themselves to be talked in credit disability insurance, so they not only drew worker's comp, but also had their truck payments made for them because they were "disabled."
Thank heavens! A judge with some common sense, and who's not afraid to USE it!!
Big companies like Merck have used the FDA approval system as a way to kill their smaller competition simply because of the economies of scale in the paperwork business. Further, the FDA provides them a degree of protection.
Deregulate insurance. Pursue criminal prosecution of attorneys who foist fraudulent claims. Cap contingency fees. End the restraint of trade in the legal profession. Reinstate TONA.
Problem solved.
Isn't it funny that with all the improvements in information technology, court and government procedures remain the same?
However, lawyers keep multiplying, making money and getting elected.
Interesting stuff. What does "TONA" stand for? Couldn't find it in the article for some reason (possibly caffeine deficiency)
Can't reinstate what wasn't ever "instated" in the first place.
Read the page. It was apparently ratified.
Virginia did not ratify the amendment--publication is not ratification.
Not only the "victims" of asbestosis, but the judges and lawyers as well. If the judges allowed fraud to be perpetrated by the lawyers in their courts in such a flagrant matter, then the judges are accessories as well. We keep hearing about how much power judges have and they certainly make no bones about using it, arrogantly at times, well there ought to be consequences to it as well.
This whole asbestos thing has stunk from the start.
John Grisham's "King of Torts" reads much like this article, in regards to how the mass tort lawyers work.
Subsequent to consideration of the Amendment, the legislature passed Act 280 which included a mandate that the State publish the Constitution of the United States and its Amendments. The legislators knew very well that with their ratification the Amendment had been ratified. That’s why it was in the publication.
Interesting discussion of the non-ratification of TONA
That "interesting discussion" is so shrill as to be effectively a slur (but then, sloppy supporting evidence hasn't restrained you before. Some of the arguments are well known (such as the dates of admission), while a good many are laughable.
For an example of the latter, the author to which you sent me cites the following language in the Constitution as indication that TONA was unnecessary:
No title of nobility shall be granted by the United States: and no person holding any office of profit or trust under them, shall, without the consent of the Congress, accept of any present, emolument, office, or title, of any kind whatever, from any king, prince, or foreign State.
Which is an entirely specious argument, as the title at question, "esquire," is awarded by the several States (not the United States). Frankly, the source page to which I sent you is far more careful about its documentation. You can read their rebuttal to your vicarious arguments here.
The plain language of the Constitution effectively limits consideration of constitutional amendments to states in the union at the time approved by Congress. The reason is that, even if a territory reached statehood before culmination of the ratification process, that newly admitted state had no standing in the ratification process because it did not participate in the original drafting process, much less have its representatives in the Congress and the Senate to approve it. If the drafters of the Constitution meant for that legislative option to be available, it would therefore have had to stipulate the qualification in the Constitution. Such does not exist in that or any other founding document, subsequent procedures notwithstanding.
Of further interest as regards the intent of the drafters of the Constitution and TONA is documentation that the issue of lawyers drafting laws was one of the objections to adoption of the Constitution, even before it was submitted to the states. From Madison’s Notes to the Federal Convention, contained within Farrand’s, The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787 (you'll have to do a search of Farrand's Records on the word "lawyer" within the LOC:
Mr. Elseworth, admitted that the power was not unexceptionable; but he could not view it as dangerous. Such a power with regard to the electors would be dangerous because it would be much more liable to abuse.
Mr. Govr. Morris moved to strike out "with regard to property" in order to leave the Legislature entirely at large.
Mr. Williamson. This could surely never be admitted. Should a majority of the Legislature be composed of any particular description of men, of lawyers for example, which is no improbable supposition, the future elections might be secured to their own body.
Mr. observed that the British Parliament possessed the power of regulating the qualifications both of the electors, and the elected; and the abuse they had made of it was a lesson worthy of our attention. They had made the changes in both cases subservient to their own views, or to the views of political or Religious parties.
With regard to the learned professions, little need be observed; they truly form no distinct interest in society, and according to their situation and talents, will be indiscriminately the objects of the confidence and choice of each other, and of other parts of the community.
It is a blandishment characteristic of Mr. Hamilton, no better than his defense of the Constitutional means of adopting of treaties detailed in Federalist 75.
This problem of empowering lawyers to change a social contract has been going on for a long time, just as lawyers twisted the work of the Decemviri in Rome (as Titus Livius makes very clear).
At last! A judge with BRAINS. After Roberts, Alito, Thomas, Scalia, how many more do you suppose there are.
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