Dan Walters: Lawsuits would open new fronts in immigration and legal wars

Sacramento Bee ^ | 7/5/6 | Dan Walters

[SmithL]

A couple of years ago, California voters handily enacted an initiative aimed at making it more difficult to sue businesses under the state's unfair business practices law.

While many states have such laws, California's was considered to be especially liberal because anyone could sue anyone for alleged unfair practices without proving actual damages, thus giving rise to shakedown lawsuits -- or the threat of such suits -- against small businesses by unscrupulous law firms.

Typically, a law firm would send a letter to a restaurant, a nail parlor or an auto garage, threatening to sue, based on some minor violation of state regulations, unless the business bought its way out with a payment to the lawyers. Countless thousands of such letters were sent, and by all accounts, they generated big bucks for the law firms that specialized in the practice.

As the syndrome gained publicity -- especially since many of its victims were immigrants -- big business jumped on it to gain political traction for a broader assault on the unfair business practices law that environmental and consumer groups had employed against corporations. And when the Legislature, strongly influenced by personal injury attorneys, refused to modify the law, a business-backed initiative (Proposition 64) was placed before voters and passed overwhelmingly.

The major effect of Proposition 64 was to make freelance lawsuits much more difficult to pursue by compelling lawyers to have clients who could claim actual damages from a company's practices. Broader uses of the law would be largely confined to the attorney general and other public law officials.

Notwithstanding Proposition 64's restrictions, Orange County attorney David Klehm believes that he has found a novel way to pursue unfair business practices lawsuits: suing businesses that hire illegal immigrants, pay substandard wages and thus undercut competitors as well as violate federal

[longtermmemmory]

Americans with Disabilitys Act lawsuits are similar cash cows for lawyers.

A straw plaintinff with a professional "cripple" expert witness who is paid by the proceeds sent to the lawyer is essentially legal extortion for the most microscopic infraction. No cure time, no remedy, even if you fix the percieved infraction the lawyer STILL sues or collects the extortion.

This is one situation where tort reform would be fixt by ELIMINATING lawyer fees and make it plaintiff pays ONLY.

[gubamyster]

ping