Posted on 03/27/2003 5:04:29 AM PST by Brian Allen
Your oversimplification of this issue is quite common. Indeed, class action suits due make more money for the individual lawyers, than the plaintiffs. Of course, you completely discount the chilling effect on consumers that making class-action suits "illegal" would have.
Next time you have a problem with a defective part in your car, see how well you do in a lawsuit against GM when you are payinging your lawyer individually, and GM hires lawyers like me by the dozens to bury you.
As a defense lawyer, I agree that far too many seemingly frivolous class-actions are brought. Indeed, Courts need to be more vigilant in applying the rule 11 standard. Fortunately, however, the rules are drafted to permit a very liberal reading. The purpose is to insure that any suit, with even a shred of merit, can see the light of day before being arbitrarily struck.
The death of class action suits would leave large corporations completely unchecked. In such an absence, the government would have to play an increasing role in the regulatory world to protect consumers. Pick your poisen. Third-party suits that act as a natural market regulator, or true government regulation of big business?
What does courts deciding the question of what is morally right have to do with federalism? Leave morality to the churches, and restrict courts to applying the laws and Constitution rather than "interpreting" them.
Someone has to whine, as you describe it, to draw attention to the problem.
What a tremendous speech.
I'm glad to learn of the Federalist Society, and pray that it will flourish and bear fruit for the future of Law in this country.
I'll also pray for a Great Awakening in the Law Schools of this country.
And that God will smite the Democrats for fillibustering the nominations of those jurists who would return the Law to its intended basis.
A doctor cannot manufacture a sick person for profit, a lawyer goes looking for "victims". Bad profession.
When you take your family to Orlando this spring or summer, know that the major trauma center has had to downgrade its Level status, and you won't be able to get a neurosurgeon quickly because litigation has driven them away. And the nearby Florida ERs rec'ing the Orlando injured are starting to crack under the stress, too. You might rather, someday, have a doc ready to sew your backbone back together than your much-vaunted, lawyer-driven "consumer protections." Who'll protect you when you LACK having that help in the operating room when you need it? Lawyers? How I wish they *could* be help personally liable for the situation they've created...
Perhaps the Twin Towers might have held together a little longer if it wasn't for the lawyers' ravenous insantity on the issue of asbestos. Perhaps not--we'll never know. All we know is the lack of availability of a pretty darn good fire protector--because no builder can risk using common sense in choosing his materials. The juries cannot be trusted, and the lawyers exploit them mightily.
Now I'm laughing at the homeowners in Texas who thought they could abuse their insurance (mold) and now can't buy houses because they can't find insurance to get their mortgages!
On the less vital end, try finding riding lessons for children, or any kind of sport for kids other than the rather boring ones that are so "safe." I could go on and on...
Your blame is misplaced, I fear. Obviously, i do not defend alll lawyers, and I certainly do not defend all Plaintiff's lawyers. But, most of the rising costs of health care can be attributed to, in order:
1) managed care (regulation forcing health care providers to charge non-market prices;
2) Federal, state, and local mandates that force facilities to provide patient care to the uninsured, and to illegal immigrants
3) Rising litigation costs (Brought about by two different factors:
a) Plaintiffs willing to sue for anything, and juries willing to award damages for new and suspect injuries. (Don't forget that in EVERY case for damages, an expert DOCTOR must testify to injuries. This includes using phony psuedo-science for make believe injuries.) Without those DOCTORS as experts, no case can be won. Of course, without willing plaintiffs to sue, no case can be heard.
b) Insurance companies that settle frivolous claims to avoid trying meritorious cases. They settle a claim without a practitioners' consent, and then they jack up the rates on that practitioner.
4) Fraud by unscupulous doctors and health care providers that double claim, triple claim, or make bogus claims. (This is another net effect of creating huge managed care companies)
In fact, everyone blames the lawyers, but they have many willing accomplices. Most willing, unfortunately, are uneducated juries. Where I practice, everyone knows that if you have a Plaintiff's case in D.C., you have a good shot at real money. If you have the exact same case in Northern Virginia, you might not even file it. Why? Not because defense counsel is any tougher in Northern Va, it is because a much more educated jury pool is far less forgiving of frivolous suits.
I have never won or lost a case based on my opinion as a lawyer. It's your opinion, sitting in that jury box, that almost always is the deciding factor. (Some crappy cases can be thrown-out by the judge before getting to a jury).
The problem may not be us (lawyers) it may be you (jurors). Like I said, though, my clients are fortune 500 companies and I defend them. So, if you want to kill the class-action suits. They will be quite pleased. Frankly, these companies would rather be paying our corporate boys to find and make business, rather than us litigators in defending their business. (Corporate/transactional stuff is more profitable to us as lawyers as well)
The rise in the cost of medical care is many-pronged, and the one prong least discussed is that the better it is, the more it costs. Recently there was a poster on FR asking advice about gall bladder disease. Gall bladder surgery is a big success story--it is a plain vanilla operation, used to be done by slicing through a muscle and recovery was slow. Now it's done with little incisions and this cool little camera that kind of crawls though your innards--recovery is very swift, pain and bad results lower. Unfortunately, that little camera makes the operation much more expensive--seems it costs more than a scalpel . Muliply that by lots of "successes."
Illegal aliens are a huge stress. Mentally ill. Drug abuse, also. (Meth labs, they are a'explodin'--) Compensation is down, and with it the hospital's ability to swap the costs from the unpaying to the paying. Add to that crippling malpractice insurance, and you better make sure your teenager takes part in no car wrecks, because your hospital is a car wreck, too.
There was a ballot initiative in Texas a couple of election cycles ago to actually eliminate the Texas State Bar Association. That would be a great start.
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