‘TORT REFORM’ THE LATEST BUZZWORD FOR CORPORATISTS’ ASSAULT ON CITIZENS

moshJeff Milchen, director of Reclaim Democracy, has written an excellent recap for Common Dreams of how the law is working to the advantage of corporatists, and against the interests of citizens and consumers. It’s all part of the relentless war on democracy being perpetrated by corporatists to keep their customers in line. That war has two fronts:

  • Protect corporations from litigation by victimized citizens and consumers, by capping limits and introducing regulations prohibiting lawsuits against some industries altogether. This is ‘justified’ by wildly exaggerating the prevalence of ‘frivolous’ lawsuits inititated by individuals.
  • Enabling corporations to pursue litigation against aggrieved citizens by threatening to bankrupt or jail them for hurting the corporation’s reputation with their charges

Milchen points out that 80% of US lawsuits are now initiated by corporations, not individuals. And the large majority of legal actions thrown out by judges as ‘frivolous’ were initiated by corporations. The vast majority of large multi-million dollar ‘runaway’ lawsuit awards are also given to corporations, not individuals. Even litigation against pharmaceutical companies, blamed for driving up drug costs, is mostly launched by competing pharma companies to protect their patents. The principal effect of tiny litigation caps would be to discourage legitimate actions against corporate abuse, and that’s why corporatists, who have politicians in their back pockets, are working so hard to pressure for “tort reform”. Milchen says: “The attack on trial lawyers is really an attack on citizens’ ability to sue corporations, and it goes far beyond this election cycle; it’s part of a long-term assault on the rights of citizens and small business owners to hold corporations accountable via the courts. Having successfully undermined or dismantled regulations on big business in many realms, the next corporate agenda item is to regulate us  — to strip citizens of our right to punish corporate crime and criminals.”

As I mentioned before, I think the deceitful mantra of “tort reform” to prevent “frivolous litigation and runaway awards” is being jointly orchestrated and repeated by the Bush Administration (notably Cheney) and their corporatist donors to soften the public up for a major assault on citizen defense against corporate abuses, in a second Bush term.

And in other corporatist news, in an editorial in today’s NYT a doctor and executive with a major pharma company admits “Americans are dying without the appropriate drugs because my industry and Congress are more concerned about protecting astronomical profits for conglomerates than they are about protecting the health of Americans.” The author calls for legalizing and facilitating the re-importation of drugs from Canada and Europe for America’s poor.

I suspect he’ll be looking for a new job soon.

The graphics above are from Eminem’s amazing video Mosh. See it in quicktime here, or in realplayer or windows media player here.  Daily Kos has (no laughing, kids!) posted an interpretationof the video for older viewers that don’t get all the references. It’s extremely clever; watch it more than once to pick up all the metaphors. Now if we can only get musicians and Hollywood to realize that corporatism is the enemy, not just government, we could really start getting somewhere. Thanks to David M. for the links.

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6 Responses to ‘TORT REFORM’ THE LATEST BUZZWORD FOR CORPORATISTS’ ASSAULT ON CITIZENS

  1. Ken Hirsch says:

    Milchen points out that 80% of US lawsuits are now initiated by corporations, not individuals. And the large majority of legal actions thrown out by judges as ‘frivolous’ were initiated by corporations. The vast majority of large multi-million dollar ‘runaway’ lawsuit awards are also given to corporations, not individuals. Even litigation against pharmaceutical companies, blamed for driving up drug costs, is mostly launched by competing pharma companies to protect their patents.Uhhhh … wouldn’t that be a good reason to be for tort reform? The plaintiffs abusing the system are even less sympathetic. I’m afraid I don’t get your point here.

  2. Dave Pollard says:

    My point is that “tort reform”, like Operation Iraqi Freedom, No Child Left Behind, Clean Skies Initiative etc. etc. is a deceitfully misnamed euphemism for something opposite. If, as Milchen said, the objective was to address *real* abuses of the system, by (many) corporations and (a few) individuals, it would be justifiable. But it isn’t. The objective is to make the few individual abusers of the legal system the straw men, and use them to orchestrate the rigging of the system to prevent legitimate grievances from being litigated against corrupt, negligent, lying, abusive corporations, and allow corporations with armies of expensive lawyers to intimidate individuals by threatening them with catastrophic lawsuits if they dare question what those corporations are doing.

  3. Life Tenant says:

    Another great post, Dave! And the Milchen piece is right on. The hypocrisy of those promoting so-called tort reform is grotesque. To address Ken Hirsch’s question, the Republicans are targetting tort actions for reform. A tort occurs when a person or company violates a duty, typically a duty of care, toward an individual. Tort claims therefore are typically filed on behalf of individuals who have been wronged in the context of their role in daily life as consumers, patients, auto passengers, etc. I don’t have any data handy, but I would guess that the 80% of U.S. lawsuits filed by corporations are not tort claims, but rather contract claims, e.g. debt collection, intellectual property disputes, etc. Legislation that specifically reformed tort law would not affect those legal actions. Dave, I would quibble with your assertion that tort reform illustrates “how the law is working to the advantage of corporatists” and against citizens. Actually, tort law as it is is working more in favor of citizens than the corporatists like, and so they are trying to change it. Yes, the legislative process is corrupted by big money contributions and so the corporatists are threatening to push through their tort legislation, but they haven’t succeeded yet at the federal level, though they’ve gotten some legislation through in some States.

  4. Ken Hirsch says:

    I’m still trying to figure out what you’re trying to say here. There are quite a few different proposals that go under the general rubric “tort reform” (which is about as value-neutral a term as I can think of), including “loser pays”, caps on non-economic damages, no-fault procedures, bans on contingency fees, limits on jury trials, limits on discovery, etc.There are advantages and disadvantages to each proposal. Milchen says that a $250K cap on punitive damages would not have stopped BMS’s frivolous lawsuits. Well, yes, but laws against drunk driving don’t stop car theft, either. Just because that particular proposal doesn’t address all abuses doesn’t mean it’s not a good idea. That has to stand on its own.He also makes the ludicrous suggestion that the cap would do little to discourage offenders because “Their aim is to coerce smaller out-of-court settlements, not go to trial.” Obviously, the threat of huge damages in court have a big effect on the size of out-of-court settlements and the willingness of defendants to go to court!You worry about allowing “corporations with armies of expensive lawyers to intimidate individuals by threatening them with catastrophic lawsuits if they dare question what those corporations are doing.” Me, too. That’s a problem with our current system, especially in the U.S. In countries where the loser pays (Canada, U.K., most other countries), the size of one’s law staff is not as big an advantage. Here it doesn’t matter if the lawsuit is baseless. The defendant can rarely recover their costs, so a larger plaintiff can more easily intimidate a small defendant here.

  5. gbreez says:

    to soften the public up for a major assault on citizen defense against corporate abuses, in a second Bush term.Puleeese let this not happen! It will take us a long time to recover from the first term.

  6. Rajiv says:

    You may find this site of interesthttp://poclad.org/From there:Giant corporations govern, even though they are mentioned nowhere in our Constitution or Bill of Rights. So when corporations govern, democracy is nowhere to be found. There is something else: when people live in a culture defined by corporate values, common sense evaporates. We stop trusting our own eyes, ears, and feelings. Our minds become colonized.

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