Sen. Coffee whines that Oklahoma is on the 'dishonorable mention' list in the annual "Judicial Hellholes" report by the American Tort Reform Association (ATRA). The ATRA was founded in the late eighties by none other than the American Medical Association and the American Council of Engineering Companies. ATRA's mission statement includes "lawsuits are bad for business." Its membership list reads like the Fortune 500. Its website does not include the names of its officers or trustees.
Sen. Coffee and his cohorts at the ATRA have the worldview that includes the fundamental belief that business is only about profits. They believe that anything that interferes with the opportunity to maximize profits, including the range of protections that are so important for society, should be eliminated or at least severely restricted. And of course, lawsuits to compensate for injuries and to punish those who knowingly caused them are some of those socially important protection mechanisms that can diminish profits.
So, Sen. Coffee and his right wing lemmings are continuing in their attempt to destroy this system by promoting legislation to eliminate punitive damages and cap compensatory damages to relatively small sums. This legislation benefits business both by minimizing the risk of any single suit and by creating a disincentive for lawyers to take cases. Lawyers have to spend their own money to search for evidence of harm, to put together a case, and to prosecute the trial. Their compensation, if any, is a percentage of the “recovery” — the compensatory and punitive damages. Though the lawyers' fees sound high, most of those fees go to support the system. If damages are capped or eliminated, the system will break down for lack of funding.
Obviously Sen. Coffee is drinking out of ATRA's cup, as a number of its members have contributed to his campaign.
"There is no cosmic law forbiding the triumph of extremism in America." -- Thomas McIntyre, US Senator (NH) 1962-1979
1 comments:
I really enjoy reading your blog, it always has great insight. But I am very frustrated with the media’s lack of questions to the presidential candidates about global warming. Now that it is down to just a few candidates I would think that this would be a bigger issue.
Live Earth just picked up this topic and put out an article ( http://www.liveearth.org/news.php ) asking why the presidential candidates are not being solicited for their stance on the issue of the climate change. I just saw an article describing each candidate’s stance on global warming and climate change on earthlab.com http://www.earthlab.com/articles/PresidentialCandidates.aspx . So obviously they care about it. Is it the Medias fault for not asking the right questions or is it the candidates’ fault for not highlighting the right platforms? Does anyone know of other websites or articles that touch on this subject and candidates’ views? This is the biggest problem of the century and for generations to come…you would think the next president of the United States would be more vocal about it.
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