House of Paine

viva the tort trolls

culled from

the site

' we be the jury'

part of 
impressario hoss martin's
                    famed 
plebs rally world 
...................


message:

tort jurys 
like victims
 
   are little people too ......


======================================


--------------------------------------------


"john kerry blew it 
asked about "tort reform in debate II

he blew it 

That soft toss  question 
 gave  Kerry 
 an opportunity 
to hit a homer

put one over the fence 
  for 
  that great bedrock 
                  of American democracy

 the jury based
        civil-justice system

but 
nooooooooooooooooooooooooo

he copt out



where was  the obvious first thought?

"i have faith
in the good sense of American people 
 who serve on juries 
and who know a frivolous lawsuit 
when they see one "

where was the zinger


" this is our system 
the peoples justice system
we don't need 
the heavy hand 
of Washington 
to clamp us down "

where was 
that final
 knock out flury

 left hook  
right cross
 straight left ....

"why hand cuff
 the victims?

  why hurt

the injured ?

the violated ?

the abused ?
 

and for heaven's sake

why take the decision 
out of the hands 
of the  people ?

....and
   in the end 
why reward

 the  law brakers ?

the violaters 
         of decency?

the shirkers
         of solemn  responsibilities ?

the abusers  
               of our precious public trust ?

why reward 
the monsters?

the snakes ?

the ones 
    who really
         drive up our   costs
                   and
               not just  dollar costs
                           but 
                            priceless
                                    human costs too 


why ultimately 
penalize 
   victims
          just 
        to benefit  vioators " 

no 
Instead
of stuff like that

 
Kerry simply said

 “John Edwards and I 
                  support tort reform.” "

 ------------------------------------------------------------------
commentary:
                "...support tort reform"

"what a fuckin 
           telling moment 
in this nation’s history
when a democratic nominee for preident 
can implicitly trash 
 our jury based
                  civil-justice system "
 
there can be no better
 sign of just how far 
the debate has swung
          

how much
  business is winning
this particular 
            tug o' war 
----------------------------------
"   too many of uz 
ass hole innocent plebs
are swallowing  crap


crap we're  force fed


      big lie crap "

"no its a vile heinous lie 

" Americans are not
  too litigious
 there are not
 too many frivolous lawsuits 
the jury award system
is not 
 driving up costs 
 lawsuits are not 
 hindering 
America’s economic progress....."

" By embracing the term 
“tort reform,” 
Kerry was agreeing with wall street
agreeing 
that American victims 
      need 
   to have 
their legal rights and remedies
                            restricted
and 
          american citizens
 need to have
there jury powers chopped down "



" where the fuckin hell
   is  the jack ass party line
 gotten itself to 
                    here?
where'sthe party
that claims :

we are the party 
       of 
 “the people,
    not the powerful.” 

--------------------------------

Nothing could better illustrate the pending extinction
of civil action as a tool for fighting corporate
criminality than a measure that will effectively do
away with many types of class-action lawsuits. With
passage all but assured in the House following a
lopsided 72-to-26 vote in the Senate on February 10,
the Class Action Fairness Act was expected to be
quickly signed by George W. Bush, who campaigned for it
ardently. The bill is the first significant
Congressional tort "reform" victory for the radical
right and a catastrophe for workers and consumers. The
GOP is hoping the almost total collapse of the
Democrats on the Senate bill--eight Democrats
co-sponsored it--means improved chances of passing a
bill curbing asbestos suits and a reworked medical
malpractice measure that caps damages for pain and
suffering and drastically limits suits over dangerous
drugs like Vioxx.

Not satisfied with nibbling away at the welfare state,
already the thinnest in the industrialized West,
conservatives have spent more than twenty years
demonizing lawyers and ridiculing victims in order to
eliminate a uniquely American right, rooted in the
Seventh Amendment, that allows juries to assess damages
in civil courts for corporate misbehavior. In Europe
and Japan, governments compensate victims; in this
country, it is often done, haphazardly, by
entrepreneur-lawyers. The same lawyers are more
successful in another, quite accidental way: regulating
and punishing companies that pollute, maim or cheat--a
critical function at a time when government does less
and less to force them to act responsibly. Fifteen
state attorneys general recognized this when they
called on the Senate to dump or amend the class-action
bill.

The bill, like the other anticipated tort "reforms,"
was produced by the same right-wing think tanks that
gave us the proposed Social Security overhaul and
Medicare privatization and was marketed by the US
Chamber of Commerce, which along with a coalition of
businesses has spent tens of millions of dollars on the
effort. Much of that money has gone to support
like-minded elected officials. In the 2004 election,
for example, the Chamber helped spend millions in seven
battleground states to pay for ads urging voters to
support lawsuit restrictions endorsed by Bush and
opposed by John Kerry [see Zegart, "The Right Wing's
Drive for 'Tort Reform,'" October 25, 2004]. Such
efforts are part of a strategy embraced by Bush guru
Karl Rove to drain cash from tort lawyers, who
overwhelmingly support Democrats.

The class-action bill is premised on the need to end
supposedly rampant litigation abuses in state courts,
where, it is claimed, plaintiff-friendly juries and
corrupt judges team up to award damage "jackpots" that
drive up consumer prices. But numerous studies have
shown no spike in tort filings, including class
actions; reports by the American Tort Reform
Association, tort reform's flagship group, could find
data for only two judicial jurisdictions out of 3,141
nationwide where abuses allegedly take place.

On its face, the class-action bill is mere procedural
tinkering, transferring from state to federal court
actions involving more than $5 million where any
plaintiff is from a different state from the defendant
company. But federal courts are much more hostile to
class actions than their state counterparts; such cases
tend to be rooted in the finer points of state law, in
which federal judges are reluctant to dabble. And even
if federal judges do take on these suits, with only 678
of them on the bench (compared with 9,200 state
judges), already overburdened dockets will grow. Thus,
the bill will make class actions--most of which involve
discrimination, consumer fraud and wage-and-hour
violations--all but impossible. One example: After
forty lawsuits were filed against Wal-Mart for
allegedly forcing employees to work "off the clock,"
four state courts certified these suits as class
actions. Not a single federal court did so, although
the practice probably involves hundreds of thousands of
employees nationwide.

In one such case in Washington State, attorney Toby
Marshall is representing 40,000 workers, each of whom
stands to gain, on average, a couple of hundred dollars
in unpaid wages. While this may be a significant sum
for people making just over minimum wage, it's far too
little to merit a lawyer's filing an individual claim,
especially given the cost of suing the nation's largest
retailer, which Marshall estimated at several hundred
thousand dollars. That would mean Wal-Mart would never
have to pay Georgie Hartwig for the meal and rest
breaks she says she wasn't allowed to take over the
seven years she worked for the chain. Hartwig said that
if she protested, she was told, "You're on Wal-Mart
time."

The right's success with the class-action bill is the
story of how a group of legal extremists crafted a
message, brought almost every Fortune 500 corporation
on board and then pumped money into organizing and
seeding the culture with that message. If progressives
don't match their tenacity, one of the last effective
levers for social and economic justice will cease to
function. At that point, people like Georgie
Hartwig--or, potentially, any one of us--will be on
Wal-Mart time for good. 
__

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