Posted by Morbo
Morbo begs your indulgence for speaking so bluntly, but aren’t some of the things the Republicans want to do to this country fundamentally un-American?
Take “tort reform” for example. Tort reform is a fancy name for taking away the right of Americans to sue big business over certain issues. This is a hot topic coming out of the White House these days (when Bush and the Republicans aren’t busy trying to abolish Social Security). Americans sit idly by, blast “those greedy lawyers” and twiddle their thumbs. They ought instead to be out on the streets protesting. Denying Americans the right to seek redress in the courts, after all, goes against the grain of what this country is all about.
The right to go to court to right a wrong is firmly ingrained in our shared national identity. We tell schoolchildren that the lowliest janitor and the highest captain of industry share the same right to ask the courts for help when they believe they have been wronged. This is a powerful promise in American society, one embedded in the popular culture, through films where an underdog like Erin Brockovich takes on The Powers That Be in court and, thanks to plucky spirit and a scrappy attorney who believes in him or her, prevails against all odds.
Sure, it can be corny in the movies. Yes, real court cases are often not that dramatic. But still, the notion that every citizen has the same power in court, the same right to petition a court, is a fundamentally American idea.
Do some people can abuse that right? You bet. Do some cases that get filed have little merit? Of course.
But none of that justifies blocking access to the system. Courts of law, like many other great institutions of government, are self-correcting. The bad cases get weeded out. It’s part of a judge’s job. I don’t trust Congress to do it.
To persuade Americans that a great principle like guaranteed access to the courts must be scrapped, the GOP resorts to one of the most powerful weapons in its arsenal: the nuclear anecdote.
The strategy is simple: Dredge up what sounds like an outrageously frivolous lawsuit. Distort the facts if necessary. Say that lawsuits like that are common. Claim they cost money, harm the economy and crush kittens. Whip up hysteria. Repeat as often as needed.
For years, the right’s favorite example has been the McDonalds hot coffee case. It’s a spectacularly lousy example to use because the facts, once known, support the woman who brought the lawsuit. The GOP counts on people not knowing the facts — and the media being too lazy to look them up. So far, it’s worked like a charm.
Briefly, the case involved 79-year-old Stella Liebeck, who suffered third-degree burns on her legs and groin area after she spilled some way too hot McDonalds coffee on herself. She required painful skin grafts and incurred large medical bills.
Did Liebeck spill the coffee on herself? Yes. Was it too damn hot? Yes again. In fact, McDonalds had previously received more than 700 other complaints that their coffee, which on average was 30-50 degrees hotter than what you’d get elsewhere, was scalding. A prominent burn institute had implored the fast-food chain to cool off the coffee. (There’s some more interesting background on this case in this article.)
As an American, you have the right to have your grievance heard by a jury of your peers, which is exactly what Liebeck did — only after McDonalds refused her request that it pay her $11,000 medical bill. (They offered her $800 instead!) The jury sided with Liebeck and awarded her $2.7 million in punitive damages.
What exactly is the problem here? That a jury dared to reach a verdict that Republicans do not like? How strange. The Republicans love to extol the wisdom of the common man — until that wisdom conflicts with rigid GOP ideology. Then, of course, that wisdom has to be corrected through some type of “reform” engineered by those who know better than the yokels – even if they live in red states.
Did Liebeck endure “pain and suffering”? Before you answer that, arrange to get third-degree burns on 16 percent of your body, near your genitalia. Did she get too much from the jury? Perhaps. But there is a mechanism for remedying disproportionately large awards that may spring from an overly emotional jury response. It’s called the appeals process. Appeals courts can, and often do, lower such awards. In fact, that’s exactly what the appeals court did in Liebeck’s case. It lowered the punitive award to less than $500,000. Ultimately, Liebeck settled for less — the exact amount was never disclosed — to avoid further appeals.
Here’s the final blow: We’re constantly told by the right-wing that Americans are clogging our courts with frivolous cases. It’s a crisis, we’re told — often by a lazy media that loves anecdotes but can’t be bothered with facts.
Well guess what: Most lawsuits these days are brought by corporations, not individuals. And according to author Jon Greenbaum, courts declare those corporate lawsuits frivolous 69 percent more often than suits brought by individuals.
It’s enough to make you want to sue somebody.