[ElricMorlockin]

Originally posted by Timber Loftis: Nice thoughts Elric, but pretty wrong across the board. On a previous post I let you know that teachers took offense to something you wrote - and that I had been on the receiving end of such ire before. I, however, am an attorney.

Oh good! Thats even better.

Tort reform is the silliest dumbass Republican notion in history.

So if I am an Independent, does that make me a dumbass still? I dont buy any of the horsesh*t put out by either party, thank you very much. But I do see cause and effect Timber.

The only thing that keeps big nasty companies from negligently killing people all the time is the fear of big verdicts.

Pure propoganda, no offense but in my scenario, you would in fact be the fox in the hen house. I own a couple of companies, and the safety and well being of my employees comes first. You see Timber, THEY are my biggest assets and I always protect my assets. I dont do it out of fear of being sued, I do it because its what makes my companies' work.

When Ford lost the Pinto case, the smoking gun was an in-house memo comparing the likelihood of the KNOWN problem (i.e. hit in back, go boom) occurring vs. the likely plaintiff's verdict. When Ford did the Profit vs. Liability comparrison, it decided it could afford up to 100 deaths per year and still turn a profit. That calculus would still prevail if it wasn't for Punitive Damages. "Pain and suffering" = compensate YOU for your injuries. Punitive = hit the wrongdoer SO HARD he won't think about calculating human life vs. money ever again. Thus, the jury in the Ford case said "Well, let's make sure we give them higher numbers than they calculated so we prove them wrong."

OK, here is MY point Timber. For every case like this you can point out, there are THOUSANDS that you know, and I know, dont even have .00000001% of the justification/merit that something like this does. Not every instance, in every lawsuit is there a memo pointing out so heinously the cost of human life. The word negligence is thrown around as loosely these days, as love, Nazi, Hitler etc.

This story is repeated ad nauseum: Dalkon Shield, Phen-fen, asbestos products, etc. - the only thing that makes the wrongdoer stop is making the wrongdoer pay for MORE than they think one measley human life is worth. Similarly, the money was not awarded in the infamous McDonald's case to Compensate the victim - rather to Punish the wrongdoer (who still makes their coffee to damned hot and now simply puts a warning label on it - all just to keep you from getting your free refill worth $.01).

Suppostion. I drink alot of coffee and happen to like mine hot. I also know that spills can occur and I should take caution with a toss away cup and lid. McDonalds "crime" was to make coffee very hot, so it was still at least somewhat hot ten minute down the road. To assume or assert that they made their coffee to purposely injure their clients makes absolutely NO SENSE AT ALL.
Also, if I go to a fast food drive in window, the last thing on my mind is, "well after I get to the office and polish off this cup, I think I'll go run back and get my refill".

Among those who know what tort reform means, it is only supported by those who have BigCorp lining their pockets.

WWWWWWRRRRRONG. Its small business owners who get the shaft from every conceivable direction possible. My cost of doing business would be substantially less if I didnt have to carry MILLIONS of dollars in liablity insurance on all of my employees. That money comes from making a profit, and that same money doesnt make it into payroll, bonus', retirement accounts or profit sharing. BTW... there arent any BigCorps lining my pockets either, yet another misnomer.

Now, I'm NOT picking on Doctors. Trust me, as a fellow professional who also has to pay through the nose for malpractice insurance, I sympathize. Plus, like lawyers, doctors have incredibly rigorous standards to meet inside the profession itself and are often called to the carpet by their peers regarding their actions. I feel there are a fair amount of safeguards against medical malpractice - even though some of the laws are finigly.

Well, being that you chose to show your hand, I can ... I guess, assume that you are a Democrat. No big deal to me really, but lets get to the chase of what your party really wants. That is, state controlled health care. You folks are doing a fine job of forcing alot of doctors out of their industries because they cannot afford the insurance. If the goal was control, keep at it, none of us will have usable health coverage in the near future, for lack of good doctors willing to provide it. Because of rampant law suits one cannot even get a video of their baby in the womb, when the Mrs is in for a sonogram (sp?). I've been there and done that, not even two months ago. Is this the kind of progress that is good?

But, the big companies producing the drugs, medical products, and insurance services are EVIL.

Evil? Are you being serious here?

EVIL, I say.

It appears you are!

Price-fixing, bullying competitors, basically bribing doctors, denying coverage to people who pay insurance premiums - all with no real recourse by the public. Did you know they have colluded (lobbied) to make it illegal for you to go to Canada and buy the exact same drugs that are made and sold in the US - shipped there by the exact same company with the exact same labelling? Why? Because the drug is less safe? HELL NO. Because it's cheaper.

Many of our products shipped over seas are cheaper to buy there. For starters there isnt anywhere near the regulation and subsequent government offices to run and monitor it, which naturally decreases cost. Each step in the distribution process also adds cost (companies are in business to make money after all), but they are also put under the auspices of......... You guessed it! MORE regulation (aka. tax). So, where exactly is the cut-off point for being taxed on a given product? Fifteen times? Twenty?
In fact Timber, I invested specifically into a company which makes stickers, which are mainly found on things like lawnmowers etc (Do NOT use this lawnmower to trim your hedges). When you buy a ladder these days, there are more stickers than ladder, its quite sickening.

This is quite a long-ish [img]graemlins/rant.gif[/img] and for that I apologize, but folks simply don't read up on this enough.

Not at all! Its good to hear two sides to any story isnt it? One thing however, I would like to add, so as to eliminate it completely from any discussion on the matter. Tort reform doesnt mean getting rid of lawyers, as you know. We need attorneys' especially good ones. But you know as well as I do, all about quite a bit of nonsense that goes on in this area of law. Inmates suing prison systems because the prison they are incarcerated in is 250 miles from a fault line etc. This type of nonsense is incorporated into the expense of everything we buy and every service our taxes pay for.