Customer Reviews

Blocking the Courthouse Door: How the Republican Party and Its Corporate Allies Are Taking Away Your Right to Sue

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2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Most of us have heard of Stella Liebeck, the 79-year old lady who put a hot cup of McDonald's coffee on her lap, which spilled over and caused her third degree burns. If many respected publications did not make sure we knew, than John Stossel surely did. We "learned" that she was awarded $2.9 million. According to the author Stephanie Mencimer, those who favor "tort reform" (limiting personal injury and suffering) made sure we knew, but didn't make sure that we knew the whole story. The author elaborates.

It seems this retired retail sales clerk and life-long Republican had never sued anyone a day in her life. Having stopped for coffee with her grandson, she attempted to negotiate the cream or sugar to the coffee between her legs as her grandson's car lacked cup holders. It spilled and she was scolded in her groin and thighs.

A few years and several operations later she appeals to McDonalds asking them if they could help her pay the $20,000 in medical expenses. Mickey D blew her off with a check for $800. That's when she retained a lawyer who offered to settle at $300,000, but McDonalds wouldn't touch it with a straw. They wanted to be taken to court.

That's when the jury, skeptical of Liebeck's claim at first, heard that McDonald's had more than 900 complaints of their coffee being too hot, that their executives knew that their coffee was served at 195 and 205 degrees Fahrenheit, that Mickey D's Big Cheeses knew all along such temperatures could burn flesh off bone in seven seconds, and that a Cincinnati burn center had treated numerous people for coffee burns from McD.

The outraged jury awarded her $160,000 for pain and suffering and $2.7 million in punitive damages, which the judge, although sympathetic, knocked down to $486,000. Liebeck has since settled for less. (Had she received the 2.9, it would have cost the company one day of coffee sales.)

That's the part of this story we don't hear about. And this isn't even the author's icebreaker!

Stephanie Mencimer brings several things to light:

1) A civil trial by jury to redress wrongs is a constitutional right that is being eroded through tort reform, which now protects business more than the consumer or citizen.

2) Lawsuits are almost always the only way that corporate negligence ever receives public attention.

3) The companies that are being sued are the ones that require the most oversight, get the least, and are the most deserving of being sued.

4) Many of these corporations such as tobacco, asbestos, drug and auto companies are pouring billions of dollars into legislation that will cap awards, limit product liabillity, and limit lawyer fees making it nearly impossible for citizens to go to trial for their negligence or crimes.

5) Most of the outrageous cases we hear about never really existed e.g. a 400 lb. man who sued a ladder company when it fell apart, or the man who supposedly tried to trim his hedges with his lawn mower. All made up!

6) Lawsuits have actually decreased over the years as well as awards.

7) This is the real topper. The tort reform campaign has been hugely successful in getting Americans to vote in favor of legislation that will restrict or end their rights if criminal or negligent executives harm them. This massive lobbying effort has gotten mostly everyone to believe that it will not affect their day in court, when in fact they are voting their own rights away.

8) Guess which politician is one of the most industry and tort reform friendly. I won't say his name, but he's President of the United States.

9) There's always been a check on frivolous lawsuits. It's called a judge.

Thanks to lawsuits, we can now enjoy a company's coffee at 140-150 degrees. (After all, you deserve a break today!) We learned that certain drugs were dangerous, and that we now have auto recalls. Do you think any of these changes would have happened had there been limited liability?

There's one other very profound observation found in this book. How is it we can trust many un- or ill-informed Americans to vote in national and local elections, but want to restrict twelve fairly well-informed Americans from voting in a jury box?

Don't we trust our fellow Americans?

Please read this book. Make sure you don't get burned.

This important book should have received more attention when it was published. Presumably, "tort reform" is just not a sexy enough topic, and even the bright yellow cover and the (presumably intentional) absence of the word "tort" from the title were insufficient.

Avoiding legalese almost completely, Mencimer gives an in-depth account of the lobbying and litigation wars over the civil justice system in the past two decades or so. Unlike other commentators, I didn't find this book an unquestioning brief for the trial lawyers. Mencimer makes clear that some trial lawyers can become extraordinarily wealthy and that some baseless and even frivolous suits are filed. Her real point is that some major companies have tried to achieve in the halls of Congress and the state legislatures and in the ballot box what they could not achieve in court.

The story of the McDonald's coffee lawsuit has been told elsewhere, but Mencimer goes well beyond this to point out other distortions of the truth that have been made by lobbyists for insurance and other industries.

For the most part, I agree with the premise of this book: That what republicans are billing as tort reform is a bad idea. One that will cost the average American dearly and reap hefty profits for big business. Corporations, now able to determine their exposure to litigation, can be free to market any product, no matter how dangerous, knowing that there will be a cap on their punitive damages. The American public becomes a guinea pig to corporate irresponsibility. Not a good picture!

That said, as I read this book, I found myself going from unabashed contempt at the behavior of some big business defendants in their attempts to discredit their plaintiff's cases and obtain a 'free break' from liability to incredulity at some of what she was calling 'legitimate lawsuits'. Much of my problem with this book was what I felt I wasn't being told. A woman was abducted from a Wal-Mart parking lot and subsequently raped. She sues Wal-Mart for not having sufficient security to prevent the incident. We are never told if Wal-Mart had any security in effect at the time nor what the legal requirements on the retailer were for providing such security. Don't you think that is relevant to the legitimacy of her case?

A man goes to a doctor's office to have a mole removed. The doctor performs the procedure and leaves him in the room for a period of time said to be 'long'. He falls off the table he was laying on and breaks his neck. He sues the doctor for his injury. How long was he left to wait? Might that be important? I believe that when doctor's aren't in the room with you they are doing this thing we call 'seeing other patients'. In fact, when they are in the room with you, there are actually other patients in other rooms left waiting. Do we have any information that the doctor was indeed negligent in this incident? Was he off playing video games or talking to his golf buddy while his patients were left in limbo? I guess we are supposed to assume so but are never really told such details.

Even when she was on the money, as in the AHP marketing of the fen-phen diet supplement, we see huge punitive awards given to a relatively small number of litigants while we are informed that around 6 million people were affected by this drug. What happens to them? I actually know the answer to this one because I happen to personally know one of them. She got a $15,000 settlement from a class action suit against AHP, which, after the lawyers took their part, came out to just around $10,000. So a half-dozen people got to live in mansions and drive fancy cars while 6 million either went without recompense or got a pittance if they were lucky enough to join the class-action suit! Sounds fair to me!

And here is a great statistical quote from page 255 of the book: "The Rand study found that only one out of every ten Americans injured in accidents pursue compensation for it, and of those, only two actually file a lawsuit." So only 2 of those 1 out of 10 go to court! Interesting! In the end, the author does reveal her true motives. That is, a European style governance complete with universal health benefits and disability to 'take the big money out of personal injury'. Well why didn't she just say that in the first place?

At different points reading this book I wanted to give it 5 stars, and, at others, 1 star. The trouble I had was that I felt it did more to legitimize 'tort reform' than to attack it because the cases presented could equally be taken in the other direction and any intelligent reader would be able to see that. True tort reform, in my opinion, would involve working toward a more consistent way of interpreting the law and assessing damages. I gave it 2 stars because I felt that there was a reasonable amount of valuable information about the corporate influence on the republican party. I would recommend reading it for that reason alone. Just be wary of the information you are not being told.

All of us have heard stories about how the legal system has run amok via multi-million lawsuits over trivial incidents - eg. spilt coffee at McDonald's nets $3 million. Meanwhile, the media and politicians also bring stories of medical cost escalation, and product/service withdrawal due to high liability costs. Something has to be done!

Fortunately, "Blocking the Courthouse Door" was written to provide important missing details. Mencimer reviews each of the "outrageous cases," showing how key details had been omitted - eg. the extent of harm, the frequency with which it had occurred previously, how the award had been scaled back, etc. Suddenly the cases are no longer outrageous!

Then the book moves on to aggregate data and reveals that, contrary to popular opinion, the frequency and size of suits have been declining; meanwhile, media coverage has increased.

Why the "litigation crisis" myth? The movement is an alliance of insurance companies, corporate interests (eg. tobacco and asbestos companies), and political operatives. (The latter group is mostly Republicans, seeing the issue as an opportunity to increase donations from physicians and the involved industries, as well as to squeeze attorneys - a large source of Democratic donations.) Not only are industries concerned about potential lawsuit awards, but also the bad publicity - eg. the public learning how Ford had callously evaluated the cost/benefit of a $5 investment/car to reduce Pinto gas-tank fires.

We also learn that issue-ads on the topic are not only intended to sway voters, but jurors as well. Jurors that have seen at least one ad on the "litigation crisis" have been found less likely to make large awards.

An excellent eye-opener!

Excellent, well researched and entertaining (in the sense that a horrifying automobile accident fascinates...). The sad part about this book is that the horse is already out of the corral when it comes to the individual's access to a fair and just legal system. The deck has been stacked by near infinite piles of corporate cash but the average citizen has yet to take notice. Perhaps this book can help start the pendulum swinging in the direction of "justice reform."

This book presents a very strong argument for the view that the chamber of commerce and the GOP have been working systematically to dismantle the civil justice system. It's very dense with facts and, best of all, features original reporting by the author.

A very well done work that is both scholary and timely. At odds with the Big Business mainstream's press bite treatment of the subject. Instead the author goes into detail of the family's stories, the lawyers, the congress, the president, the judges, the process, & at last the consequences. After reading this you can't help but wonder WHERE IS THE PRESS? Of course the answear is that they are also the beneficiaries of an ignorant public, as are their brethren: Big Oil, Big Pharmceuticals, Big Banks, Big Automobile/Transpertation,Big Corporations plus the corporation's employees: Big Government(State/Federal). She documents it every step of the way. The book is worth the price alone for the many human tragic dramas that unfold to illustrate the laws as they change to accomadate the wealthy and privileged. The jury trial is now in corp's crosshairs. A sad day in hell for the country's citizens. But on the bright side, it's a great day for the multinational corporations, Bush/crony capitalism, & the GOP.

If you are a plaintiff's attorney or really really stupid this book will appeal to you. It is a self-serving collection of lies, micharacterizations, and falsehoods financed by the ATLA in hopes that gullible voters will take their word for everything that is said. Similar to any Michael Moore film, this book puts its hands over its ears and screams CORPORATIONS, CORPORATIONS, CORPORATIONS!!! at the top of its lungs, expecting that the average reader will agree with its communist leanings and denounce the pigs who place safety before profits.

All in all, a waste of time and money.