Customer Reviews

The Collapse of the Common Good: How America's Lawsuit Culture Undermines Our Freedom

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Aside from what I considered to be a weak title, everything else about the book was superlative and highly thought-provoking. It is obvious when when people were spreading the gospel of individual rights through our society, no one stopped to realize that the random and haphazard exercise of one person's individual rights often ran in direct contradiction to society's rights as a whole. As Mr. Howard says about juries for example: They are not thinking about the effect of their decision on society; they are merely thinking about the two litigants whose case they have been asked to decide. The problems created by this phenomenon are particularly evident when it comes to puntive damages. When plaintiff's lawyers urge jurors to "teach this company a lesson for their [supposedly] heinous conduct" the jurors can respond by blithely awarding tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars in punitive damages, and go to bed at night feeling that they have "served" society by their actions. And of course the great irony is that they have accomplished the exact opposite result. I don't know how much of an effect Mr. Howard's book will have. While it may not be readily apparent, the interest groups that have no interest whatsoever in adopting his suggestions--e.g. the American Bar Association, unions of all stripes and colors, libertarians (ironically) and even Congress to some extent--will act to make sure that the status quo remains the status quo. Nevertheless, I would be delighted to see all of America take his message to heart.

Mr. Howard is a lawyer, and he points out that potential law suits have become a debilitating factor in our society. The book is filled with many poignant examples of how running scared of the lawyers causes us to suffer harm. An emergency room staff in Chicago left a man bleeding with a gunshot wound 30 feet from the door because they feared being sued by patients who already were in the ER if the staff left to bring the man in. Teachers will not give students a hug for fear of sexual harrassment suits. The governor of a state could not get a new light bulb because of civil service rules designed to avoid unfair treatment of employees and citizens. The examples are strong and will make you more sensitive to the subject.

Most of the book's content looks at education, government service, racial discrimination in companies, and bureaucratic rules everywhere. The point of reference is the current state of legal thinking, which upholds having a "neutral" judiciary that deals with disputes. Unfortunately, a lot of silly suits are started. One of my favorite examples in the book involved a dispute between two three-year-olds in a sandbox in a public park in Boston. A judge took the case and issued a temporary restraining order keeping the two kids apart. The other problem is that juries can make up ridiculous awards, both for the primary injury and for punitive damages. Everyone by now knows the story of the elderly woman who collected over $600,000 for hot coffee she spilled on herself after picking it up in a drive-through at McDonald's. But did you know about the guy whose new car had had its paint touched up, and initially got a punitive damage award of $1,000 for each car that had been touched up to paid to him?

One of the things I liked most about the book was the way Mr. Howard tied all of this in to modern ideas about how organizations work best, which is to give those on the spot lots of autonomy to make choices and use their judgment. Otherwise, you get the tyranny of looking at optimizing one area (avoiding legal suits) while suboptimizing the whole area (providing education, government services, or products to customers). He has several examples of teachers and principals who made a difference by doing what needed to be done, regardless of the potential for suits.

The book's weakness is that it basically encourages those who may be sued to take a chance anyway. You may be sued, but you will be helping. I agree that in many cases there will be no suits, but to the family who goes bankrupt as a result of an ensuing suit that advice provides little solace.

I think he is really describing a society that wants to have a chance to win the lottery -- being injured gives you a chance to get billions! Well, maybe thousands in reality. When the bulk of society wants to have that chance, you have to assume that the laws will favor providing that free run in court with a lawyer who gets paid a contigent fee.

If we are willing to give up on our "right" to win the law suit lottery, we can have a more effective society. Are we ready for that?

On the other hand, we shouldn't throw out the right to sue. Many times, there's no other remedy available.

Balancing these needs is something that we have to hope our legislators will become better at accomplishing. This book should help raise the alarm. But you will do more good by writing letters explaining your views to your legislators than this book can hope to accomplish.

Not quite as good as his previous "The Death of Common Sense", but sure to generate conversation and controversy. Howard here concentrates most of his scrutiny on the dearth of fairness and common sense in education and civil service. He fearlessly tackles such hot-button issues as racism in the workplace, and teacher discipline in the schools. A must-read for anyone who feels like life is swirling down the drain in a morass of lawsuits.

Philip K. Howard, The Collapse of the Common Good (Ballantine, 2001)

Howard's first book, The Death of Common Sense, should be required reading in high schools and law schools across the nation. Instead, it's supported by a select few and most of the country has never heard of it, despite our best efforts. So Howard releases another book, and I pick it up.

The Collapse of the Common Good takes much the same refrain as The Death of Common Sense, but turns its focus from governmental process to the fallacy of individual rights. What is important here is not what Howard says (which is, naturally, common sense), but in how he says it. His arguments are persuasive and worded so that the average joe can understand what Howard is on about. As with The Death of Common Sense, this is a book that should be required reading.

I do have one problem with the book, and that is the way that the endnotes are handled. Endnotes (as opposed to footnotes) are annoying enough, and publishers should realize that the endnote is archaic (now that students have access to computers, footnotes are easily achieved by even college freshmen; the use of endnotes by professional book publishers looks even more amateur), but The Collapse of the Common Good takes this annoyance to a whole new level by not including endnote numbers in the text; the exhaustive section of endnotes has them referred to only by page number. Perhaps I should have said "exhausting" endnote section. The complete unprofessionalism of the way what should have been footnotes are handled loses the book a full point.

Other than that, though, another must-read from Howard. I think I'm going to start giving them as christmas gifts, and keep giving them until people get the message. ****

In my eight years of teaching high-school, I have encountered many situations where schools have made nonsensical decisions because they feared a lawsuit. Howard's book is surprisingly clear on the reasons why this happens, and how this atmosphere of "rights" has simultaneously made any expectation of decency in behavior impossible. Thanks for a clear and hard-hitting analysis of the insanity of the educational establishment.

This book is much more than just a call for tort reform. Anyone can say that our society has become overly litigious but Howard goes a step beyond. The Lost art of Drawing the Line presents the full picture of what is wrong with our legal system, how it got that way and what we can do to fix it.

Howard traces the roots of our current legal problems back to the late 19th Century when the political spoils system was replaced with an impartial legal and bureaucratic approach. By replacing politics with a system of rules it was hoped that governmental dealings would be fairer. As anyone who has ever had to deal, or much worse work, with the stifling bureaucracy that grew out of this movement knows it is clear that somewhere along the way fairness went too far.

Howard uncovers the paradox of how our quest for individual rights has actually resulted in a diminution of our freedom. True, we can still do what ever we want by ourselves but we must walk on eggshells when dealing in groups, afraid to offend lest someone take us to court. Howard bravely goes one step further and examines the detrimental effects that the law has had on race relations. He notes that the ticking bomb of the race card has created a minefield of fear and bitterness in the modern workplace.

Whether intentional or not, The Lost Art of Drawing the Line serves as an excellent companion book to Robert Putnam's Bowling Alone. By getting to the core of why coming together to work for the common good has become such a risky proposition The Lost Art of Drawing the Line answers the question of why one would choose to bowl alone.

The book is not all doom and gloom. We still have a government of the people. And, as Howard proposes, if as a nation we are able to gather the national will to fix our system, no government can get in our way.

Read this book. And then recommend it to your friends.

As an immigrant to the US (from Mexico), one of the hardest things for me to get used to was the skewed sense of freedom and entitlement that is sometimes expressed in this country. On my own I had been trying to come to grips with the ideas of extreme lawsuits, political correctness, and limits on authority. While I'm in favor of the basic ideas expressed in all these principles, I constantly get a feeling that many people don't understand the true meaning of their rights and simply abused their privileges.

This book validated my beliefs, but more importantly, helped me to better understand how we have come to act this way. It also helped me express all my feelings about this subject in a simple way: Our over emphasis on our individual freedoms and (supposed) entitlements is putting in jeopardy our common good, and we are ultimately hurting ourselves.

I think this book should be read by anyone who wants to be a true contributor to the common good.

I thought this book was an easy read. Howard does his best to light a fire under you to get you thinking. People are so worried about their individual rights, common sense gets thrown out with the bath water!!! This is a good motivational book for any elected official to read. I actually read this book for an assignment, and the book opened my eyes on really how inhumane or shallow our culture is becoming.

Philip K. Howard's follow up to the best seller "The Death of Common Sense" is very similar to the previous work. Howard discusses how law has become an albatross to American society in may respects. This book spends a great deal of time focusing on the problems of law in the American educational system. As a veteran teacher, I can testify to the fact that many of these problems exist. However, Howard's discussions are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the legal problems of the educational system. This book restates the solution from the previous book. While it is feasible in theory, it will never happen. Overall, the book was an interesting read.

Every politician, every lawyer, every judge, and especially every citizen in America should read this book. It explains clearly and concisely how bad laws and frivolous lawsuits are undermining our country. Everything has to have warning labels, everything has to be dumbed down, anything remotely dangerous (such as the teeter-totter or playground slide) has to be eliminated, and teachers aren't allowed to punish bad kids for fear of being sued. Government unions make it impossible to fire incompetent workers, and anti-discrimination laws cause the very discrimination that they are supposed to prevent. After reading this book, you will understand better why government, corporations, and society are not working as good as they should. How can they, with the guillotine of potential lawsuits hanging over our heads?