Lately, the news has been loaded with articles (see here, here, and here) about civil lawsuits expected – with the first one already filed – as investors try to recover their losses from the infamous Bernard L. Madoff $50 billion “ponzi scheme,” which ensnared New Jersey Senator Frank Lautenberg, Daily News Publisher Mort Zuckerman and Mets Owner Fred Wilpon, among countless others.
We found it more than interesting that the first suit was filed by Irwin Kellner seeking class action status. Here’s a guy who once advocated so-called “tort reform”, limiting injured patients’ right to sue in order to reduce health care costs. (Guess he didn’t know that medical malpractice claims and premiums amount to less than 2 percent of health care costs.)
Anywho, now he’s the one running to court.
But don’t get us wrong. Just because someone says something “inartful” about lawsuits doesn’t mean he can’t see the light, have a change of heart. Everyone’s doing it.
In fact, we hope Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) does it too, and soon. As the New York Times wrote over the weekend, Schumer has been a “champion of Wall Street.” But that means that he has been busy trying to deregulate (and we know now what a big mistake that was!) as well as seeking severe limits on lawsuits by defrauded investors. In the 1990s, he even pushed one bill over President Clinton’s veto.
That law, the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and its sister, Securities Litigation Uniform Standards Act in 1998, both aimed at curtailing lawsuits by injured investors in securities fraud claims, were bad laws and should be repealed.
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