ThePopTort

Right-Wing Wingnuts and "Tort Reform"

What do you call someone who is anti-family, supports burdening taxpayers with more government spending, backs those who won’t take personal responsibility for their actions, and opposes states rights?  No, this isn’t Sarah Palin trying to offend liberals.  This is crazy right-wingers, like Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), describing, well, himself.  Like every other right-wing member of Congress these days, Issa’s main health insurance reform “idea” seems to be weakening liability for reckless health care providers, forcing innocent families and/or taxpayers to pick up the tab, and harassing President Obama for not agreeing with him.  Let’s add one more descriptive term to the list: hypocrite.  (Actually, nothing new here, here.)

So-called “tort reform” is nothing if not a violation of the most fundamental of conservative principles.  For example:

·      Personal responsibility: “Tort reform” relieves corporations and other wrongdoers of responsibility for their misconduct.

·      Lower taxes and less government spending: “Tort reform” shifts the cost of compensating injured citizens from wrongdoers to taxpayer-funded health and disability programs.

·      Family Values/Protection of Children: “Tort reform” can be catastrophic for many children and their families, causing untold suffering, economic devastation, and for some, the destruction of family life.

·      Less government regulation:  “Tort reform” regulates what is essentially a free-market approach to holding corporations and other wrongdoers accountable for injuring or killing people.

·      States Rights: There could be no greater intrusion on traditional state authority than federal tort reforms that tie the hands of local judges and juries.

As for health insurance reform, the right-wing nuts will throw their most basic principles out the window in order to protect reckless and incompetent doctors and dangerous hospitals.  Actually, Sarah Palin fits right in, you betcha. 

UPDATE:  From the February 8 New York Times: "Republicans also contend that changes in state medical malpractice laws could lower costs and slow the growth of premiums. However, some of these proposals — like federal limits on damages for pain and suffering and punitive damages — are potentially in conflict with the Republicans’ emphasis on federalism and state autonomy."

New York Hospital Executives Are Acting Like Wall Street Bankers

Wow, those executives really have some nerve, giving themselves outrageous bonuses and all. The bankers again?  No, actually, this time we’re talking about executives at tax-exempt New York City hospitals! This incredible story was dug up by the New York Post last weekend, in a story entitled, "Sickening Bonuses." It is not to be believed. Here’s a sample:

Wall Streeters aren't the only ones raking in big bonuses during tough economic times.

Hospital presidents and CEOs also collect fat bonuses and "incentive payments," even as health-care systems cry poverty,claiming they struggle to break even against government cutbacks, tightwad insurers and skyrocketing costs.

While warning of layoffs and slashed patient services, many hospitals shower their top execs and department heads with bonuses and perks. They include housing allowances, chauffeurs, first-class air travel, tuition for their kids and country-club memberships.

The filings for the city's biggest and most prestigious private, tax-exempt hospitals show at least a dozen CEOs get compensation of $1 million and up. Some also cash in early on million-dollar pre-retirement payouts while on the job.

Meanwhile, the Greater New York Hospital Association just testified in Albany about the hospitals' “woe is me” financial situation, with the nerve to blame patients injured by reckless and negligent health care.  Center for Justice & Democracy responded here with letters to government officials. Hope they take notice!

Huff Post: Corporate America and Organized Medicine on Notice—No One Likes a Hypocrite!

There was the craziest, most hypocrisy-laden story in the New York Times last Sunday.  It seems companies that used to duke it out for market share by say, bashing each other with “comparison ads,” (remember the old Pepsi challenge?), have now taken to suing each other.  For example, hair conditioner competitors Pantene and Dove were involved in a case that “centered on whether Dove Therapy repaired hair better than a Pantene conditioner.” You get the idea.

Well, that got the Center for Justice & Democracy's Joanne Doroshow thinking (and blogging on the Huffington Post) about how big corporate entities and organized medicine have a long history of “calling attorneys for the little guy ‘greedy’ and insensitive to the importance of keeping companies ‘litigation free,’ [while] their own corporate and insurance lawyers sue often at the smallest provocation.”  Check it out.

Secrecy, The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and the Yes Men

It’s official. The ““no-one-should-have-access-to-the-courts-except-us” U.S. Chamber has filed a lawsuit against the Yes Men for punking them over their primitive views on climate change.

On a related note, Joanne Doroshow of the Center for Justice & Democracy, has a featured blog on The Huffington Post today, talking about the Chamber’s “jaw-dropping hypocrisy,” as well as its penchant for secrecy in its ongoing attempts “to convince average Americans to give up their rights to go to court against reckless corporations and to make sure the insurance industry can keep a little more money in its pocket."

U.S. Chamber: No to Lawsuits for KBR Rape Victims, But if the Yes Men Punk Us—Sue!

Seems like only yesterday that the U.S. Chamber of  “no-one-should-have-access-to-the-courts-except-us” Commerce (and that means you, rape victims!) was threatening to sue the EPA over their global warming views.  These people are so Neanderthal on issues like climate change, financial regulation and health care that even the White House is coming down on them (leading Chamber president Tom Donohue to warn his growing list of enemies to “put their damn helmets on.”)

Now comes word that they’re running to court again!  In case you missed it, the Chamber got completely punked last week by the activist group, the Yes Men over its denialist views on climate change (see video here).  To supplement the ruse, the Yes Men created a mock website, parodying that of the U.S. Chamber (which you can see here).

Long story short, the Chamber is now threatening to sue if the website isn’t brought down!

Meanwhile, as high profile defections from the Chamber continue, relations with the White House disintegrate, and the Chamber prepares for battle, one wonders just how many more lawsuits the organization intends to file.

Yowsa! Major Environmental Ruling in Greenhouse Gas Case!

Corporate polluters have been getting hauled into court for many years for lotsa reasons, one being that their dirty activities are a “public nuisance”.  (See more at Center for Justice & Democracy comprehensive booklet on environmental cases.)

Well now, thanks to a landmark New York federal court ruling, this “public nuisance” theory has been applied in a major global warming case brought by eight states, New York City and environmental groups.
In a nutshell, the court panel (which consisted of two Republican appointees) found that the nation's largest coal-burning utilities could be held accountable for global warming.

In other words, “Now it is clear that global warming can be litigated as a tort,” said Mathew Pawa, a Massachusetts-based attorney involved in the suit.  “That’s a game changer even though the court was just applying well-established law.”

So guess whose underoos are REALLY in a knot about this?  The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, that’s whoo!

This group is so out of the mainstream on global warming that its own corporate members have dropped out while it sues (hypocrisy alert!) the Environmental Protection Agency in an attempt to force it to renege its acknowledgment that greenhouse gas emissions give rise to climate change. 

Can’t wait to see whom they sue next!

U.S Chamber of Commerce Goes “Daffy” Over EPA and Climate Change

There’s an old Porky Pig/Daffy Duck cartoon where Porky scolds Daffy for deviating from the cartoon script.  True to form, “Daffy” responds, “Don’t let it worry ya, Skipper. I’m just a crazy, darn fool duck. Hoo-hoo Hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo…”

The reason we’re bringing this up is because our friends at the U.S Chamber of Commerce have been acting, well…a little extra “daffy” lately, deviating from their usual “anti-civil justice” script in a major way, and alienating many of their big-spending members in the process.

Here’s the scoop.  The Chamber is unhappy about the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) semi-recent acknowledgment that greenhouse gas emissions give rise to hazardous climate change (despite a wealth of science in support of that position).

So what is the Chamber doing about it?  Threatening to sue the EPA, of course!

And as if such shameless hypocrisy wasn’t “daffy” enough, the Chamber is making these threats to appease the only four companies (of the 122 it represents) that have expressed opposition to the EPA’s position. 

Meanwhile, Johnson & Johnson and Nike (among others) have publicly expressed heated opposition to the Chamber’s recent pronouncements.  And a growing coalition of disaffected Chamber members, including PNM Resources and Pacific Gas & Electric, has decided to sever ties with the organization altogether. 

Given that we’re dealing with the U.S Chamber, something tells us that’s not gonna be all, folks!

Sarah Palin Facebooks About Medical Malpractice—My Kid Sister Responds

So we heard that former VP candidate/Alaska governor Sarah Palin had been “Facebooking” about health care again.  We’re no technophobes, but we thought it might be smart to get some help from a more experienced social networker to respond.  So we recruited my kid sister, Jennifer—and I may be biased, but I think she did an excellent job.  (Way to go, Jen!)

What’s up, F. Gov.?

Caught ur latest status update on FB today.  Noticed u were H8-ing on people who file lawsuits again.  LOL!  I never get tired of hearing u say stuff like that—then threatening to file a lawsuit yourself against the press or something…LOL!!!

BTW, couldn’t help but notice that u had a few things to say about medical malpractice—seems like ur stressing that docs may be ordering bogus tests because they’re afraid of being sued or whatever.  Well u can chill, cause I Googled it, and every government agency that has taken a look at that whole issue, from the GAO to the CBO, has called it a bad AFool’s joke.  And as for those freakishly high numbers u were citing from “Kessler and McClellan” or whoever…I Factcheck.org’em, and I mean, their stuff just got TOTALLY debunked, like years ago!  Like even worse than that whole crazy “death panel” thing (no offense).

u also said that thing about AK having certain “caps” (or something) aimed at preventing lawsuits and how that helps keep malpractice insurance rates down(?).  Well, I was totally confused (and a little bored), but I Googled it anyway.  Turns out, there’s no link between keeping injured patients out of court and med mal insurance rates going up or down.  Like for example, it’s true that AK makes it hard for injured people to sue and that med mal insurance rates haven’t budged in the state for the past 5 years.  But it’s also true that the state of R.I. does NOT have AK-type lawsuit restrictions, and their med mal insurance rates didn’t budge either.

It’s a little confusing, I know, but do u at least sort of follow?  It’s like, it may rain the same day u go aerial wolf hunting or something, but it may also rain when u decide to stay home and write weird things on FB—but neither the rain, nor FB, has anything to do with wolf hunting (or the rain, or whatever).

Anyway, PIR so gotta’ go (my folks r so nosy).  I told them I was trying to help Sarah Palin understand health care policy, but of course, they didn’t believe me :( Oh well…TTYS.

Jen

Hypocrisy Alert: “Tort Reform” Leader Gets Car Towed—and Sues!

Get ready to ring them bells, blow those whistles, and sound the hypocrisy alarms—cause this next item, courtesy of Legal Pad,  (a blog by the editors of The Recorder), is a real doozy!

Fred Hiestand, the general counsel for the ironically-named, fiercely anti-civil justice group, Civil Justice Association of California (CJAC) and an enthusiastic backer of consumer rights crusher, Proposition 64, has joined the ThePopTort’s Hypocrite Hall of Shame!

Freddy boy has filed a lawsuit.  But not just any lawsuit—the kind that generally makes the anti-civil justice crowd break into hives—a class action!!!  Why?  Because his car was towed after he illegally parked it while slipping into a fast food joint. 

According to Hiestand, he saw the “no parking” sign and knew he was risking a ticket by parking there.  But there were no signs indicating that illegally parked vehicles might be towed—which Hiestand said was tantamount to the city of Sacramento “thumbing [its] nose at the law.”

So Hiesatnd is doing what any self-respecting, anti-civil justice hypocrite would do.  He’s suing “the city of Sacramento, the city’s police chief, city police officers,” and in an especially audacious bit of hypocritical jujitsu, the company that towed him—i.e., the very sort of “small business” Prop. 64 was supposedly going to “protect.”

Presumably, to establish that he’s not completely defected to the other side, Hiestand has promised to donate any money he might be awarded (sans legal costs) to “fighting frivolous class action lawsuits.”

Meanwhile, Hiestand’s boss, CJAC President John Sullivan, characterized his colleague’s actions as a kind of occupational hazard.  “I was concerned this might happen,” said Sullivan.  “Fred has been fighting against frivolous lawsuits for decades, and like a doctor fighting malaria, he’s become infected himself—and with the worst strain of the disease—class actions.”

To our knowledge, Sullivan has yet to alert OSHA or the CDC to Hiestand’s malaria-like, job-related affliction—but we’ll definitely keep you posted!

Hypocrisy Alert: NYC Sues Grandmother of a Girl Burned by its Own Playground Mat

New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg has never stopped complaining about injured people who sue New York City.  As late as this year, he testified in Albany in favor of Draconian “caps” on such suits, even those most payouts by the city are due to egregious malpractice at city hospitals.

How ironic then to see this next item involving a 20-month-old Queens girl who was severely burned after running barefoot toward a city sprinkler by way of a rubber playground mat (that had reached 165 degrees in the summer heat).

“As soon as she had put her feet on the mat, ultimately the second her foot had touched the ground it immediately melted the skin on her feet," said the girl’s father.

After spending five days at the Cornell burn unit, the girl’s parents decided to take action in hopes of preventing other children from sustaining similar injuries—so they filed a lawsuit against the city.  Indeed, this is an ongoing safety problem at New York City playgrounds, and as Center for Justice & Democracy noted in a recent report, “More than a dozen kids are treated for severe burns from this equipment annually, yet the city has done nothing to make these surfaces safer.”

So how did the city respond? By fixing the problem?  No, they responded by suing the little girl’s grandmother!  

"I was kind of surprised to see the response was to countersue a little old lady who quite simply was just enjoying a day in the park with her granddaughter," said the injured girl’s father. 

We wish we could say the same—but we’ve become a bit jaded after seeing the old “lock the courthouse doors to everyone but me” routine so many times (here, here, here). 

According to the injured girl’s father, the city has since posted a sign warning visitors of the Queens park to wear appropriate clothing when the weather gets hot.  Whether or not that’s adequate remains to be seen given how many kid are burned each year.  But as for grandma…the city will see her in court!