ThePopTort

Consumers Injured by Defective GM Cars Continue Fight at Federal Bankruptcy Court Today

The headline pretty much says it all, civil justice fans.  GM auto-defect victims and their families, including some with catastrophic injuries, are in NYC today attending the company’s bankruptcy hearing as they continue fighting its attempts to skirt responsibility for their harms.

Today’s action comes on the heals of a tremendous victory this past Friday when GM caved to pressure and agreed to assume responsibility for injures and deaths caused by defects in its cars - as long as the accident happens after the bankruptcy is over!  Incredibly, it is still washing its hands of any victim currently injured by these cars, taking no responsibility for hundreds of claims over deaths and injuries that exist right now.

This was a morally reprehensible decision by GM and the courageous victims and their families who made it to Manhattan today intend to let the world to know it - and to try to fix it.

In the News...

The investigation continues in Las Vegas in a clinic where patients became infected with Hepatitis C after staff members reused syringes and medicine vials on multiple patients.  (more info click here and here)

Drug lawsuits may have links to China

The heparin suits are the first to be brought against a pharmaceutical manufacturer with ties to China, which has been linked in other litigation to dangerous products such as toys, pet food and toothpaste.

For those of you who are fans of the Ali G Show, Borat and the just completed Bruno Movie, Sacha Baron Cohen's next project appears to be a comedy involving a trial attorney turned hero fighting for immigrant workers against corporate wrongdoers.

And for a plug for free speech, this week the Republican National Committee backed off its threat to sue CafePress over the company's use of the initials "GOP" and elephants.

How did we get so lucky?...Again

Hey, thanks once again to the Manhattan Institute for yet another free promo for the Center for Justice & Democracy state AG report! And to top it off, again, no critique of the report  - although they do regurgitate some old papers written by the Washington Legal Foundation, the American Enterprise Institute, and themselves all of whom seem to hate it when state law enforcement – i.e. Attorneys General - crack down on corporate abuse.  No surprise there.  I mean, is there a rich corporation or industry in America that doesn’t fund these groups? (Not to mention their corporate counsel who charge more per hour than an injured person makes in benefits in two weeks.)

The free promo reminds me of the time when the American Enterprise Institute published a paper crediting Center for Justice & Democracy and CJ&D’s project, Americans for Insurance Reform, for, in their words, “stunting the medical malpractice debate” in Congress over bills that would essentially take dollars away from injured patients and put them into the pockets of insurance companies.  Then Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist forced four votes in three years on these kinds of bills, each time resulting in stunning defeat.  We thanked AEI then for giving us that kind of credit and publicity!  And once again, we thank them all.

How did we get so lucky?

When you’re a small advocacy group like the Center for Justice & Democracy, there’s nothing like a little free publicity.  So thanks to the Manhattan Institute’s blog, PointofLaw.com (you know the Manhattan Institute – the kind of group that boasts about recently hosting Dick Cheney, who called them an “impressive think tank”) - we just got a shout out on CJ&D's new report "State Attorneys General: The People's Champion".

There wasn't much of an analysis of the report.  I take that back. There was no analysis of the report.  They opted instead for the ancient art of schoolyard tactics known as name calling (if you can call it that). CJ&D is a "trial-lawyer front group," they exclaimed!  So we checked around, and it seems so is Consumers Union (publisher of Consumer Reports), the Environmental Working Group, Public Citizen, the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights (now ConsumerWatchDog.org) – indeed, like trial lawyers, anyone that successfully fights for consumers!

I guess you know you’re effective when the only tool in someone’s attack arsenal is a name.  We’ve heard some doozies.  Like the one who called me a "Holocaust denier" after we posted this.

One of my favorites was the 2002 release by Physicians Insurers Association of America attacking Public Citizen for its statistical report about the insurance industry.  And I quote, "Fighting to the death for the right to chase ambulances and hover over the sick and dead, this group of wolves in sheep's clothing has turned nothing less than rabid. Their rantings have gone beyond the bounds of rationality and descended into the maelstrom of sheer lunacy.” Yes, now there’s a thoughtful analysis. 

Here’s another funny thing.  POL writes, “Walter Olson has written about [Center for Justice & Democracy] over the years, aptly describing it as a ‘trial lawyer front group'" and they then proceed to cite themselves.  But among the items they cite are two earlier posts that announce Joanne Doroshow’s participation on the American Enterprise Institute panel on Hurricane Katrina, at the invitation of AEI’s Ted Frank! 

Maybe they should consider adding Joanne to their Dick Cheney page. Might enhance the quality a little.