| Can
we sue trial lawyers for economic woes? |
I
have decided that ordinary American citizens need to band
together and instigate an enormous class action lawsuit
against every single lawyer in the country who has participated
in these absurd lawsuits which have placed companies, professionals
and anyone else at hand in the position of paying for the
lack of responsibility (or simply the greed) of the plaintiffs
involved.
Perhaps we should include the judges too, for not simply
throwing these suits out before they are tried. We could
also cite the jurors, who have to know that the awards are
absurd, and the plaintiffs who have gotten settlements completely
out of line with any possible harm. But mostly it’s
the lawyers, who encourage every American to sue somebody
for something.
They refer to themselves as “trial lawyers”
in an effort to sound professional, but what they are in
reality is a law mafia who thrive on a type of blackmail
which should be illegal. The problem is that at both the
state and national level, legislators who should make these
suits illegal are mostly trial lawyers themselves, so we
can’t get the legislation so desperately needed.
The reason for this tirade is the recent publicity about
the “obesity suits” now gathering momentum.
I had predicted, in this very column several years ago,
that this would happen. I said that if juries were stupid
enough to make awards to people who had smoked all their
lives that the logical precedent being set was that anyone
whose personal behavior resulted in anything unhealthy would
begin suing whatever entity provided the unhealthy substance.
At that time, I jokingly listed Twinkies as the target.
I was wrong. Twinkies must not have as deep of pockets as
do fast food chains. Or perhaps the federal government agencies
aren’t quite as hot about sweets at the moment as
they are about fats. At any rate, no one is fat because
they eat fat. They are fat because they eat too much of
it or they don’t exercise enough to burn it off. The
same is true of sweets, carbohydrates, or even some fruits,
vegetables and nuts.
The only thing I can think of that people couldn’t
get fat eating it lettuce without salad dressing, and then
only because the bulk would be prohibitive. Suing a company
because of personal gluttony is the height of absurdity.
Suing because of sloth is equally absurd. And a combination
of gluttony and sloth is the reason for obesity (with rare
exceptions of metabolic disfunction, which can be treated
with drugs).
Gluttony and sloth, for those who don’t know, are
two of the seven deadly sins. So now the lawyers want to
compound that with greed. It is not enough that they have
already caused our health care system to cease to function
in many areas of the country and to be prohibitively expensive
in places where it is still available.
It is also not enough that they have run many companies
out of the country, so that they may do business in a better
business climate. It is not enough that they have made business
owners afraid to defend their property for fear of being
sued, thus increasing the cost of business to the consumer
or putting the owners out of business altogether.
At the rate trial lawyers are going, our entire economy
is going to be ruined before we understand what is going
on. Even the insurance companies can’t stay in business
when they have to continue to pay these absurd awards.
So I think we need a class action suit. It would include
every American whose daily cost of living has been affected
by these suits. Smokers, of course, would be reimbursed
by attorneys. So would health care consumers. Purchasers
of childrens furniture, clothing and toys could join in,
not to mention car owners and insured people. The only prohibition
would be people who have ever sued anybody for monetary
recovery. I’m certain that if we could sue the lawyers
for their ill-gotten gains, we would see an end of this
foolishness. People themselves are responsible for their
behavior, not the companies that provide the vehicle for
abuse. I say let’s get the lawyers. They are parasites
on an economy that doesn’t need to be sucked dry by
leeches. DBJ
Nancy
Cotten Hirst
DBJ Contributing Editor
