Tuesday, August 20, 2002

Libertarian Strangeness I received an email from a Libertarian friend that contained a rant against so-called frivolous lawsuits. I guess my reaction is that I am surprised that a libertarian would somehow want to restrict peoples access to the court system. I get a laugh every time the fanatic right gets in and coops the Libertarians into supporting so-called Tort reform. Yes, I understand the personal accountability/libertarian perspective on this. I just think it's so wrong headed. When you see these 'frivolous lawsuit' stories, you always see them when the case is filed. It is rare that the story gets told when the case fails. If you look at the list of so-called silly lawsuits, you will see that the vast majority of them fail. By vast I mean 99.99%. In the ones that get mentioned, the facts get left out to support the myopic views of the pro-business far-right. Two cases that come to mind: Tobacco: This one is so funny. For some reason, some think that a warning on the side of the pack should absolve you of responsibility for producing a highly addictive drug, that you marketed to kids. It should absolve you from the research that you buried, the cessation products you killed or tried to kill. It should absolve you from the chemicals you chose to add and hide so as to 'improve flavor' and addictive qualities. It should absolve you from moving your death factories' product to offshore markets where you can kill many tens of millions more each year. The larger case was a victory over a predatory group of companies that were proud of what they made and faced a daunting task -- how to replace a dying customer base. Most of the personal cases have failed, and will fail. But how is law defined, unless you have the right to file and test the system? McDonalds Coffee: This one is a favorite of the Tort Reform crowd. It gets rolled out on a regular basis as the reason we need to clear things up. Well, what people should do is try and look into the details of the case. McDonalds had been having problems for years with this issue. They had been warned and been sued several times. They had always managed to settle with cash and force non-disclosure agreements. In the end their luck ran out and the repeated warnings cost them for over-heating the coffee and putting it into flimsy cups. You have the right to sue for nearly any thing you want. Success/Failure is up to the courts. One of the prices of a free society is a bit of chaos...mj 8:55:04 AM

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