Wednesday, March 4, 2009

Rant on Tort Reform

Once again I am shooting for big rock star status on the internets by having a guest blogger. Tonight's guest is my cousin, a well known ambulance chaser in Oklahoma City.

Alright Cuz,

I usually join you in your rants and raves, and its my turn. Take a look at this.



First,... naturally I am completely biased, but . . . this is total horse shit. What really irritates and frustrates me is when the general public gets behind this so-called tort reform bullshit and praises it in all of its glory, because it limits those horrible trial attorneys. What the general public does not understand, or is in complete idiotic denial about, is that trial attorneys represent THEM against the companies and the industry that these laws protect, AND, these laws also limit what the juries can do and decide,... which is who??? The damn general public!

Lemmings!!!! Lemmings I tell you!!!! If there were justice in this world, every house member that voted to enact this bill and everyone who supported this bill, would, themselves, or through a close loved one, either be seriously injured by a drunk driver in a car wreck, or be victimized by horrific medical malpractice, immediately upon voting for this bill. And when they find out that the insurance companies no longer have anything to lose by NOT settling a case, and having to wait out 5 years of litigations and appeals, and then finally, after 5 years, have to listen to a jury foreman tell them something along the lines of "well, we would like to award you over $200k in future earnings, since you are now confined to a wheel chair for the rest of your life, and can no longer work, or feed your children,... but you thought that it would be best if you were only entitled to $200k . . . so good luck with that.

Every house member that voted for this has sold out to the insurance and medical industries. There is no factual support for any of the horse shit claims that this bill supposedly is intended to cure.

The one thing that I always tell everyone when we are talking about is this,... follow the money. Show me where the money really goes. Very very few trial lawyers are living in million dollar homes, and even fewer victims live in million dollar homes.... they are usually giving all of their money to hospice and home medical care. . . . Then show me the houses of insurance executives and doctors. And while you're at it,... google campaign contributions to the house members that voted for this, and I think you'll see what happened today.

Until Gov. Henry vetoes this tragedy, the general public was stripped of some of its rights today.

That's my rant for today. Thanks for listening.

Only it wasn't all for the day. See, I emailed my cousin and told him I agreed and have always said I would support tort reform as soon as the Legislature can limit the amount of damage another person can inflict on me. If they can't limit the amount of damage I can incur, you can bet your ass I don't think they should be able to limit the amount of compensation I receive for that damage.

SO I settled down to eat dinner and got a phone call from Ambulance Chaser who said "I'm not done yet!" Then he went on to tell me about a case he just argued that went to the Supreme Court (State I think) and his guy won. And I start thinking "Holy Crap my cousin might actually be GOOD at this attorney crap, I should ask for more free services!" But we talk politics and state idiots and we are both getting wound up when I hear a muffled sound in the background and Ambulance Chaser tells me he has to go his drive through order is ready.

Wow, for that brief shining moment I got a tele-look at life in the fast lane. Then I was hung-up on for an order of McFries.

2 comments:

Avitable said...

I agree with the concept of tort reform. When you have plaintiff's attorneys in states like Illinois filing for a change of venue so that they can have a jury comprised of residents of East Saint Louis, because it's the poorest city in the US and the awards are always ridiculously high, that's abuse of the system.

I also didn't notice in the article (and I'm not invested enough in this to care to go read the whole bill) that it says that economic damages are limited. And as long as economic damages are still calculated without a cap, limiting punitive damages doesn't seem that bad.

Cris said...

Well SURE YOU are against it! You drive like one of those guys that will cause an accident and injure other people. I've read your blog! I know your story, buddy!