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Is Wisconsin
about to become a haven for personal injury lawyers, bringing
their endless lawsuits and lottery-style justice? That's up to
Gov. Jim Doyle, who must soon decide whether to sign several
important legal reforms passed by the Legislature.
The bills awaiting
the governor's signature are a response to unwise and
overreaching decisions by the Wisconsin Supreme Court this
summer.
The first court
ruling threw out medical-liability damage caps that had been in
place for a decade. The court essentially decided that no limit
on damage awards meets the standard of "reasonable
compensation," and personal injury lawyers should be free to
seek as much money as they can get from any given jury. This was
an invitation to tort lawyers everywhere to come to Wisconsin in
search of clients and multimillion-dollar jury awards.
With two bills -- the
Product Liability Reform Act and the Expert Witness Reform Act
-- lawmakers hope to cut the plaintiffs' bar off at the pass,
and to spare Wisconsin businesses from a flurry of frivolous and
devastating litigation.
The court's second
ruling could invite even more litigation problems than the
first. The case, Thomas v. Mallett, involved a suit against
lead-paint manufacturers filed on behalf of a Milwaukee teenager
suffering from mild retardation.
Although the effects
were typical of lead poisoning, no direct tie was established
between the young man's condition and lead paint. His lawyers
did not know if he had ingested lead-based paint as a child.
And, if lead paint had been the cause, his lawyers didn't know
when the paint was manufactured or what company might have
manufactured it.
Faced with this set
of facts, Wisconsin's high court decided to expand a novel
concept called "risk contribution theory." The theory holds, in
effect, that the companies under suit or their predecessors
collectively contributed to a risk that somebody, somewhere,
might be harmed by a given product.
Under this disturbing
new doctrine, the case didn't require specific proof of specific
wrongdoing. An entire industry could be held liable for what one
company "may" have done, never mind that no actual liability was
demonstrated.
The Jobs Preservation
Act would restore to Wisconsin law the basic, common-sense
standard that a plaintiff must prove which defendant caused harm
to recover damages. The bill would protect innocent parties from
broad, scattershot lawsuits. And it would protect Wisconsin
workers from losing their jobs in small businesses ruined by
massive legal bills and unfair damage awards.
Doyle and the
Legislature have worked well together in reducing business taxes
and in passing regulatory reforms to make the state more
business friendly. Now the same spirit of bipartisanship should
guide them in repairing the damage done by an overreaching state
court. Doyle should sign the legal reforms now before him.
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