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The Michigan Trial Lawyers
Association recently changed its name to the "Michigan
Association for Justice." Though this may conjure images of
comic-book superheroes in capes and tights, the reality is that
this organization exists to help personal injury attorneys sue
the pants off anyone with deep pockets.
It takes some temerity, then, for
the president of this organization, Robert Raitt, to paint tort
reform as a mere "PR phrase" ("'Tort reform' is failed
experiment," Aug. 9). Raitt does this by highlighting an
apparent discrepancy between the American Justice Partnership's
ranking of Michigan as the seventh best state in terms of its
litigation climate, while the Michigan Chamber of Commerce flags
Michigan as a "caution" state where legal reform is in jeopardy.
Raitt's discrepancy is really a
sleight-of-hand trick. The AJP ranking largely regarded the high
quality of Michigan's courts and Supreme Court rulings. The
Chamber focused more on the legislative side, where a pro-trial
lawyer majority in the House is focused on making Michigan the
first to repeal its legal reforms.
Much is at stake. Michigan has made
many sensible legal reforms. One of these is particularly close
to my heart - the law that allows pharmaceutical companies to
use FDA standards and those of other regulatory agencies as a
shield against frivolous lawsuits. As a chronic sufferer of
rheumatoid arthritis, I got my life back from a drug that might
never have been available if Michigan law had allowed trial
lawyers to raid the research budgets of my medicine makers.
These reforms - and the re-election
bids of fair state Supreme Court justices - are now in the
crosshairs of a growing trial bar campaign.
The trial bar rakes in more revenues
a year than Microsoft or Intel and has lots of ready cash to
invest in politics and PR. Nationally, trial lawyers have
invested more than three-quarters of a billion dollars in
federal campaigns - five times the contributions of the
pharmaceutical industry, and four times that of the oil and gas
industry. It is widely estimated they have invested many
millions more in state legislative and judicial elections.
In short, there is a concerted
campaign by this monied interest to again make Michigan a
lawsuit haven. While tort costs in the United States have
increased more than 46 percent over the last five years, the
reforms in Michigan have helped reduce product liability filings
by 67 percent.
Do we really want to reverse that
trend?
In Michigan - hard hit by the
sub-prime meltdown and a health-cost crisis that has slammed car
companies - the last thing we need is to advertise ourselves as
the place that returned to lawsuit abuse. With the highest
unemployment rate in America, Michigan families and workers need
reasons to attract businesses, not repel more of them.
Among the further legal reforms we
need are limits on contingent attorneys fees, incentives that
promote settlements and discourage frivolous lawsuits. Michigan
should continue to lead the nation in legal reform. |
