Natural selection at work

[vt_maverick]

Before you keep using the well-known '90's McDonalds lawsuit as an example of a frivolous lawsuit, I'd suggest you watch the movie "Hot Coffee" currently being shown on HBO.

Or read this for a more concise overview:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liebeck...#Burn_incident

The lady really wasn't some unreasonable, whining, gold digger. On the other hand there were a lot of other courts that disagreed with whether corporations could be held liable.

That particular lawsuit, the real physical damage it caused to the elderly woman, and the repeated negligence displayed by McDonald leading up to the incident was twisted around by the media...

Agreed.

...the Bush administration, and the likes of Carl Rowe to pass tort reform which ended up making it near impossible for ANY U.S. citizens to seek reasonable recourse for legitimate damages against actual negligence of corporations.

Hopefully none of us here will ever have to find out the hard way the definition of "mandatory arbitration" should we be on the receiving end of any gross negligence of a business large enough to hide behind it's lawyers, but that's what happens when people believe everything they see and hear on tv.

Makes a person wonder just why this particular incident is being so widely reported.

Insert liberal paranoia. Take a read here (scroll down to Tort reform in US politics) and do some more research... plenty of people are still making nice sums of money in tort cases, and many prominent Dems (including our President) have voted for reform in the time since this case.

[Y33TREKker]

...Insert liberal paranoia. Take a read here (scroll down to Tort reform in US politics) and do some more research... plenty of people are still making nice sums of money in tort cases, and many prominent Dems (including our President) have voted for reform in the time since this case.

How is it paranoia if what you've just said verifies that what was being promoted in the early 90's as "necessary tort reform" is in need of reform ?

Plenty of people may still be making nice sums, but you're not including the people who have been prevented from receiving legitimate sums or receiving reasonable due course in the meantime.

[vt_maverick]

How is it paranoia if what you've just said verifies that what was being promoted in the early 90's as "necessary tort reform" is in need of reform ?

Plenty of people may still be making nice sums, but you're not including the people who have been prevented from receiving legitimate sums or receiving reasonable due course in the meantime.

Liberal paranoia. As in attributing every problem in the world to something Bush, Cheney, Rove, Big Oil, Multi-National corporations, etc. have done. If you want to say that companies are lobbying politicians in general to crush the little guy, I would say that is more likely. But if you're trying to attribute negative (from the little guy's perspective) policy change to one party I think it demonstrates a partisan paranoia.

IMHO the problem is that tort law, class action suits, etc. are used to accomplish what the criminal code was unable to do, i.e. punish the corporation for repeated abuse rather than simply award the actual $$$ required to make the plaintiff "whole." The reason the courts awarded the McDonald's lady so much money was directly because of the company's clearly demonstrated apathy for the situation - they wanted to send a message to McDonald's to change its ways. The problem is that removing limits on damages and due course encourages lawyers (if not victims) to sue too often and for too much, increasing (in the medical arena) malpractice insurance rates which therefore increase premiums, co-pays, etc. In the McDonald's example I would think a better practice would be to make them reimburse the plaintiff for her real (not pain & suffering) costs and then sick the DoJ on them for willful negligence.

[Y33TREKker]

Liberal paranoia. As in attributing every problem in the world to something Bush, Cheney, Rove, Big Oil, Multi-National corporations, etc. have done. If you want to say that companies are lobbying politicians in general to crush the little guy, I would say that is more likely. But if you're trying to attribute negative (from the little guy's perspective) policy change to one party I think it demonstrates a partisan paranoia.

Then again, it couldn't be that you're trying to generalize my response to suit your own argument could it?

Just because you are trying to portray my response as an indicator that I attribute all the worlds ills to the people/entities you listed doesn't mean that I was. Take from it what you will that the specific examples I included were more associated with the political party that they were/are.

If I'm paranoid about any political parties, it's about ALL of them. That's not partisan, that's realistic.