I read this article, and thought it right on target, it's depressing, but true:
Everybody Loses
Fear of being sued is paralyzing Americans -
we must end the lawsuit mania
BY PHILIP K. HOWARD
New York City was hit with a $14 million judgment this year because a subway train didn't stop in time to avoid hitting someone who was lying on the tracks, apparently trying to commit suicide.
It's just the kind of shocking verdict that people dedicated to reforming America's legal system have talked about for years. But crazy verdicts are only the beginning of the problem. Fear of possible lawsuits has changed the culture of America.
Talk to teachers. Keeping discipline is hard when students can threaten that any decision might violate their presumed rights. Forget about putting an arm around the upset second-grader - it might be construed as an unwanted sexual advance. Visit a playground and look for a seesaw. They're rapidly disappearing, going the way of merry-go-rounds, diving boards and other joys of childhood.
No court ever held that seesaws are too dangerous, but who will protect the school board if one child gets off too soon and the other one breaks an ankle?
Ministers in some churches are told not to counsel troubled congregants because - who knows? - someone might sue if the couple gets divorced. All summer, Americans have read stories of our health care system melting down. The maternity ward at Methodist Hospital in south Philadelphia closed. In Florida, nursing home patients pay an extra $10,800 a bed every year to cover legal costs.
The far greater impact is on the quality of health care. Doctors no longer feel comfortable acting on their best judgment. A recent Harris poll found that doctors so distrust American justice that they admit to giving medicines that aren't needed, even performing unnecessary invasive procedures, just to have something on the record in case there is a lawsuit.
Recently, a doorman nervously showed me a complaint in which he was sued for $1 million for a minor car accident a year ago, even though no one went to the hospital. He's having trouble sleeping. Is this justice - or extortion?
Something is terribly wrong here. Americans in all walks of life no longer feel free to do what they know is right. The one thing that almost no one has questioned is that Americans have a right to sue. That's what we've been taught justice is. But what about the right not to be sued?
We forget sometimes why law is important in a free society. Because it is our system for upholding standards of conduct, law makes us comfortable doing what's right and nervous doing what's wrong. Today, Americans feel nervous doing almost anything.
That's because there's a flaw in our modern legal system. Where are the laws and legal rulings that let us know who can sue for what? A judge once defined law as the prediction of what a court will do. Today, no one in America has any idea what a court will do. That means Americans no longer enjoy the protection of law. You can get sued for almost anything.
Lawsuits are important, of course, to prevent abuse. But limiting lawsuits is just as important. Giving everyone the right to sue for whatever they want, we've been told, is our protection. But lawsuits hurt us if any angry person can sue for almost anything. Doctors quit. Our health care premiums go through the roof. Teachers lose control of their classrooms.
There is no constitutional right to sue for anything a person wants.
The point of law is to limit and define claims. That's the reason they're called lawsuits - not go-for-whatever-you-want-suits. Otherwise, one self-interested person can bully everyone else.
What's missing is that people with responsibility for the common good - judges and legislators, among others - no longer see their job as drawing the boundaries of who can sue for what. They abdicated that responsibility in the 1960s when they woke up to abuses of racism and other discrimination that they had approved for centuries. Give people the right to sue for anything, they thought, and then they can't blame us.
But these new rights are an illusion. More than 30 years later, we Americans find ourselves looking over our shoulders all day long. Our most important common institutions, schools and hospitals, are paralyzed by the potential legal threats of one angry person.
And win or lose, involvement in a lawsuit is financially and emotionally draining - except for the lawyers, of course. The legal profession has a large stake in, and therefore must shoulder its share of the responsibility for, the culture of litigation.
Restoring balance to justice will require a huge shift in public opinion. A few months ago, some of America's most prominent citizens formed a bipartisan movement, called Common Good, to advocate a dramatic overhaul of our lawsuit culture. This group includes former federal officials such as George McGovern, Newt Gingrich, Paul Simon, Alan Simpson and Eric Holder; current and former university presidents such as Tom Kean, George Rupp and John Silber, and education reformers such as Diane Ravitch.
These are only a few of the prominent leaders from both sides of the political aisle who have come together.
But changes so fundamental can never occur without the support and active involvement of the American public. Like anything else in life, nothing good happens unless people make it happen.
Standing up for what's right has enormous power. To restore Americans' freedom to do just that, whether in a school, a hospital or the workplace, we must first band together to restore reliability to our system of justice.
Howard, a lawyer and author, is chairman of Common Good.
www.ourcommongood.com
Everybody Loses
Fear of being sued is paralyzing Americans -
we must end the lawsuit mania
BY PHILIP K. HOWARD
New York City was hit with a $14 million judgment this year because a subway train didn't stop in time to avoid hitting someone who was lying on the tracks, apparently trying to commit suicide.
It's just the kind of shocking verdict that people dedicated to reforming America's legal system have talked about for years. But crazy verdicts are only the beginning of the problem. Fear of possible lawsuits has changed the culture of America.
Talk to teachers. Keeping discipline is hard when students can threaten that any decision might violate their presumed rights. Forget about putting an arm around the upset second-grader - it might be construed as an unwanted sexual advance. Visit a playground and look for a seesaw. They're rapidly disappearing, going the way of merry-go-rounds, diving boards and other joys of childhood.
No court ever held that seesaws are too dangerous, but who will protect the school board if one child gets off too soon and the other one breaks an ankle?
Ministers in some churches are told not to counsel troubled congregants because - who knows? - someone might sue if the couple gets divorced. All summer, Americans have read stories of our health care system melting down. The maternity ward at Methodist Hospital in south Philadelphia closed. In Florida, nursing home patients pay an extra $10,800 a bed every year to cover legal costs.
The far greater impact is on the quality of health care. Doctors no longer feel comfortable acting on their best judgment. A recent Harris poll found that doctors so distrust American justice that they admit to giving medicines that aren't needed, even performing unnecessary invasive procedures, just to have something on the record in case there is a lawsuit.
Recently, a doorman nervously showed me a complaint in which he was sued for $1 million for a minor car accident a year ago, even though no one went to the hospital. He's having trouble sleeping. Is this justice - or extortion?
Something is terribly wrong here. Americans in all walks of life no longer feel free to do what they know is right. The one thing that almost no one has questioned is that Americans have a right to sue. That's what we've been taught justice is. But what about the right not to be sued?
We forget sometimes why law is important in a free society. Because it is our system for upholding standards of conduct, law makes us comfortable doing what's right and nervous doing what's wrong. Today, Americans feel nervous doing almost anything.
That's because there's a flaw in our modern legal system. Where are the laws and legal rulings that let us know who can sue for what? A judge once defined law as the prediction of what a court will do. Today, no one in America has any idea what a court will do. That means Americans no longer enjoy the protection of law. You can get sued for almost anything.
Lawsuits are important, of course, to prevent abuse. But limiting lawsuits is just as important. Giving everyone the right to sue for whatever they want, we've been told, is our protection. But lawsuits hurt us if any angry person can sue for almost anything. Doctors quit. Our health care premiums go through the roof. Teachers lose control of their classrooms.
There is no constitutional right to sue for anything a person wants.
The point of law is to limit and define claims. That's the reason they're called lawsuits - not go-for-whatever-you-want-suits. Otherwise, one self-interested person can bully everyone else.
What's missing is that people with responsibility for the common good - judges and legislators, among others - no longer see their job as drawing the boundaries of who can sue for what. They abdicated that responsibility in the 1960s when they woke up to abuses of racism and other discrimination that they had approved for centuries. Give people the right to sue for anything, they thought, and then they can't blame us.
But these new rights are an illusion. More than 30 years later, we Americans find ourselves looking over our shoulders all day long. Our most important common institutions, schools and hospitals, are paralyzed by the potential legal threats of one angry person.
And win or lose, involvement in a lawsuit is financially and emotionally draining - except for the lawyers, of course. The legal profession has a large stake in, and therefore must shoulder its share of the responsibility for, the culture of litigation.
Restoring balance to justice will require a huge shift in public opinion. A few months ago, some of America's most prominent citizens formed a bipartisan movement, called Common Good, to advocate a dramatic overhaul of our lawsuit culture. This group includes former federal officials such as George McGovern, Newt Gingrich, Paul Simon, Alan Simpson and Eric Holder; current and former university presidents such as Tom Kean, George Rupp and John Silber, and education reformers such as Diane Ravitch.
These are only a few of the prominent leaders from both sides of the political aisle who have come together.
But changes so fundamental can never occur without the support and active involvement of the American public. Like anything else in life, nothing good happens unless people make it happen.
Standing up for what's right has enormous power. To restore Americans' freedom to do just that, whether in a school, a hospital or the workplace, we must first band together to restore reliability to our system of justice.
Howard, a lawyer and author, is chairman of Common Good.
www.ourcommongood.com
