Tort Reform and the Recent Class Action Fairness Act
Businesses, Lawyers Lobby for Political Influence
William McGarrity, BBA 1
Issue date: 3/14/05 Section: Features
spotlight from the Michael Jackson trial, something much more important has been going on in the legal world: the federal government has entered the tort reform battle. The first piece of President Bush's campaign to amend the civil justice system, the Class Action Fairness Act of 2005 (CAFA), was passed in hopes of reigning in our overly litigious society. While this particular legislation is new, it would be remiss to label tort reform as a recent event; it has been the subject of contentious debate among lawyers and lawmakers for more than a decade.
First things first though, what exactly is tort law, and why the need for reform? Tort law deals with personal injury, both intentional and accidental in nature (most cases of intentional injury understandably end up as criminal matters). The previous sentence may have brought to mind all the poorly produced "personal injury attorney" commercials you've been subjected to over the years. That's right, we're talking about those lawyers critics would call "ambulance chasers". To be fair, many lawyers representing victims in civil cases are likely interested only in pursuing fair and legitimate legal remedies. Either way, money is the central issue here, and there is a lot at stake. A Tillinghast Towers-Perrin study revealed that the U.S. tort system cost $205 billion in 2001. To put that into perspective, that amount annually could ensure the social security system's health indefinitely.
Proponents of reform point to some particularly egregious examples of unjust suits: the McDonalds hot coffee case ($2.9 million), the six trial lawyers in the big tobacco settlement who netted $5 billion for their firms, or the more recent case of an elderly woman successfully suing her neighbors for leaving homemade cookies on her doorstep (she was frightened). The American Tort Reform Association's website maintains an often comical list of the most offensive cases (atra.org).
The biggest opponent of reform is the American Trial Lawyers' Bar. This group represents those lawyers whose livelihood depends on big settlements. They counter that on the whole the system is functioning properly; the handful of examples reformers focus on are not representative of the majority of cases. Furthermore, they contend that reformers are merely seeking to enrich corporations and doctors by giving them a carte blanche to behave negligently. A recent book, Distorting the Law, by Michael McCann and William Haltom, claims that "tort tales" are embellished or even created by eager reformers and hardly reflect reality.
First things first though, what exactly is tort law, and why the need for reform? Tort law deals with personal injury, both intentional and accidental in nature (most cases of intentional injury understandably end up as criminal matters). The previous sentence may have brought to mind all the poorly produced "personal injury attorney" commercials you've been subjected to over the years. That's right, we're talking about those lawyers critics would call "ambulance chasers". To be fair, many lawyers representing victims in civil cases are likely interested only in pursuing fair and legitimate legal remedies. Either way, money is the central issue here, and there is a lot at stake. A Tillinghast Towers-Perrin study revealed that the U.S. tort system cost $205 billion in 2001. To put that into perspective, that amount annually could ensure the social security system's health indefinitely.
Proponents of reform point to some particularly egregious examples of unjust suits: the McDonalds hot coffee case ($2.9 million), the six trial lawyers in the big tobacco settlement who netted $5 billion for their firms, or the more recent case of an elderly woman successfully suing her neighbors for leaving homemade cookies on her doorstep (she was frightened). The American Tort Reform Association's website maintains an often comical list of the most offensive cases (atra.org).
The biggest opponent of reform is the American Trial Lawyers' Bar. This group represents those lawyers whose livelihood depends on big settlements. They counter that on the whole the system is functioning properly; the handful of examples reformers focus on are not representative of the majority of cases. Furthermore, they contend that reformers are merely seeking to enrich corporations and doctors by giving them a carte blanche to behave negligently. A recent book, Distorting the Law, by Michael McCann and William Haltom, claims that "tort tales" are embellished or even created by eager reformers and hardly reflect reality.
