Hitting Back on Misleading Trial Lawyers Claims - Research Help

[Justice]

I was thinking we need to develop a list of Republicans who have used lawyers to assist them in litigation matters. Everytime the Republicans talk about trial lawyers, we can show the list and say, well hey, why then did Rick Santorom and his wife sue a doctor/chiro and collect $$$.

Please post names/other details of republicans using trial lawyers/bringing lawsuits.

Also, please post any claims made against republicans where trial lawyers exposed republican's bad deeds. For example, I am thinking about claims made against Bill Frist's company.

[Tempest]

1. Tom DeLay's biggest campaign contributors are trial lawyers

You can find the info on opensecrets.org and followthemoney.org

[Jon8503]

2. What about Rush Limbaugh and the ACLU, does that count?

The ACLU is defending him on the right to keep his medical records private. He is accepting their help.

[PA Democrat]

3. Info on Karen Santorum's Lawsuit

WASHINGTON -- A Virginia jury last night awarded the wife of Sen. Rick Santorum $350,000 in damages after she charged in a lawsuit that a Virginia chiropracter's negligence caused her permanent back pain.

Deliberating more then six hours after a four-day trial in which Santorum, R-Pa., testified, the Fairfax County Circuit Court jury unanimously ruled for Karen Santorum. She had sought $500,000 against Dr. David Dolberg of Virginia, because of pain from his 1996 treatment of her.

"Mrs. Santorum has been vindicated," said her Pittsburgh attorney Heather Heidelbaugh. "She was injured permanently through the actions of a chiropractor who acted negligently."

http://www.valleyskeptic.com/chirosuit.html

[BurtWorm]

4. Bush campaign 2000, run like girlie men to court to stop the vote count

after brazenly predicting Gore would be the first into court. Republican idiots still can't believe it was their boy who ran to court first. It's loads of fun to rub their snot noses in that!

[mbali]

5. George W. Bush

We know that Bush hired the best trial lawyers he knew and hightailed it to federal court in 2000 to stop Florida from actually counting the votes.

But what most people don't know is that this is only part of a pattern that Bush has of using the courts to protect his interests while trying to slam the courthouse door on ordinary people.

For example, in 1998 Bush sued Enterprise Rent-a-Car in 1998 over a minor car accident involving his daughter in which no one was hurt. The New York Daily News reported that President Bush sued Enterprise Rent-A-Car over a minor 1998 auto accident in which no one was hurt. A woman with a suspended license driving a car she rented from Enterprise hit W's Jeep Cherokee, driven by his daughter Jenna. Although the accident was so minor that police weren't even called, Bush sued Enterprise and got a settlement of between $2,000 and $2,500, even though his insurance would likely have covered all of the costs from the accident.

Source: "Bush turned litigious, targeted rental car firm over fender bender," New York Daily News, 8/26/2000

http://www.atla.org/ConsumerMediaResources/Tier3/press_room/FACTS/medmal/bushsantorumhypocrisy.aspx

[Minimus]

6. check out the general accounting office - GAO

they researched malpractice insurance at the request of Repubs and Repubs did not like what they found out.



Provides good general talking points:

link to trial lawyes site

http://www.atlanet.org/ConsumerMediaResources/Tier3/press_room/FACTS/medmal/medmal.aspx

[mbali]

9. For example . . .

Actions taken by health care providers in response to rising malpractice premiums have contributed to localized health care access problems in the five states reviewed with reported problems. GAO confirmed instances in the five states of reduced access to hospital-based services affecting emergency surgery and newborn deliveries in scattered, often rural, areas where providers identified other long-standing factors that also affect the availability of services. Instances were not identified in the four states without reported problems. In the five states with reported problems, however, GAO also determined that many of the reported provider actions were not substantiated or did not affect access to health care on a widespread basis. For example, although some physicians reported reducing certain services they consider to be high risk in terms of potential litigation, such as spinal surgeries and mammograms, GAO did not find access to these services widely affected, based on a review of Medicare data and contacts with providers that have reportedly been affected. "Implications of Rising Premiums on
Access to Health Care" August 2003 http://www.gao.gov/highlights/d03836high.pdf

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

7. Paula Jones :)

[MadHound]

8. A few things to point out

First off, pick up a copy of the latest Mother Jones. In it you will find the figures on how the actual numbers of malpractice suits have gone down in the past ten years, along with the amounts awarded. Then follow that up with figures from the National Insurance Institute that show how while over the past four years as insurance companies investment returns went through the basement, the payments we all make, including malpractice and liability, went through the roof.

Despite all of the claims by the insurance industry and their backers, it is obvious to anyone who looks that the insurance industry is simply recouping their investment losses via increased insurance payments by their customers. Insurance companies make the bulk of their profits off of investments, and since the market tanked, we are all paying for their foolish investments.

[mbali]

14. AND Corporations are responsible for most litigation

Contract and property cases - most involving business - comprise more than 1/3 of all civil cases in state courts; by comparison, only 0.21% of all civil cases were product liability claims.
Source: National Center for State Courts

Businesses suing each other over contracts comprised nearly half of all federal court cases.
Source: The Wall Street Journal.

Business cases account for 47% of all punitive damage awards. On the other hand, only 4.4% and 2% of punitive damage awards are due to product liability and medical malpractice cases respectively.
Source: Rand Institute for Civil Justice, 1996

The Bush folks think all of this is fine. In fact, some of their favorite people are the lawyers who bring these lawsuits - including Swift Boat Liar John O'Neill. The only lawsuits they have a problem with are those brought by individuals attempting to recover for injuries inflicted upon them by doctors and corporations.

[Norquist Nemesis]

10. Don't forget Ken Starr on your dime!

[Viking12]

11. Here's a bit of a primer on the issue:

Here's a bit of a primer on the issue:

The White House has long been laying the groundwork for a campaign against the North Carolina senator, who made his fortune representing people with injury claims against doctors and corporations. Bush and other Republicans have blamed lawsuits for everything from rising health care costs to unemployment; with Edwards on the Democratic ticket, the GOP -- and its allies in the corporate world -- have dramatically turned up the volume. Treasury Secretary John Snow fired the first shot, two days after John Kerry announced his selection: "An abusive lawsuit has never created a single job, except for personal injury lawyers," he told an audience in Maine, "but baseless and excessive suits have killed many." Vice President Dick Cheney struck the same chord at a July 12 fundraiser in Pennsylvania, saying, "For the good of this economy, we need to end lawsuit abuse. Junk and frivolous lawsuits put people out of work." The Bush campaign has also unleashed a new TV ad, attacking Kerry for missing a vote "to lower health care costs by reducing frivolous lawsuits against doctors."

Behind those slogans are years of painstaking fine-tuning by Republican consultants, focus groups, and corporate think tanks. The term "lawsuit abuse" was coined in the early 1990s by Jan van Lohuizan, a Washington pollster wholater helped plan Bush's 2000 presidential campaign. More than 100 corporate-funded groups have been working to convince the public that the legal system is out of control; organizations such as the American Tort Reform Association and Citizens Against Lawsuit Abuse, using expensive PR firms and funds from companies like Philip Morris, have spent years testing sound bites and spreading stories of a court system out of control.

That multimillion-dollar investment has turned corporate concerns about such esoteric things as "joint and several liability" into a populist crusade to "stop lawsuit abuse" and return the country to the good old days when old ladies who spilled hot coffee on themselves got sympathy, not punitive damages. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has spent more than $100 million over the past three years on TV ads and lobbying for legislation to restrict citizens' right to sue, a goal known as "tort reform." (In the courts, "tort" means an injury, which can include anything from libel to malpractice.) The issue is such a high priority for the Chamber that its president, Thomas J. Donohue, moved in the wake of Edwards' selection toward abandoning a longstanding policy of neutrality in presidential elections. Jerry Jasinowski, president of the National Association of Manufacturers, told the New York Times that businesspeople are "more frightened by than terrorists."

Yet much of the anti-lawsuit campaign is based on dubious numbers, questionable anecdotes, and, in some cases, out-and-out fiction. Consider Bush's claims of a malpractice insurance crisis in Pennsylvania. Soon after his speech, doctors marched on the Pennsylvania Capitol with placards that cried: "Need an appendectomy? Call a trial lawyer!" The Washington Post reported at least 1,100 doctors had left Pennsylvania in recent years because of rising malpractice premiums caused by lawsuits, and a Time cover story declared that nationwide, doctors were retiring because of higher premiums resulting from "multimillion-dollar judgments awarded for tragic but sometimes unavoidable outcomes."

http://www.motherjones.com/news/outfront/2004/09/09_400...

[Viking12]

13. More

These criminals are pathological liars.

http://www.citizen.org/congress/civjus/tort/myths/artic...

Department of Justice Study Disproves Tort "Reform" Myths

A report recently released by the Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Statistics deflates many of the myths that so-called "tort reformers" use to condemn our civil justice system. The August 2000 report, "Tort Trials and Verdicts in Large Counties, 1996," is the third in a series of reports based on a survey of the 75 largest counties in the United States. Report highlights include the following:

Tort "Reform" Myth: Punitive damages are awarded too often and are too high, resulting in a plaintiff’s lottery tort system.
Study Says: Wrong! Punitive damages are very rare, and when awarded they are small. Punitive damages are only awarded in 3.3% of the tort trials won by plaintiffs. According to the report, the median punitive damage award in 1996 was only $38,000, not the millions awarded in rare but highly publicized cases covered by the media. The likelihood of a punitive damage award varied with the kind of tort alleged. Of the cases studies, only 3 asbestos trials, or 3.2% of asbestos trials, resulted in a punitive damage award, and those plaintiffs received only $1,100 each in punitive damages. Only 3, or 1.1%, of the medical malpractice cases resulted in punitive damage awards. Of the products liability trials (excluding asbestos) studied, only 11, or 12.5%, resulted in punitive damage awards.

Tort "Reform" Myth: Damage awards are escalating out of control.
Study Says: Wrong! The amounts awarded to plaintiffs for economic, non-economic, and punitive damages are decreasing dramatically. Juries are awarding smaller amounts to winning plaintiffs, particularly in automobile tort cases. Between 1992 and 1996, jury awards declined by 47%, from $57,000 to $30,000. This is strong evidence that juries are being polluted by media reports and the tort "reformers’" message that punitive damages are only a "lottery win" for prevailing plaintiffs. This study shows the need to educate the public, and therefore potential jurors, of the valuable deterrent effect of punitive damages on dangerous and harmful products and conduct.

Tort "Reform" Myth: Juries get caught up in the emotion of a trial, ignore the law and find for sympathetic plaintiffs.
Study Says: Wrong! The "Runaway Jury" theory is a myth. Judges are more likely than juries to decide in favor of the plaintiff. Plaintiffs win in tort trial cases 48% of the time. Moreover, they are more likely to win tort trials decided by a judge (57%) than a jury (48%). The likelihood of a plaintiff winning varies among the kinds of torts. Generally, plaintiffs fare best with bench trials in premises liability, product liability (excluding asbestos), and medical malpractice cases. In premises liability trials, verdicts are in favor of the plaintiff 52% of the time when decided by a judge, compared to 38% of the time when decided by a jury. Plaintiffs won 63% of automobile tort trials before judges but only 57% before juries. In medical malpractice trials, plaintiffs won 38% of bench verdicts but only 23% of jury verdicts. An even more profound difference is found in product liability torts (excluding asbestos), where plaintiffs win 70% of trials decided by a judge and 31% decided by juries

[ClassWarrior]

12. Are you talking about Public Protection Attorneys??

[no_hypocrisy]

15. Former Senator Al D'Amato (NY) when he was facing ethics charges in

Congress during the mid-90's. I don't think Al formulated his strategy without a little help from a competent trial lawyer.