Rightist Crap

Rightist crap is based on such gross dishonesty and distortion. See the following. While the abuse Stossel references did occur, the underlying claims, by and by and were either legit or tossed by the courts. Rightist tort reform would keep the truly injured from recourse while the system as it is, by and by, provides it own reform: judges tossing meritless cases.

Assholes like Stossel are dangerous idiots....

Fox Bidness Journal:

Foes of lawsuit abuse have been writing gleefully about the fall of Dickie Scruggs, Bill Lerach and Melvyn Weiss. All three lawyers are likely to spend time in jail for plotting to bribe a judge (Scruggs) or paying kickbacks (Lerach and Weiss).

Good riddance.

Locking them up will stop them from further damaging America – at least for a few years. But it's a small victory for reformers.

New members of the parasite circus will just step forward to take their place. And what these aggressive class-action and securities lawyers do legally is more damaging to America than the crimes that Scruggs, Lerach and Weiss committed. They broke laws to cheat other lawyers out of some loot, but at least that barely hurt the public.

An editorial in this newspaper justifiably mocked Lerach for declaring his lawbreaking a mere "foot fault" ("I stepped over the line," he said). But at least paying off plaintiffs honestly reflects how such lawyers get rich. Often, they are less "officers of the court seeking justice" than businessmen colluding with plaintiffs in a lucrative extortion business. Legal extortion. But still extortion. Companies pay the lawyers to go away even when it's unclear that they did anything wrong.

Once companies pay, it's logical that the plaintiff/partner who helped the lawyers enrich themselves should get a cut of that loot. That's a fairer deal than what typical plaintiffs in class actions get: coupons or a check for perhaps $1.26.

A federal judge will soon decide whether to award Lerach his cut of what may be the biggest class-action legal fee ever. Lerach extorted – I mean persuaded – J.P. Morgan, Citigroup and a Canadian bank to give $695 million to him and other lawyers who claimed the banks were culpable in the Enron debacle. On March 19, 2007 an appellate court ruled that the banks were not culpable. But so what? Fairness doesn't necessarily govern this game. The game is more about rounding up lots of complainants and using America's one-sided legal system to terrorize businesses into settling.

Companies could fight and win, but that distracts managers from what they ought to be doing. And they might get a bad jury and lose the entire company. It's safer to settle.

Our legal system invites lawyers to act like bullies. For "20/20" tonight, I report on a class-action lawyer who's suing his neighbor for smoking in her own apartment. Toxins are "being breathed every day by our 4-year-old," says Jonathan Selbin of Lieff, Cabraser, Heimann & Bernstein. His frightened neighbor had the apartment manager seal off air ducts between the two apartments, but Mr. Selbin sued anyway, claiming smoke was in the hallway. Mr. Selbin's neighbor was unusually feisty in going to the media to fight back, at least for a while. But last night, she decided to settle. After all, Mr. Selbin had written her that he had a legal advantage, because he and his wife "are both lawyers, and both litigators, for whom the usual barriers to litigation are minimal." Right. Mr. Selbin wrote ABC, "I have recovered more than $2 billion in cash for consumers defrauded by companies. I am proud of what I do." He wouldn't tell us how much of the $2 billion he kept.

What do we get from this kind of "private law enforcement"? Very little. James Copland of the Manhattan Institute points out, "The small, diversified investor is as likely to be a buyer as a seller and thus a payer in a class action settlement. The 'little guy' pays money to himself." Actually, it's worse than that: Little guys come out behind because the lawyers pocket so much.

If securities class actions really deterred fraud, their high cost might be justified. But research from St. John's Law School Prof. Michael Perino shows that most of these lawsuits follow SEC investigations. The lawyers don't unearth frauds. They come in like vultures after the problem is already revealed. We pay for that.

Onerous as the legal fees are, the nastier cost is the loss of so many good things. Weiss's former firm got companies to pay $45 billion in damages. That's $45 billion that will not create new jobs or life-saving drugs.

The fear also reduces options. After Dickie Scruggs filed his post-Katrina class action against insurance companies, State Farm, citing an "untenable legal environment," stopped insuring homes in Mississippi.

America needs judges willing to say "no" to legal bullies. America also needs the legal standard that works in most of the world: "loser pays." Without reform, the parasites will take away your money and your choices.