Torts: Cures Have Become an Epidemic in Need of a Cure

Americans as a people are very just minded. When we see a wrong committed, we want someone to be punished, so the person who's been wronged will feel vindicated, and others who may think of wronging anyone in the same fashion will think twice first. One of our favorite ways to punish people or entities is through our civil court system with torts. This system allows any person to confront any entity that's wronged them and demand retribution. Torts are an important tool enabling people to recover damages lost through medical costs and property lost, as well as reparations for pain and suffering and mental anguish. Tort cases in the American legal system were a cure for many problems, and still are. Unfortunately, torts are now an epidemic that needs a cure.

Many tort cases now are frivolous, with some entering the realm of the totally ridiculous. The cases for and against tort reform are too broad to cover in one paper, but I'll touch on the highlights of each side's case, and give my reasons for agreeing that reform is needed.

Lawsuits, while doling out justice to true victims, also provide opportunities for anyone to get rich simply by suing someone. "I'll sue" is a phrase I've heard too many times in my life. Tort costs are expected to be about 298 billion dollars in 2005, or 2.4 percent of the GDP of the United States according to a study in the CPCU Journal. These costs are broken down as 20 percent for economic losses, 22 percent for non-economic losses, 17 percent for claimant attorney fees, 25 percent for administrative costs, and 16 percent for defense costs. (CPCU Journal) It's not hard to see how these exorbitant costs can drive the prices of liability insurance and medical malpractice insurance up, and indirectly drive up the cost of nearly every product and service we buy. The only real winners here are trial lawyers receiving anywhere from 30 to 40 percent of jury awards.

The lawyers aren't the only ones thinking of lawsuits as another way to get rich. The common American citizen brings suits as just another way of playing a lottery where the odds are probably quite a bit better than real lotteries. We've all heard of the case in California recently where a woman alleged there was a finger in the chili she received from a Wendy's restaurant, which was later shown to have been planted there. Not all cases are actual fabrications, some are just people declining their personal responsibility for their own actions. A few years ago, litigation against the tobacco industry was all the rage, and smokers everywhere were calling the nearest trial lawyer to get them a ticket. How any jury can realistically hold the industry responsible for a smoker getting cancer because they smoked for 20 years or so is beyond me. This was treated just like a lottery, with people absolving themselves of personal responsibility for starting smoking in the first place, and their own failing to have the intestinal fortitude to quit - no matter how bad the addiction.

Many cases are frivolous, and have no basis for the claims purported by the plaintiffs. When a California teen was kicked off his high school baseball team for being charged with securities fraud he sued the school seeking 50 million dollars in damages. The teen asserts those damages are what his future expected earnings would be as a professional baseball player, and that his talents will now go undiscovered by scouts. (Hoffman, Ceniceros) That seems to me to be speculation of the highest order - speculating in the California courts the same way investors do in Wall Street. While most cases brought for litigation aren't frivolous, the ones that actually are earn awards for the plaintiffs way to often, which encourage actions like those of the finger-woman at Wendy's.

In one example from the medical field, a man was awarded 2.2 billion dollars when a company diluted cancer drugs. (CPCU Journal) Obviously, this company should have been made to pay, and the man deserved justice, but 2.2 billion dollars? That guy got more than the GDP of many small nations in one fell swoop, and it's truly a ridiculous amount of money for anyone to get for anything. In California, a couple was awarded 70 million dollars in a judgment against Stanford University Hospital and two other health care centers for failing to prevent their child from becoming disabled by a rare birth condition. (Taylor, et. al.) We don't have enough information in this case to know whether there was anything the hospitals in question could have reasonably been expected to do different. I'll submit that the courts could have done something different, though - they could have given a realistic ruling. The most nefarious one I saw is a Pennsylvania drug addict who's suing a mental hospital because it hadn't warned visitors not to bring drugs in to the patients, or noticed that her visitors brought in heroin and cocaine for her. When she overdosed on the cocaine and heroin and cut herself, of course the responsibility wasn't hers. (Taylor, et. al.)

On the ridiculous side of this house, a man in Broward County is suing liquor giants Bacardi and Coors, among others, for directing their marketing towards minors. In his suit, the man is described "as a parent whose children 'have consumed one or more of the defendants' products while still underage" (Danner). His lawyers have obviously decided this sounds like a good lottery, and are trying to get the case certified as a class action so they can offer tickets to any parents or guardians of minors who purchased alcoholic beverages from1982 to now. (Danner) I'm sure the fact that the more people they get into this, the more they'll receive in fees doesn't have anything to do with them offering this lottery, they probably just want to see justice done.

The tobacco industry is one of the hardest hit, with almost no one nationwide accepting responsibility for their inability to kick the habit. Longtime smokers aren't the only ones who've gone after big tobacco, though. The company that makes Camel cigarettes paid out mucho dinero for using a cartooned camel named Joe in their advertising, with lawyers alleging they were targeting kids. Betty Bullock was awarded 28 billion dollars for having lung cancer, apparently the tobacco company failed to warn her of the risks of smoking. The court later reduced the award to 28 million, which still goes way beyond ridiculous. Long time smoker Richard Boeken was awarded just over 3 billion dollars, which was later reduced to "only" 100 million for damages from cancer. (Taylor, et. al)

All of these ridiculous payments may tempt people to say torts are all bad, but that's not the case. The majority of lawsuits brought not only have merit, but not bringing them