First, let's stop the lawyers

Washington Times ^ | 3/09/03 | Jay Ambrose

[kattracks]

Put a scalpel in the hands of a surgeon and he will sure enough cut your throat, or so many of the nation's trial lawyers would have you believe.

To hear the lawyers tell it, a chief reason for their filing thousands of malpractice suits is the mayhem that vast numbers of deadly doctors are visiting on innocent patients. The doctors must be curbed and the patients must get justice, the lawyers say. And meanwhile, they tell us, all those eye-popping awards aren't the real reason malpractice insurance premiums are going up so sharply, driving doctors out of the profession. Why, the big, bad insurance industry is at fault.

[friendly]

Good post for an under-appreciated critical topic. The medical profession is not pulling out. Critical segments are being driven out of business by the disgusting lawyer industry.

The trauma care, emergency surgical, and obstetrical physicians in a number of states (plus Clark County, Nevada---Las Vegas) are being driven out of business due to massive malpractice premiums they cannot afford. There is no meaningful trauma care in many areas of these states. The obstetricians in particular have been run out of town by the multi-millionaire greed of the shysters.

There is a method to this madness. The democrats will enrich themselves (or at least their trial lawyer constituency), destroy the trauma and obstetrical system, and have the predictable gall to demand a federal takeover and universal health system to "correct" the non-functional, lawyer-ravaged system. I am absolutely convinced this will be lawyer-politician Hillary's agenda and main selling point when the time comes.

I think that the trial lawyers are only too happy to be a part of the democrat effort to destroy the health care system, so that the democrats will then trot themselves out of the shadows to claim to be saviors!. I strongly believe that national health care will be the cornerstone to a Hillary Clinton campaign.

One maddening thing (for the docs) about the med malpractice industry is that the suits and payouts generally bear no relationship to competence. Thus doctors who agree see the most high risk (sickest) patients are the most likely to be sued. Very sick patients are more likely to have adverse outcomes. Emergency trauma cases (often performed under insane battlefield type conditions) are the ones where sponges (pads to soak up blood) and other objects are left behind, something the democrats will never tell you. Another example is the gold mine (for crooked lawyers) who make mega-bucks off of neurosurgeons (brain injury almost always has some residual brain damage, by definition) and obstetricans (congenital blameless birth defects equals lawyer yachts and French Riviera condos).

My recommendations for this problem and for the unregulated lawyer plague that damages all of our lives in so many ways? The world would be a better place with:

1) Loser Pays. This is the law in the civilized democratic world. Waivers are given to the poor, as is the case with most reform proposals in the US to end the current astonishingly corrupt system.

2) Massive tort reform on a unprecedented level

3) Widespread empowerment of paralegals for independent practice

4) An end to punitive damages.

5) An end to bogus class action suits.

6) Outlawing contingency fees (This is considered grossly unethical and is completely illegal in almost all other democracies).

7) Lawyers forbidden from running from office. They are agents of the judiciary. Practicing attorneys violate The Separation of Powers when they enrich their lawyer industry at public suffering. The Constitution mandates The Separation of Powers between the 3 branches of government. Lawyers are members of the Judiciary and should therefore not be eligible for the Presidency (the Executive branch) or the Congress (the Legislative branch). I believe strongly as a matter of ethics, that a lawyer like Hillary, Bill, or John Edwards must give up membership in the bar, if only temporarily, when serving in the Senate or seeking (God forbid) the Presidency. These vermin can always reapply to the bar after leaving office. It is an important ethical point. Actually someone like Hillary or Bill would not be re-admitted to the bar. Bill Clinton was in fact disbarred due to his illegal activities.

8) Most important: a total disempowerment of the bar associations. Lawyer discipline by true consumer control agencies. Regulated by an open governmental process, with all complaints against lawyers open for public inspection. Like any other industry. Government has, even for the most libertarian of tastes, basic functions to protect the nation. And the lawyer industry is a grave threat to our freedoms and democracy, make no mistake.

[kcvl]

bttt

[friendly]

Time for massive, massive reform of the utterly corrupt and de facto unregulated lawyer industry.

[jazzlite]

People really need to pay attention to this. I recently heard that trial lawyers are soaking up 2% of our gross national product with these frivilous lawsuits which, of course, is a hidden tax on all our citizens. This practice is now crippling our economy as companies have to pay out huge amounts to defense lawyers to fight these cases.. But, malpractice is the subject here and we have in KY at the moment a case exactly like you describe. One of the most skilled, best loved and most successful OB/GYN physicians, in our state, Dr. Mike Guiler, is currently being sued by a woman because he used a bit of creativity in the marking he had to make as he removed her uterus during a hysterectomy. His procedure is very specialized, requiring experience and unusual skill and it allows a much quicker recovery (2 weeks as opposed to 6 weeks). Dr. Guiler is very proud of and involved in his alma mater, the University of KY and therefore, designed his marking to resemble UK. His mistake was to provide to his patients a video of the operation for them to keep. Eventually, someone found great "pain and suffering" connected to the UK marking Dr. Guilder used as his guide to safely remover the uterus which was then discarded. The media was right on this. When the news of this lawsuit broke, a couple of the Lexington TV stations sensationalized the case in such a way that Dr. Guiler immediately came to the attention of the national media, who, interestingly enough, treated him with a lot more fairness than the local stations. He was compared to a Dr. who branded his initials into the abdomen of a female patient when the two cases could not have been more different. For those of us who understood what was going on, it was just infuriating! During this time, I watched the coverage during one day and was shocked that during almost every break I was treated to an ad by an ambulance chasing lawyer. It was obscene. The majority of Dr. Guiler's other GYN patients, I understand, are rushing to his defense and we will see how all of this turns out. The psychological/emotional and just plain anger that the physician must feel when faced with these travesties must be overwhelming. Shortly after this story broke, the Democrats in our KY Legislature stopped malpractice reform which could have addressed this. For those interested in this problem, one of the best articles was published in the WEEKLY STANDARD, February 24, 2003, page 19, "Getting Fat on Torts." by William Tucker. He states that Walter Olson in his new book, THE RULE OF LAWYERS, points out that the lawyers who took the lead in the tobacco lawsuits ended up making more than $100,000 an hour. This kind of compensation is bloating law school applications as more and more young people apply for this easy route to riches. Mr. Tucker discusses the most recent assault to our senses, the attempted suit against McDonald's brought by eight New York City teenagers, claiming that McDonald's food made them fat. We desperately need reform in this area. It has now become the fashion in the tort industry to go after the brightest and the best, both in medicine and in industry and if the people allow this to continue, it will not be the terrorists who bring American down, but rather our own out of control legal system and its supporters in government. To put the idea out there that the blame for this lies with the insurance companies is an assault on any thinking person's intelligence. Good people need to support lawmakers willing to confront this because it has the potential for great destruction to our society if not addressed soon.

[Houmatt]

1) Loser Pays. This is the law in the civilized democratic world. Waivers are given to the poor, as is the case with most reform proposals in the US to end the current astonishingly corrupt system.

Yes, they have such a system in Canada, which is why you don't see people using the civil courts to abdicate common sense and personal responsibility up there.

[RJCogburn]

All good ideas, but a real problem is that there are simply too many lawyers. They all want to make a living and seek opportunities, coming up with new legal 'theories' and finding more and more areas in which to be involved.

Meanwhile they get themselves elected to legislative bodies so they can write laws that are incomprehensible and then hire themselves out to interpret them and argue over their meanings with other members of the fraternity, while all the while those 'billable hours' mount........

which reminds me of a lousy joke. A lawyer goes to his doctor who tells him that he has bad news, the lawyer is gravely ill. "Give it to me straight, doc," he says, "how many billable hours do I have left?"

[justrepublican]

Before I scrolled down I thought it read

For the sake of the citizenry's welfare, the lawyers have to be stoned.

[BIGZ]

Lawyers are living proof that homosexual relations beget offspring.

[freedumb2003]

>>Yes, they have such a system in Canada, which is why you don't see people using the civil courts to abdicate common sense and personal responsibility up there.<<

Ya know, you totally mess up my Canada bashing when they do something so eminently sensible.

*sigh* Well, at least I still have the French to beat up on.

[AEMILIUS PAULUS]

Granted lawyers are corrupt. However, it takes a judge to turn the lawyers corrupt argument and "proof" into a case result. The problem is the judiciary and the academics (like Prosser).This problem goes back years. Ever expanding liability with an ever lowering burden of proof. For example, prior to 1915 emotional distress resulting from a scar was not compensable. The California Supreme Court then ruled that "emotional Damage" resulting from a scar was compensable. This ruling spread accross the country. The "Pure Comparative Fault" fraud which turns everything into a question of fact to be decided by a jury. Jury trials increase risk hence settlements. Plus, when a comparative case goes to trial juries have virtually unfettered discretion. The problems are very deep.

[AndyJackson]

a real problem is that there are simply too many lawyers

Have you thought about how frightening this is. A very large fraction of the money that was consumed by the investment banking community in the boom days of the '90's went to attornies in the middle of all of these deals. Those deals are gone as the volume of business has dried up. The thought of all of those avoracious attornies out on the street, trying to do you and me out of house and home is truly horrifying.

[AndyJackson]

I would like to propose a new forum on Free Republic - Tort Reform. It is clear that there is a ground swell of growing support on this enormously important topic, with a lot of proposed legislation, and I think it important that we have a medium to keep the heat on our congress critters and state legislatures to do the right things.

There are a lot of organizations out there who should be aware of us and be aware that we are on there side to bring the lawyers, judges, and Bar Association to heel for their mis-deeds. After all as the joke goes 97% of attornies are giving the rest a bad name.

[StriperSniper]

to attornies in the middle of all of these deals

They write the rules, and include themselves in everything by rule. When someone does what they do, they charge them as a monopoly or slap a RICO suit on them. They are "legal" gangsters.

[friendly]

A lawyer goes to his doctor who tells him that he has bad news, the lawyer is gravely ill. "Give it to me straight, doc," he says, "how many billable hours do I have left?"

LOL

A man walks into a friend and sees that his friend's car is total loss and covered with leaves, grass, branches, dirt and blood.

He asks his friend, "What's happened to your car?" "Well," the friend responses, "I ran into a lawyer".

"Okay," says the man, "That explains the blood... but what about the leaves, the grass, the branches and the dirt?"

"Well, I had to chase him all through the park."

[friendly]

I would like to propose a new forum on Free Republic - Tort Reform. It is clear that there is a ground swell of growing support on this enormously important topic, with a lot of proposed legislation, and I think it important that we have a medium to keep the heat on our congress critters and state legislatures to do the right things

BRAVO! Excellent idea!

[friendly]

Loser pays is also just simple justice. Reform efforts grant waivers for those poor that are not simply employees of law firms.

Simple justice is the last thing you will ever get from the unregulated, evil US lawyer industry.

[friendly]

BTW you wrote an excellent, thoughtful post.

[Billy_bob_bob]

Excellent post. I wholeheartedly agree with everything you said. Well put!

[friendly]

bttt