Hypocrisy of attacks on consumers

The efforts being made by tort reformers to make it harder for citizens to stand up for their rights is part of a larger attack on the health and safety of all consumers. Consumers are under attack by large business interests, and tort reform is just one battleground. Others are in the health care and financial arenas. In order to see the hypocrisy of these 'reformers,' it is necessary to look no further than the AJC.

For example, an AJC article last week reported that both of Georgia's Senators were among the 32 Republicans who just voted against the bill to expand health insurance coverage to 4 million children who are presently uninsured. The estimated cost of that legislation is $32 billion over the next 4-1/2 years, or around $7 billion per year. Yet in the same issue of the AJC, it was reported in another article that banking executives had paid themselves $18 billion in bonuses over the past year -- using funds from the massive financial industry bailout that was supported by the same Georgia Senators. What is more important, $7 billion to provide health care for 4 million American, or $18 billion to make rich bankers even richer?

The week before, the AJC reported that a four-year study by the GAO revealed woeful deficiencies in the FDA's review process for approval of medical devices. The article stated that 228 medical devices had been approved by the FDA without adequate review, and reported that “the FDA acknowledged the problem.” But in the same issue of the AJC, there was an editorial by columnist Jim Wooten supporting Governor Perdue's proposal to immunize companies from lawsuits over deaths and injuries caused by FDA-approved drugs and medical devices which may be dangerous despite being rubber-stamped by FDA bureaucrats. Peanuts, anyone?

State Budget Crisis Threatens Access to Civil Justice System

Budget shortfalls in Georgia have forced superior courts statewide to eliminate the use of senior judges, burdening already overloaded court dockets. Injured plaintiffs that rely on the civil justice system are likely to be victims of these cuts.

Senior judges are retired superior court judges who serve as needed to resolve backlogs of cases and preside over trials. They have been used with increasing frequency as caseloads around the state have increased.

Fulton County Superior Court Judge Melvin Westmoreland criticized the cuts: “It’s unfortunate the State’s mismanagement of funds has brought to a halt the most fiscally responsible way to deal with the shortage of full-time judges available to handle increased civil filings and criminal prosecutions. As a result the county jails will become even more crowded and cases will move slower through the system.”

While criminal litigants can often take advantage of speedy trial demands to move their cases through the court system, civil litigants have no such rights and cases can drag on for years before reaching trial. At least one judicial district has temporarily suspended all civil trials because of crowded dockets.

Injured plaintiffs are placed in a particularly difficult position when they are unable to have their day in court, especially when their injuries have prevented them from working. The insurance companies that are ultimately responsible for paying the plaintiff's damages, on the other hand, are likely to benefit from increasingly desperate injured parties who are willing to settle for less than the true value of their case because they cannot afford to face financial ruin while waiting years to present their case to a jury.

Contributed by John D. Hadden
Turkheimer & Hadden, LLC