We live in dangerous times. Our food supply becomes more tainted as staples like eggs, produce and peanut butter pass on deadly germs, and even tap water becomes undrinkable. Cars run amok but their manufacturers can’t explain why, and hardly a week goes by without some innocent child being killed by a faulty crib, car seat or toy. Medications that are supposed to heal are regularly revealed to cause more harm than good, and every year, medical malpractice accounts for eight times more American deaths than drunk drivers.
The list of stealth killers is long and unfortunately growing – tobacco, asbestos, lead paint, cars with exploding gas tanks, Bridgestone tires, runaway Toyotas, tainted peanut butter, drugs like Vioxx and Avandia, Guidant defibrillators and Boston Scientific heart stents. And while those are the products we read about in the newspaper, they are merely the tip of the proverbial iceberg. When we’re sick or injured, we’re forced to go to self-policing hospitals that can’t control infections, often administer wrong medications or improper dosages, operate on the wrong body parts, and still leave instruments and sponges inside patients with alarming frequency.
Incredibly, the businesses, corporations, trade groups, and professionals who are responsible for creating these and other dangers for ordinary Americans have spent much of their effort, not on fixing their own problems or healing those whom they have harmed, but avoiding the legal consequences of their actions. They have lobbied mightily to remove protective regulations and get industry-friendly foxes to guard the people’s henhouses. They unabashedly seek to limit the full expense of their own bad behavior, thereby shifting the cost of injuries back to victims, society and the taxpayers.
For decades, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other industry groups have invested heavily in the election of business-friendly legislators and meddled in the selection of judges. In this year’s midterm balloting, the Chamber funneled unprecedented, untraceable millions from American, foreign and multinational corporations into our electoral process. Now, those same corporations will be looking for a return on their investment.
Although they have succeeded in buying influence in the halls of power, they have met with stubborn resistance in the halls of justice where ordinary people get to judge their conduct. Thus, they have turned to a strategy that goes far beyond targeting lawmakers; they want to turn Americans against the very court system that protects us all. For decades, big business has spent near-limitless amounts on public relations to vilify attorneys, discredit the jury system, divert attention from their own misdeeds, and deceive voters and jurors into believing their fellow, innocently injured citizens are “hitting the jackpot” by filing “frivolous lawsuits.”
Since the beginnings of our democracy, our civil courts have served as the great equalizer where every man, woman and child can hold even the largest and most powerful corporations accountable. As we have seen in the BP oil disaster, Toyota recall, the Massey mine explosion and numerous other public safety catastrophes, government regulators too often are unable or unwilling to protect Americans from harm. Lawsuits decided by juries have been the only way to hold corporations and their high-priced executives responsible, and deter them from endangering the public. Jury trials publicize and warn of corporate misdeeds and allow average Americans to decide the appropriate punishment. That’s why the powerful corporate interests want lawsuits gone.
Legislators in Washington and Harrisburg, allied with big business and Wall Street, have made it known that one of their top priorities for 2011 will be demanding pro-industry restrictions, known as “tort reform,” on the people’s right to sue. They have teamed up with the price-gouging insurance industry and will cleverly use friendly figures like doctors and small businessmen to hide their profits-over-people agenda.
However, their success is neither inevitable nor certain. Public exposure of their dangerous ideology and underhanded methods, and a full understanding of the truly devastating effects of their schemes can tip the scales back, but only if we are willing to fight for our rights. Tort reform has yet to save its first life or prevent its first injury. That’s something they don’t want you to think about as you drive to work, go shopping, or check into a hospital. To be forewarned is to be forearmed. Consider yourself forewarned.
