On Mon, 27 Sep 2004 08:46:42 +1000, Franc Zabkar
wrote:

On Fri, 24 Sep 2004 01:59:13 -0500, gothika put
finger to keyboard and composed:

On Thu, 23 Sep 2004 08:09:40 +1000, Franc Zabkar
wrote:

John Edwards, John Kerry's
running mate, has made a preposterously rich living chasing
ambulances. According to the July 19, 2004 issue of Time, he, like
many greedy lawyers, charges a whopping 33% for each successful
litigation. That means that hundreds of millions of dollars goes into
the pockets of these parasites, and of course the public ultimately
foots the bill. According to the Center for Public Integrity, Edwards
won judgments totalling more than US$152m in 63 lawsuits.

The public always foots the bill because the greedy corporate
parasites refuse to take any kind of a loss, even when it's due to
their own selfish actions.
How typical of a Repube to always attack character instead of honestly
debating the issues.

I'm not a Republican, nor a conservative. I choose to evaluate every
issue on its merits, rather than accept an indivisible bag of
prepackaged policies. In that respect I consider myself a democrat, in
the dictionary sense of the word, not a "Democrat".

Who CARES if he chases ambulances! That's the JOB of a personal injury
lawyer. At least he's there to get you some sort of justice.
Why don't you mention the lawyers for the defendants who all to often
sneak in illegally to trick the injured party's signature on liability
release forms.

I despise *all* lawyers. Their profession is devoid of ethics and is
founded purely on self interest. Any proposed legislation should
impose limits on legal fees - it should not be a case of open slather.
To take one example, most cases of workers' compensation fraud in
Australia go unpunished, or uncontested, because legal costs exceed
the benefits gained. In fact, lawyers in Australia are an impediment
to justice, at least for the middle income earners. The rich scum can
afford to buy any legal outcome they choose, and the dregs at the
bottom of the social order have access to free legal aid.
No different in the US. The rich have bought the legal system
lock,stock and barrel.
That's why they are now pushing legislation to lock out the working
class from any use of the system to their benefit.
hence the need for lawyers even more.
I'm sure their are necesary evils in your society that you accept
every day, so why so adverse to a few lawyers.
As bad as many lawyers may be there are far worse persons in the
workings of the system doing far more harm.
Take politicians for instance!
A good analogy would be fighting fire with fire.

(DON"T say it doesn't happens, happens every day.)
Or that the defendants all to often clog up the justice system with
endless appeals thereby costing taxpayers millions in court costs.

Agreed. And nothing will change as long as voters continue to vote for
lawyers.

In one case Edwards won damages in the amount of $4.2m for a child
born with brain damage and later diagnosed with cerebral palsy. This
case has contributed to an increase of 5% in the numbers of Caesarean
sections since 1970. Time goes on to say that "meanwhile, medical
research has been challenging the conventional wisdom that birth
trauma was the principal culprit in cerebral palsy."

Ceesareans DO carry more health risks contrary to what you would like
to believe. The stats bear that out.

The US medical system is erring too heavily on the side of caution.
Other Western countries have much lower rates of C-sections. But then
the USA has 2/3 of the world's lawyers looking over doctors'
shoulders.

In my area, the cost of professonal indemnity and public liability
insurance is so high, that the majority of obstetricians have decided
to give up their profession. Many public functions are now extinct
because no insurer can be found to underwrite the risk. Every day, TV
and newspaper advertisements extol the ambulance-chasing expertise of
personal injury law firms. In fact, one firm emphasises its specialty
as falling-on-your-arse-in-the-shopping-centre type incidents.

"There seems to be no scientific question that most of that injury
(cerebral palsy) occurs prenatally and is not related to the
delivery", says Dr H. Davis Burton, whose partner was a defendant in a
lawsuit argued by Edwards and who later served as North Carolina's
secretary of health and human services.

Right! Let's take the word of another right wing conservative as fact.
After all they NEVER tell lies or spin facts do they?

We should at least investigate the possibility that a good doctor may
have been unfairly crucified.
Part and parcel of being a Doctor these days.
What high paying job doesn't come with equally high risks?
Should doctors then be exempt from the facts of life in our society?
It's just common sense to hold a professional to a higher standard who
in return holds the power of life and death over us all.
Anyway, "how typical of a [Democrat?] to always attack character
instead of honestly debating the issues." ;-)
I'm not a Democrat either, though I know from having lived a long
time that whenever you have a Democrat in the White House and at least
a fair balance in Congress the little guy doesn't get kicked quite as
hard.
Simply a matter of the lesser of two evils.
And FYI you were the one who started the character attacks first.

That said I believe we have sufficient tools in the arsenal of the
medical science that when combined with the correct policy of erring
on the side of caution we can maintain some level of safety in
consumer products.
It will require a major overhauling of our current system of
government though.

Sure! Just repeal or nullify every law passed by Reagan, Bush senior
and Dubya that robbed the individual of their rights to legal redress
and we should at least be back to square one.
Having a government that actually served the interests of the
individual voters and aggressively went after the corporate monster
would be nice too.

I agree with you in principle, it's just a matter of balance. For
example, there has to be some middle ground between the Ford Pinto
case on the one hand, and the McDonalds Hot Coffee incident on the
other.
FYI the McDonald's incident WAS a justified case.
The woman was skalded by coffee that was FAR too hot.
Look at the case files, the thermostat on the coffee maker was turned
all the way up by a disgruntled employee. This was a deliberate act.
Would you then say that an employer isn't responsible for the actions
of their employees?(This wouldn't happen if corporate America wasn't
such a bunch of bottom line cheap asses, trying to get their labor for
nothing.)
I don't know where you're getting your figures but the numbers of so
called "frivilous" law suits that even got on the dockett, much, less
reached a favorable verdict for the plantiff have declined drastically
since Reagan and Bush senior changed the laws back in the 80's.
Sounds to me your obsessing, and worst doing so on faliscious data.


If it were up to me, I would implement an independent panel of
intelligent laypersons to oversee court outcomes. This would be a kind
of Stupid Judgments committee made up of people who know that coffee
is hot, and that fatty foods make you fat.

Actually such a panel already exists. It's staffed by members of the
bar. Problem is it's seldom ever used for the benefit of the populace,
only to remove judges who are far to left leaning.
The fatty foods issue is a whole 'nother can of worms but with the FDA
regulation either totally done away with or never enforced you could
argue that one too.(The food and snack retailer are lieing their asses
off in regards ro all the food/snack items they're claiming are "fat
free" these days.)
As for the government allowing lay persons in on the decision making,
dream on. It'd take a bloody revolution.
The judicial system in America is broken and needs to be
replaced/revamped. This would only be effective if implemented by
citizenry, NOT government officials.(And certainly not ANYONE from
corporate America.)


- Franc Zabkar