"Tort reform" Def: A boondoggle - for us. A heyday, payday - for the corporations.
In my thirties, in a search to find some purpose in my life beyond mother and wife, I discovered law. Yes, law. (Insert greedy attorney jokes here). But what I discovered the importance of all those things I had learned in government class and civics class in high school. Economic reality did not allow me to attend law school, so I have worked as a paralegal for the last few decades. There are others here who are more well versed in this subject, more eloquent in their prose, more precise in their sources. But this is one subject I have been passionate about for over 20 years.
So how do you like your coffee?
The McDonald's lawsuit. Surely you know about it. You know, the old lady who frivolously sued McDonald's because she spilled coffee on her own lap while driving. Right? You've heard the story, it's been cited time and again as an example of how our legal system doesn't work and is abused by the greedy trying to make a buck on the back of the corporations. But do you really know the true story, or is the story you know the one feed to you by the media. What actually happen?
Hot Coffee tells the story, as well as a few more. Susan Saladoff is an attorney in Ashland, Oregon who got tired of waiting for someone to tell the real story. The story of Stella Liebeck. The story of Colin and Connor Gourley's family. And the all too tragic story of Jamie Leigh Jones.
As Ms. Saladoff states in an interview
“The public is being duped,” she declares. “The information we get is distorted by lots of money and by public relations campaigns. I got tired of waiting for somebody else to tell the truth and get the message out. The other side was so good at it, and I kept waiting and finally I said, ‘Damn it: I’m gonna do it.’”
“Hot Coffee,” Saladoff explains, is an effort to push back. “I never made this film to 1) make a lot of money or 2) to become a filmmaker,” she says. “I made it because I had something to say and nobody was saying it. The truth wasn’t getting out. Only one side of the story was getting out. A jury gets to decide based on both sides of a story, but for 25 years the American public has only heard one side of this story.”
Thank you Ms. Saladoff, someone has to do it, and it sure as hell ain't going to be the corporate media.
For the last 20 years I have worked for a sole practitioner who is a plaintiff's trial attorney. I have seen how the system works, how plaintiffs are often time forced into costly litigation by the defense attorneys and insurance companies. I have seen how bodies have been maimed by defective devices, families destroyed by untimely death. Rarely have I seen a plaintiff that wants to file suit, usually they are driven to it.
I have heard the recitations, over and over, of those who believe that greedy plaintiff's are killing the legal system, and god knows they would never do anything like sue a company because the coffee too hot. I have answered their calls when someone they love has been maimed by an event that never should have happened, something so simply avoidable. The "facts" look so simple and clear cut in a one paragraph story in the paper or a 30 second new clip. It is, until you are thrown into the litigation grinder.
So, how many millions did Stella Liebeck fleece McDonald's for? $2.4 million, really? She carelessly spilled the coffee while she drove, right? And really, everyone knows coffee's hot! Why should McDonald's be responsible for her carelessness!
Please take the time and try to watch this movie. Tonight it aired on HBO. If you can't find it, take a gander at the trailer. It's a movie we should all see, and take to heart. See what is truly going on in our legal system, and see what we are losing.