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Saturday, June 07, 2008
Diane Dimond Wrong on Tort Reform
By Esteban A. Aguilar Sr.
President, N.M. New Mexico Trial Lawyers Association
I am responding to the Op-Ed piece by Diane Dimond, “Self-Serving Lawsuits Carry a Hidden Cost — For You.” Relying on data from the Institute for Legal Reform, Dimond urges the creation of a “merit panel” of former judges whose purpose would be to “toss out” lawsuits that do not pass a “common sense smell test.”
Dimond is off base relying on the Institute for Legal Reform at all — let alone as the standard to measure costs of litigation to the average American.
The ILR is nothing more than a public relations organization for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The IRL's sole purpose is to disseminate skewed statistics and information to the American public in the Chamber's quest to promote “Tort Reform,” “Lawsuit Abuse” and other purported reforms with alarmist titles. In reality, the ILR and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce prefer that the right to trial by jury and access to courts be severely limited or eliminated completely.
Dimond implies that something is wrong with New Mexico's judicial system, relying on IRL's biased and distorted “lawsuit climate ranking”: “At number 37 only a baker's dozen states have been found to have a more negative lawsuit climate.” In doing so, she insinuates she is advocating for small businesses: “… You can listen to several stories of small business people whose livelihoods have been impacted, or destroyed, because some numbskull complainant with a willing attorney decided to try and get a payoff to go away. Can anyone say, 'Tort Reform?'”
She fails to disclose, however, that the overwhelming numbers of lawsuits in this country are brought by businesses involving billions of dollars. Do you think those cases have something to do with what we pay for our products and services?
If Dimond had looked at other studies, she would have found out that the individual cases she rails against constitute such a small number of the cases brought in our country that, in truth, they are not even worth mentioning.
More importantly, Dimond should have reported and opined about the countless number of:
n Small businesses and “Mom and Pop” operations in New Mexico that have been driven out by the greed of large corporations and their predatory practices;
n New Mexicans who are not getting adequate worker's compensation payments and benefits after being catastrophically injured while doing their jobs;
n New Mexicans who are purposely and intentionally put at risk everyday by employers in total disregard for the worker's safety;
n New Mexicans who are injured while they are simply shopping, buying and visiting a place of business because the business has not taken steps to keep the premises safe;
n New Mexicans who are not getting the health care benefits required by their policies;
n New Mexicans who receive subquality medical care because of “bottom line” dollar decisions made by insurers;
n New Mexicans who are duped and taken advantage of by insurers misrepresenting the benefits associated with life, health and disability policies sold in New Mexico, only to discover that after death, serious and catastrophic injuries, they are denied the benefits they thought were there;
n New Mexicans who continue to lose their homes and automobiles because of the predatory lending practices by those businesses whose “common sense” approach Dimond advocates;
n New Mexicans who are taken advantage of by their banks and financial institutions; and
n New Mexicans who continue to be killed, maimed, or catastrophically injured by products that have not been properly designed or tested, but simply placed on the market and sold by those businesses whose “common sense” approach she advocates.
Dimond's article propagates the usual “fear mongering” rhetoric that is supposed to stir the anger of the citizens of New Mexico in an attempt to plant seeds of discontent, and limit or eliminate the confidence that our citizens have in the judiciary and the judicial system. She is wrong.
She did use one correct analogy — the “apple pile.” In any profession, there are always “rotten or bad apples,” maybe even in the journalism profession. In any profession, however, the overwhelming percentage of “apples” are “good apples.” This truism applies to the judiciary and attorneys as well. From time to time, we discover and find “bad apples,” but the overwhelming members of the judiciary and the bar are good, decent, honorable, fair, honest and committed to our citizenry.
From our perspective, it is time to end this nonsense. We are at a time and place in our country where we need real solutions to real problems. ... Trashing our system of justice and replacing it with Dimond's “common sense smell test,” which would effectively deny our citizens access to the courts, is not the answer. In short, we should be finding ways to make our courts more, not less, accessible.
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