John Stossel recently wrote an excellent editorial entitled “Parasitic Tort Lawyers.” OK, anything with that title will get our attention. While we concede that the headline is a little over the top (although not much) the article is well thought out – and echoes what Medical Justice has said for years. Stossel begins,
Tort lawyers lie. They say their product liability suits are good for us. But their lawsuits rarely make our lives better. They make lawyers and a few of their clients better off — but for the majority of us, they make life much worse.”
Why is this so? Because people are, for the most part, rational beings. If I touch a hot stove and burn my hand, I learn not to touch a hot stove again. Painful lesson, but lesson learned. How does this make our lives worse? When a person gets burned, whatever the reason, that person will naturally avoid that stimulus in the future. If that person is a doctor, and that stimulus is a frivolous lawsuit, the future behavior will be to avoid that stimulus (the frivolous suit) by “protecting themselves” via defensive medicine. If the effects of that behavior only impacted the doctor, then no real harm done. However, that rational, protective behavior (read defensive medicine) impacts our entire healthcare system. So much so, that some studies estimate the impact between $200 and $400 billion dollars per year. That’s billion with a B.
This state of affairs is not new news to physicians. We have known the cause and impact of defensive medicine for years. What is novel is that John Stossel began his journalistic career as a “Consumer Advocate Reporter.” Fighting, with all good intention, for the little guy. Again Stossel,
Years back, as one of America’s first consumer reporters, I’d avenge harmed consumers by bringing cameras to the offending business and confronting the crooks. My work warned others about the dangers in the marketplace but didn’t do much for the victims.
So I thought about those personal injury lawyers. They could do more good — they could sue bad companies, force them to change and get the victims money. I started referring hurt consumers to lawyers. Imagine my shock when consumers called to say their lawyers took most of the money!”
Even when the lawyers do help their clients, they hurt everyone else because fear of their lawsuits takes away many good things… Look at health care. The lawyers claim they punish bad doctors and win compensation for injured patients, and their suits add “less than 2 percent to the cost.” But there is another side to that story.”
The other side of the story? A few hundred billion dollars worth of defensive medicine. And that hurts everyone, except for those mentioned in Stossel’s title.
The phenomenon of defensive medicine is now a global issue and we see it happening on almost every country that has a good judicial system especially in the medicine field. it is but a natural response of medical professionals to recent increase in medical malpractice lawsuits. it is as if the nature has a way of balancing things, we don’t always like the outcome but thats the name of the game.
sooner or later the pulse will break the other way. In the not so distant past, tort lawyers were the ones who found it hopeless to get relief in situations which, under the strict reality of tort law (even as confining as it was in the social systems that existed in the 18 – 1900s), where relief was deserved.
The tort lawyers enjoyed a kind of blossoming of opportunity, starting in the mid to late 1900s (lets say) and now its gotten to the point where they are marauding predators; who will make something out of nothing; and putting every one in a state of panic and anxiety. Eventually this excess will swing back the other way. But ofcourse only after a long war.
The idea that tort law was available to create an adequate response to sad flawed human reality I don’t think existed; when our nation became luxuriant enough to fuel the system; same way cars kept getting bigger even though fuel was an obvious problem; tort law grew to the point where; yes; those lawyers who were really good at it.. yes; they found a way to make a good living. No one except them would say the system makes any sense.
What then to do about it? Keep on fighting the war. Which will last for our lifetime, I’d suppose for sure. (what am I? Surgeon’s spouse; defense attorney because of that that I described above a little) What we are looking for is a statement which describes what Justice would be, for this circumstance. When the war ends; that is when it felt right to me over my 54 years. When vietnam ended. For the time being; we must keep on truckin.. we just must keep on truckin. Requiring that our consent to what we are subjected to, is also heard at least as much as those who claim justice requires recompense when things go sour.
If we were judges; and legislators (and gods) what would we do, to set it all right?
What solutions are there? When will we sleep, like we did before the first lawsuit arrived? Sooner or later the tide will go out. Until so, we need to keep constructing our dyke. The temptation to drop a few bombs remains hard to resist.
Mr. Kane (above) suggests that tort liability is a method of “balancing the system.” The issue of course is that the entire system is “owned” by the legal profession. Because lawyers are intimately involved with every aspect of the law and society, they are the ones’ that set up the system, operate it, over-see it and control it. This extends from the legislature to the judiciary (of course) and the executive branches.
The only aspect not completely owned by lawyers is the press, but even there, lawyers exert nearly absolute control over what can be printed. So, in terms of balancing, Mr. Kane is correct, in that the any balancing that occurs is in favor of lawyers and their fees. Should any “balancing” occur to or for any other venue, it is entirely accidental and aberrant.
Let’s call it what it is….the tort system is nothing more than a system of legalized extortion. The tort lawyers don’t care one iota about their clients. It is all about the money. I have had PI lawyer friends tell me that “the truth doesn’t matter, it is all a game..” Until a large percentage of the public figure this out and demand change this mass crime on society will continue.
We must keep on fighting not only to protect ourselves, but also to introduce unequivocal legislation to criminally punish the pervassive acts of corruption plaguing the practice of law in this country. I am currently doing that to fight the extreme abuse in family law. It is unbelievable and unfathomable the severity of damage that these predators cause to our society. And they are ‘legal’, for now…