Fat Suits

Here’s something that you’re likely to see soon in a state near you.

The state Assembly gave preliminary approval Thursday to a bill that would prohibit the obese from suing restaurants and businesses that manufacture, sell and distribute food for contributing to their weight or any weight-related health problems.

If it becomes law, Wisconsin would be only the second state, after Louisiana, to stop the overweight from filing such lawsuits, according to the bill’s sponsor, Rep. Dan Vrakas (R-Hartland). Congress also is considering a bill that would give those businesses national immunity, he added.

Personally, I think that protection bills like this are a cop out.  It’s an easy way for legislators to try to counter the worst effects of our defunct legal system rather than working on real reform.

If our courts still recognized the difference between lawsuits with merit and frivolous lawsuits, we wouldn’t need to protect industries like this.  This is yet another negative aftershock of the tobacco lawsuits.  I’m beginning to think that the tobacco lawsuits have done more to crack the foundation of our legal system than anything else in our lifetimes.

1. Maybe it is a copout, Owen, but if it’s reached the point where our courts are unable to distinguish between frivolous lawsuits and non-, I’d just as soon the legislature did what they could to curb the excesses. God, I love checks and balances! Whoever thought that up should get a raise.

   Posted by Dana on February 06, 2004 at 2213 hrs




2. What is it about the court system that you believe renders it unable to differentiate between valid and invalid suits?

   Posted by hope on February 06, 2004 at 2257 hrs




3. I dont think its a question of ability. The courts have every power to throw out ludicrous lawsuits. However, there is no precendent for them using these powers. Any judge with a nickel’s worth of common sense can tell the difference between people looking for a free ride at the expense of the consumer base and people with legitimate grievances. For any number of reasons they choose to indulge these idiots.

   Until you can somehow find a way to instill reason into the minds of those that make these decisions, it seems to me that this is the only way to prevent frivolous lawsuits from actually getting past wrong-headed and corrupt judges.

   Posted by on February 06, 2004 at 2321 hrs




4. Hope - the mere fact that so many ridiculous lawsuits get through the courts and sent to a jury tells me that the judges are unwilling to throw out the bad ones.

   Honestly, I’ve heard numerous reform suggestions and I’m not sure of the best way to reform the system.  Perhaps a law where if your lawsuit gets thrown out for being frivolous, the lawyer (not the plaintiff) is charged court costs and legal fees for both sides.  And perhaps if a lawyer has 5 cases thrown out for being frivolous withing 5 years, they should be disbarred.  Perhaps appointed judges should face automatic impeachment hearings if an appeals court throws out the case for being frivolous. 

   I’m not sure how to fix it, but it’s broken.  We should take a serious look at really fixing it rather than going for the duct tape and bailing wire solution of protecting target industries like the food, alcohol, guns, etc. industries.  Furthermore, there could be undesirable side effects if the laws protecting these industries are poorly written.  They could end up being immune from legitimate lawsuits, which would thwart justice for the suing parties.

   Posted by Owen on February 07, 2004 at 0651 hrs




5. I would expect Diamond Jim to veto this anyway. Victims and trial lawyers are two of his core constituencies.

   If restaurants get sued for feeding the obese, and respond by refusing to serve them, will they then get sued for discrimination?

   Posted by triticale on February 07, 2004 at 0917 hrs




6. I think Owen is absolutly right.  It’s broke and needs more then a quick, easy semi-fix that would require being added to a hundred times.  Though I guess a semi-fix is better then no fix at all.
   These sorts of lawsuits are offensive.
   I absolutly love Triticale’s question/point.

   Posted by on February 07, 2004 at 1313 hrs




7. Aww, Owen, you can do better than that.

   “The mere fact...”—show me some facts. Don’t just give me your opinion. It took only a quick google to find <a target="_blank" href="http://www.bizjournals.com/pacific/stories/1998/02/09/ editorial2.html">an article</a> (a few years old, but points to a study and puts numbers to it) that, if accurate, seems to undercut your assertion:

   “Recent statistics reveal a frivolous lawsuit problem simply does not exist in America. The most comprehensive analysis on the subject, completed by one of the most respected think tanks in America—the Rand Institute for Civil Justice—surfaced in the early ‘90s. The evidence in the Rand report, bolstered by subsequent reports on the subject, demonstrates only 10 percent of people who are injured ever use the tort system to seek compensation for their injuries.

   According to the studies, between 1960 and 1990, average and median jury verdicts barely keep pace with inflation. While big business and insurance interests would have you believe that frivolous lawsuits plague our courts, the truth is, since 1991 tort cases reflect only 6 percent of cases filed. [...]

   If there is a problem with a litigation explosion in this country, the cause of it more accurately lies with America’s big-business interests, rather than with the ordinary citizen. Between 1985 and 1991, business disagreements made up nearly half of all federal litigation, with suits over contract disputes outpacing any other single category. Lawsuits between big businesses over contracts more than tripled in the federal courts between 1960 and 1988, while lawsuits filed against them by ordinary citizens declined 21 percent. Since 1986, lawsuits against small-business operations and individuals have declined by 12 percent.

   [...]in federal courts product-liability cases against Fortune 1000 companies have dropped from a high of 3,500 in 1985 to 1,500 in 1991. Moreover, between 1987 and 1993 product-liability premiums fell 45 percent.”

   Posted by hope on February 07, 2004 at 2323 hrs




8. You’re right, Hope.  I can do better than that

   I’m a little surprised that you would even argue the point that there isn’t a problem with frivolous lawsuits.  The problem with them are <a target="_blank" href="http://msnbc.msn.com/id/3660738/">all around us.</a> But the problem isn’t just the actual lawsuits, it is the <a target="_blank" href="http://headaches.about.com/cs/advocacy/a/lamus_cala.ht m">fear of the lawsuits</a>.  The costs of this fear are built into every product and every service.  Doctors charge more for their services to cover the cost of their high malpractice insurance.  Consumer products cost more to cover the cost of possible litigation when people misuse their products.  It’s everywhere. 

   Let’s take a look at your study.  The fact that only 10% of injured parties sue is irrelevant.  They are legitimately injured and should seek compensation.  Their suits aren’t frivolous.  The low number points to a problem, but not this one.

   The fact that jury awards have kept pace with inflation is a dubious statistic.  I’d like to see the methodology.  But it doesn’t matter if 99.9% of lawsuits are resolved within reasonable limits.  It’s the fear of being in the 0.1% that makes people and companies react.  Furthermore, it doesn’t matter if an award is within some financial reasonableness if the award is based on a frivolous claim.  Too many times, frivolous claims win because it gets before a sympathetic (or pathetic) jury that feels bad for the wheezing old lady instead of actually looking at the law.  It is up to the judge to prevent bad cases from ever getting in front of a jury. 

   As far as most cases being the product of contract disputes and such, who cares?  Again, those are legitimate cases for which the court system was designed.  It does not address the issue of frivolous lawsuits.

   A huge example of this problem are the tobacco suits.  Most of the cases against the tobacco companies were completely frivolous.  Yet, judges eventually let them get to juries.  The juries only saw a mean ol’ corporation fighting against a little old man talking through a tube in his neck and felt sorry for him.  The result was hundreds of billions of dollars in awards.  You may think that this is no big deal because the tobacco companies are evil and only other smokers will have to pay higher costs and they may quit because of it, which is a good thing, but you would be wrong to think that.  The tobacco lawsuits are having effects far beyond their industry.  Do you not think that the food industry, gun industry, alcohol industry, the automobile industry, and just about every other industry isn’t building up their legal defenses already?  The costs for their lawyers are already being seen in the price of just about everything you buy.  This is having such an effect because the grounds upon which the tobacco lawsuits were based were total crap - for lack of a better word.  All of this has a real effect on lives.  There are fewer jobs, the cost of insurance continues to rise, and taxes go up all because of the pervasive fear of frivolous lawsuits.

   Beyond the financial impact of these suits is the general impact on our culture.  We are inundated with warning labels that insult the intelligence of any higher order mammal.  We have to question whether or not we might be sued before helping a person having a heart attack. We hesitate to loan our hedge trimmer to the neighbor because of a fear that he might sue if injured.  The lawsuits themselves, and the fear they generate, have seeped into almost everything we do.  We must put an end to it.

   Posted by Owen on February 08, 2004 at 1053 hrs