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Chapter 15
Law in America
Female Announcer: Who is responsible if you get hurt? Some people say we have gone lawsuit crazy.Our Senior Consumer Correspondent Hadi Kaufman looks at two sides of that heated issue, good morning again.
Hadi Kaufman: To keep things simple we are focusing on product liability law. Now we all know about the famous cases like the women who sued MacDonald’s when she spilled hot coffee on her lap, but what’s really behind these headlines? Well, first the business prospective. Connie Klimenkos’ company makes inflatable boats and sleds in his first 32 years of business he was never sued but in the last five years he has been sued 40 times.
Connie Klimenko: Anybody can claim anything. The big danger is that if we have many lawsuits, even nuisance lawsuits that the insurance companies have to answer we will not be able to get insurance.
Hadi Kaufman: Well now the other side consumer advocates say the threat of large damage awards is the only way to get companies to make their products safer, consider the case of the automatic garage door openers.
Patty Fritz: Our 6-year-old daughter Katie was crushed by our garage door opener. If the safety feature would have been working the way it should have, she wouldn’t be dead.
Hadi Kaufman: Patty Fritz sued; Patty’s attorney says the bottom-line is the only thing corporate America listens to.
Shawn Bartish: Without the threat of a large economic reward against the companies they have no incentive to get rid of the hundreds of thousands of death traps that are sitting out there waiting for another child to unfortunately get killed or injured.
Female Announcer: And we continue our conversation right now with Ralph Nader who joins us again from Washington. Here in New York, lawsuit reform advocate Victor Schwartz and our Consumer Correspondent Hadi Kaufman welcome back. I wanted to pick up on a point that we’ve just wanted to start to address and that was the idea of putting a cap on punitive damages, there are folks out there who say in doing that you remove the incentive from manufactures to make safe products. Mr. Schwartz.
Mr. Schwartz: I can understand that, but there is a sanction should be swift, sure and understood. Today, decisions are appealed all over the place and the people who benefit are wealthy personal injury lawyers and lawyers because there is so much litigation. If you know there’s a sanction and the maximum amount it can be applied and with products it can be applied again and again and again. A breast implant manufacturer can be sued a dozen times.So if the cap is five million, its five million once, twice and there is plenty of punch. Right now we have an unlimited liability exposure totally with no rules and it hurts America.
Female Announcer: Mr. Nader, do you think these caps will make companies be honest or not?
Ralph Nader: No, these caps will simply protect the worst performers in the industry, the ones who engage in criminal activity that damages innocent peoples lives and health and safety. Victor Schwartz should know better he was a former law professor before he turned corporate lobbyist. Now he is part of a propaganda campaign, it’s the only way to describe that, he wants to gut the rights of people to have their day in court. You know the judges are in control of our courtroom. Most judges are formerly business lawyers. They are conservatives. They don’t read Karl Marx on their lunch break, the civil juries have a record of responsibility studied again and again by places such as Duke Law School, we are trying to tie the hands of judges and civil jurors by politicians in Washington, greased by campaign money from the very interests who want to escape responsibility for their wrong doing so that the people do not have their full day in court. It’s very difficult to win a product liability lawsuit.
Hadi Kaufman: We hear about these huge million dollar awards actually the median award is only $51,000. The plaintiff attorney makes on average $6000 on these cases.
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