aquapub
DP Veteran
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- Apr 16, 2005
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aquapub said:The only thing more outrageous than the fact that an American drug company can follow every FDA guideline and still be sued into bankruptcy over unforeseeable side effects is that trial lawyers can still count on Democrats to keep anything from getting done about frivolous lawsuits. They will probably try to blame President Bush for the thousands of jobs Merck had to cut, but the reality is that our system rewards greed and punishes innovation. This will eventually do to drug research what it did to flu vaccine manufacturing.
JustMyPOV said:Last I checked, it was the duty of judges and juries to determine which cases are frivolous, and which ones are legitimate. The only solution I've heard proposed by conservatives is to cap rewards which does little more than give companies a free ticket to sell whatever crap they want regardless of how it may injure or kill people. This is the typical conservative mantra... All for the corporations and screw anybody who gets in their way.
It's more than just all of the lawsuits, it's the ridiculously high awards that come out of these cases.aquapub said:The only thing more outrageous than the fact that an American drug company can follow every FDA guideline and still be sued into bankruptcy over unforeseeable side effects is that trial lawyers can still count on Democrats to keep anything from getting done about frivolous lawsuits. They will probably try to blame President Bush for the thousands of jobs Merck had to cut, but the reality is that our system rewards greed and punishes innovation. This will eventually do to drug research what it did to flu vaccine manufacturing.
Mr. Bush said that large malpractice awards have increased the cost of business so much that doctors have to close their businesses or scale back services. He said it also drives up the cost of personal health insurance.
"There is a constant risk of being hit by a massive jury award, so doctors end up paying tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands to settle a medical claim out of court even when they know they have done nothing wrong," the president said.
Lawyers in the area say the legal situation has been exaggerated and Mr. Bush is demonizing the county even though large malpractice awards have been scarce. Leading Democrats in Congress say the number of doctors practicing in Illinois has risen in recent years, despite higher malpractice insurance rates that they say are driven by the state's weak insurance regulation.
Calm2Chaos said:As opposed to the "let's blame everybody else for our problems" Liberal chant.
The problem is, how do you put a price tag on life? Your mother's life may be worth is $20 billion, but is everyone's mother's life worth that much? How do you quantify and qualify what the value should be? Caps on punitive damages need to be made. (Of course, should a person be paralyzed for life, lose a leg, arm, or the ability to work or function, they should be compensated as appropriate. But punitive damages are different. These are monetary awards that are meant to punish the company/doctor/hospital/manufacturer.)JustMyPOV said:Souds more like a Republican chant at this point. After all, who's still blaming the former Clinton administration for virtually everything after 5 years of total control over the executive and legislative branches of the federal government?
Back to the point now... If you buy a product that is supposed to do something to benefit you, but instead it causes you to go blind, you're not going to sue the company that sold you the product? I seriously doubt that you'd just shrug it off and say "Oh, well." It is easy for you to sit back on the sidelines and push for capped rewards, but if it was actually YOU who suffered an injury, or lost a family member as a result of a company's negligence, I'm willing to bet you'd have a swift change of heart.
JustMyPOV said:Souds more like a Republican chant at this point. After all, who's still blaming the former Clinton administration for virtually everything after 5 years of total control over the executive and legislative branches of the federal government?
Calm2Chaos said:As opposed to the "let's blame everybody else for our problems" Liberal chant.
shuamort said:The problem is, how do you put a price tag on life? Your mother's life may be worth is $20 billion, but is everyone's mother's life worth that much? How do you quantify and qualify what the value should be? Caps on punitive damages need to be made. (Of course, should a person be paralyzed for life, lose a leg, arm, or the ability to work or function, they should be compensated as appropriate. But punitive damages are different. These are monetary awards that are meant to punish the company/doctor/hospital/manufacturer.)
Originally Posted by JustMyPOV
Souds more like a Republican chant at this point. After all, who's still blaming the former Clinton administration for virtually everything after 5 years of total control over the executive and legislative branches of the federal government?
KCConservative said:I give up. Who?
And there's a part where we splinter. It's legislature's job to decide what the law is and what the penalty for breaking the law is. Take a look at a speeding ticket for instance. The fines are pre-determined and set by the legislature and not the court system. Should a person get a speeding ticket and choose to appeal, a court can the reduce, but not increase, the fine.JustMyPOV said:To answer the question that I made bold in your post, that is where the judges and juries come into the picture. That's their job to decide. That particular power belongs in the courts, NOT in the legislature.
That is the sort of thing that needs to be decided on a case by case basis by someone who knows the facts of the case, not by someone behind a desk in Washington who is only considering the "big picture", and not taking any time at all to consider the needs, suffering, or toll taken on the actual individuals involved.
You mean like the McDonald's coffee incident? Or the recent Netflix class action debacle?JustMyPOV said:You want tort reform, how about defining a clear standard for what a "frivolous" lawsuit is, then use that standard to invoke HARSH punishments for those that abuse the court system for personal gain?
JustMyPOV said:Souds more like a Republican chant at this point. After all, who's still blaming the former Clinton administration for virtually everything after 5 years of total control over the executive and legislative branches of the federal government?
Back to the point now... If you buy a product that is supposed to do something to benefit you, but instead it causes you to go blind, you're not going to sue the company that sold you the product? I seriously doubt that you'd just shrug it off and say "Oh, well." It is easy for you to sit back on the sidelines and push for capped rewards, but if it was actually YOU who suffered an injury, or lost a family member as a result of a company's negligence, I'm willing to bet you'd have a swift change of heart.
The guy shouldn't be able to sue...shuamort said:Let's say you have gangrene in your left leg and it has to be amputated. The doctor comes in and amputates your right leg by mistake. Now you're legless. What should be your cash reward for this accident that aren't related to medical bills and loss of employment? $5.00? $50,000.00? $5,000,000.00? These rewards are above and beyond what would consider being "made whole again" which is the purpose of these cases. Or at least, what they should be.
Iriemon said:I agree there should be tort reform. Neither side is willing to make a reasonable compromise. The consumer/lawyer lobby is not willing to compromise on any limitation on what a jury can award. The business side wants mandatory caps, regardless of the amount of injury suffered.
IMO, folks who are injured by defective products should be compensated for the injuries they suffered, including loss wages. However, "non-economic" damages like pain and suffering, loss of consortium, mental anguish, etc., while they represent real injury, do not compensant for financial loss, are impossible to quantify, and these are areas where jury awards can be get out of control. IMO caps on these types of damages should be imposed.
Iriemon said:Punitive damages are not designed to compensate the victim, but punish the company for malicious behavior. These awards are penalties, and IMO a large percentage of these damages should be awarded to the state (some percentage should go to the victim/lawyer as incentive to pursue them).
Iriemon said:Attorney's fees are necessary to provide incentive for lawyers to take a case. At some level, they become so large that they are no longer necessary for incentive but become a windfall. IMO there should be a sliding scale as to the percentage that the lawyer can retain. E.g. 40% (standard contingency fee) to $ 1 million, 30% to $2 million, 20% to $5 million, 10%above that, or something along those lines.
Iriemon said:"Strict liability" is imposed if a product is "defective." The rationale behind this is that if a product causes injury to someone because it does not work like it is supposed to, it makes more sense that the company selling the product bear the cost of the injury as opposed to the injured consumer. The reasons behind this theory is that 1) companies can afford it better than the consumer, 2) the possibility of such costs provides incentives for companies to make safe products. Without this rule, if companies were not liable for their defective products, they would have little incentive to create safe products.
There is no doubt that these legal rules have made products we use much safer than they would be otherwise.
Calm2Chaos said:Guess children are pretty much screwed since they have no earning history...
And what about malpractice? Who gets payed on that?
What do you mean awarded to the state? If I am hurt due to a faulty injury and must carry this injury for the rest of my life, exactly why is the state getting money? Is tis just a free windfall for them wen it's citizens get hurt. Whats there incentive for wanting manufacturers to produce safer goods...lol
You covered product defectivness, but i think most of these suits are probably mal practice
Iriemon said:What do you mean? If it is medical malpractice, the injured party. If it is professional malpractice, it is the person who loses economic damages.
You should be compensated for your injuries. Compensatory damages do that. Punitive damages are not meant to compensate. They are meant to punish and deter. Why should you get a windfall just because the company is being punished? You could call any fine a windfall for the state if you want to look at it that way. There is still an incentive on manufacturers, but punitive damages are not implicated to make the product safer but to deter illegal or intentionally malicious activity.
Malpractice involves suits against professionals, doctors, lawyers, accountants, etc. Product liability covers injuries from products, from cars to drugs. I don't have the stats as to how many suits are filed in either category, but my guess would be there are more in the latter category.
Calm2Chaos said:Your carrying that scar, loss, disfigurment etc etc etc for life. Damages should be awarded to the injured. They ar ethe ones that have to live with the problem and the sacrifices for the rest of there lives.
So pain and suffering is not quantifiable so there should be no payment? Again what about kids? No work history no pay history. A child loses a extremity due to the direct negligence of a doctor? What should this child be entitled to? A product disfigures a child for life. What is this child entitled to?
Iriemon said:I did not say "no" noneconomic damages should be awarded, I said it should be capped, maybe $500k.
In your example, if a kid is injured so that he or she cannot be expected to work for their entire lives, economic damages would include the cost of support for the life of the person. The issues with scare and extremities I agree are sad cases. If the scares can be surgically corrected that is a compensable medical cost. For things that cannot be corrected, but if the disfigurement cannot be corrected, awarding $5 million for P&S isn't going to make it any better.
JustMyPOV said:You want tort reform, how about defining a clear standard for what a "frivolous" lawsuit is, then use that standard to invoke HARSH punishments for those that abuse the court system for personal gain?
shuamort said:It's more than just all of the lawsuits, it's the ridiculously high awards that come out of these cases.
Bush Pushes For Tort Reform
I work for an insurance company and we used to insure doctors/hospitals/clinics. Used to. The cost for medical malpractice lawsuits turned a formerly profitable form of insurance into something that would've bankrupted us if we didn't get out. The reason? Huge awards given for med mal lawsuits. The democrats that say that the number of drs in Illinois has risen. That may be the case, but states like Louisiana, Tennessee and Mississippi come to mind as I think back about all of the doctors I talked with who had to close up shop after we stopped insuring them. Why? Because they couldn't afford med mal insurance anymore. Some of them were doctors who had never had a claim against them, but just couldn't afford to live and practice in those states without insurance (and you have to have insurance to practice).
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