Wal-Mart: The Focus of Evil in the Modern World

Welcome to free-market health care solutions! A woman is catastrophically injured and wins a modest judgment in a personal injury case to pay for the lifetime of healthcare she will require. Her former employer WAL-MART THEN SUES HER FOR MORE THAN THE TOTAL JUDGMENT in order to recoup what it paid out in health-care expenses (expenses that were paid through a policy which she herself contributed to during her period of employment). Meanwhile, one of her sons has been killed in Iraq and her husband has been forced to divorce her in order to qualify her for public assistance with her medical bills. The only thing worse than Wal-Mart's despicable (though entirely legal) actions in this case is the cosmic insanity of a health-care system where something like this can occur. And occur to PEOPLE WITH HEALTH INSURANCE.

UPDATE: Great minds think alike. And it's even worse than I originally thought; the poor woman's brain injuries are such that she has virtually no long-term memory. Thus, every single time she asks about her son and is told he is dead, it is as though she is experiencing the wrenching grief for the very first time.

Couldn't Happen to a Nicer Bunch of Guys

Texans for Lawsuit "Reform," a Lieninger front group dedicated to slamming the courthouse door in the faces of anyone who dares to sue their corporate overlords, was dissolved by the Secretary of State for failing to keep up with their paperwork. No doubt some unscrupulous liberal activist judge or socialistic rich trial lawyer is behind it.

Republicans Hate Babies...

...or at the very least they hate trial lawyers more than they love babies. Especially in Mississippi.

UPDATE: Not to be outdone by Mississippi, Texas continues to peel children off CHIPs coverage. A spectre is haunting the Captiol, the spectre of Arlene Wohlgemuth...

Court Reform

A proposal to overhaul the Texas court system isn't being very well-received in the Legislature. One of its more controversial proposals is the create "expert courts" to handle cases deemed "too complex" for local judges to handle. Naturally, many "local judges" find this insulting and the Texas Trial Lawyers Association is concerned that this is just another type of backdoor "tort reform." Normally, I am not a big fan of panels of "experts" doing anything, but this bill (and its opponents both) gloss over a hard fact: as long as we elect judges in partisan elections, "unqualified" judges are going to get elected. And by "unqualified," I mean judges who lack the experience, temperament and judicial knowledge to handle cases but just happened to win because they have the right letter ("D" or "R") beside their name on the ballot. Ask ANY lawyer in Texas and they can tell you horror stories of being caught before such a judge. Republicans complaining about the judges swept into office last November in the Dallas County Tsunami forget that the Reagan Wave in the 1980's swept in all manner of bizarre and downright silly GOP judges all over the state. Ultimately, the only real solution to this problem is to have local judges (district judges and county court at law judges) run in non-partisan elections and run in districts in the big counties to better reflect their communities. Frankly, I think everybody involved in the law enforcement or court system (District Attorneys, County Attorneys, Sheriffs, Constables) should be elected on a non-partisan ballot since they have no real policy-making authority; they merely enforce laws passed by the (properly) partisan Legislature, but that's another issue. Appellate Judges and the Judges of the Court of Criminal Appeals and the Justices of the Texas Supreme Court should be appointed and then have to periodically run in retention elections where campaign contributions are strictly limited. Even then, it might well be necessary to create a sort of "expert pool" of retired judges with specialized knowledge who are retained by the State and dispatched to handle complex cases, such as death penalty trials, that might otherwise overwhelm judges in courts of general jurisdiction who are either new to the bench or never really practiced much in that field (complex commercial litigation, say, or criminal law) before being elected.

Tort Reform Works!

That is, if your goal is to slam the courthouse door shut in the face of the poor and powerless injured by the negligence of the rich and powerful. Remember these statistics the next time someone on your local Chamber of Commerce regurgitates the talking points about the "lawsuit explosion." Shakespeare got it all wrong; the first step to tyranny is not to kill all the lawyers, it's to destroy the jury system.

Asking For It?

Excellent, thoughtful article in The American Lawyer on the precipitous decline in power and influence of plaintiff's lawyers, and why it may well be the fault (at least in part) of overly greedy mass-tort lawyers who grew fat and happy on asbestos litigation in the 1990's. Hat tip to The Tortellini.

The Color of Money

Chris Bell is steadily gaining on Rick Perry in the polls (mainly at Strayhorn's expense) but he's having a hard time keeping money in the pipe to stay on the air. To every trial lawyer that gave Strayhorn money: think about your decision when that pissant Rick Perry is signing yet another round of "tort reform."

Life Is Cheap

From ePluribus Media, true stories of the victims of tort "reform."