HOBB Community

I continue to research these subjects as requested, and the more I learn the better Canada looks. Seriously, I can’t find how these things ever made it into our lives. Maybe these are just musings that gave me a headache to research, so take them with a grain if you read these ramblings...

The basis of tort reform:

President Bush said to “stop frivolous lawsuits.”

Sure, we don’t like frivolous lawsuits. We've been taught not to, without knowing it. Placing a $750,000.00 cap limit on non-economic losses in court settlements was a clue without any research, that something was flawed with his concept. I don’t think $ 750,000.00 and frivolous should fit in the same sentence, unless you’re talking about paying the debt for freeing Iraq at gunpoint.

These cases would have to ONLY be very serious lawsuits to apply such imposed limits. But so far I can’t find any frivolous lawsuits this concept has affected. The so called reform does not represent the interests or welfare of the voting public nor maintain constitutional rights of citizens. It has done the opposite. The vast majority of the public was not getting rich from tort cases. Even those highly publicized settlements usually never really got paid near the amount advertised, if anything at all. It was already extremely hard for a victim to just recover fair losses with a lawsuit.

For some reason an illusion was created that being a victim of negligence was making loads of greedy people rich. A large reason was business groups and medical groups spent considerable money and time conducting a public relations campaign through the media (newspapers, radio, and TV) to convey to the message the importance and relevance of tort reform. Proponents of tort reform discarded frivolous information like actual statistical facts and a majority of judge’s opinions. One tort reform tactic was to instill an image of the little business owner as being a repeated victim of constant lawsuit scams from greedy lawyers. That image is unfortunately easy to convey, because it may have some basis on some occasions. Yet to punish and restrict all consumers for the act of some ruthless attorneys in certain cases is not the right response.

After you're a victim you'll learn otherwise about the ease of filing a law suit that creates any recovery action as a victim, and the odds of being a victim are going way up. The frivolous lawsuit problem Bush addressed must have been in the same place Saddam’s weapons of mass deception were hidden. The real problem was just not there for 99% of voters concerned. 

People who supported it on the outset did so based on fabrications, exaggeration, and misconceptions (Our current White House legacy’s descriptive words). This reform is quite literally a danger to the common voting public, more than a protection. There is no evidence anywhere that this has reduced any costs to consumers in any way whatsoever as was advertised; not one cent.  It serves one single purpose- to reduce corporate /business liability. The most probable benefit could be to make non-disclosed negligence cost effective. There’s no way to measure that. As seen elsewhere on this board, it’s the businesses that supported tort reform, that are now filing truly frivolous lawsuits, and those are typically to serve business’ interests. They are in effect bashing some of the very reasons tort reform became an issue.


Binding Arbitration:

How many people (modern consumers) asked there representatives in Washington to create an arbitration act that could bypass our justice system and push aside that annoying constitution we all complain about in America? I can’t get any real statistical numbers, but a state by state average I think would come out to be around (zero), unless you count corporate U.S. citizens or business owners. Arbitration historically was limited between businesses in the U.S. But that would create the appearance that one wealthy CEO has maybe one-hundred-thousand votes credited value per one of any average citizen’s vote, in respect to our representation, if states and federal government don't condemn binding forced arbitration.

The sole benefit of Binding Arbitration abuse has been to reduce liability and cost to business. Today its target is the consumer. At one time in history, only in specific situations where it was mutually agreed parties in a dispute would accept an arbiter, arbitration had and still has a place. It is seldom, probably never appropriate, that a company binds a consumer to forced arbitration as part of a purchase agreement. If it is not consensual, it’s rape.

Binding arbitration eliminates any public record, which obviously doesn’t help the public at all in consumer affairs, such as product safety and quality assurance. I can’t find anywhere voters ever really asked for Binding Arbitration to replace their constitutional rights, and where they have used it for mutual benefit in consumer affairs. It may have happened somewhere in the Star Wars Trilogy. I didn’t see all of them. There is no evidence anywhere that this has reduced any costs to consumers in any way whatsoever; not one cent. It serves one single purpose- to reduce corporate /business liability.

Bankruptcy reform.

Finally a law that relieves our poor banks and credit card companies from the many abuses of greedy consumers! Until this law went into effect, you could almost see the bank’s many skyscrapers nearly tumbling from poverty. Creditors also use binding arbitration for more needed protection from ruthless debtors. These laws were written by credit card companies, for credit card companies, so they must be good for all Americans? So kind of our all republican dominated offices to finally pass the banks long desired laws curtailing all those unethical American practices. Now we can enjoy seeing our interest rates go through the roof with no actual reason needed, have all sorts of mystery fees and charges, and see mortgage fraud as common as a cold (the list of bank abuses might create a novel length commentary) and there’s not really anything we can do about it; except go through arbitration and see if their appointed arbiters will side against their own employers. The idea that those elected officials in D.C. even had the nerve to place greater restrictions on Americans citing our lack of fiscal responsibility and placing none on themselves...got to have Prozac or Xanax to figure that one out. Aren’t they the same people that created over a trillion dollars in debt that we’ll never see paid off in our lifetimes, and it wasn’t even their money to borrow? 

So what’s next?
Why not go into all our federal prisons and let the rapist, thieves, and murders update the penal codes! It makes just as much sense to me, as the basis for some of our other recent reforms. Just think how many tax dollars we could save if we just turned all the prisoners loose and closed prisons? Anything that saves Americans money (in appearance) is a good idea, right? Just let Bush and Rove get the right spin on it first, and it could be passed. Well, maybe not since they lost the House and Senate. They could have called it the Re-patriot Act or something that sounds really grand but is in reality obscene rationale. And if all the ex-cons got together and hired professional lobbyists, some of our greatest former law breakers could become law makers. Might as well suggest it to Bush. He hasn’t listened to anything we’ve said for six years anyway.
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Shoddy construction is a global problem but there is certainly no excuse for it when we have the resources and knowledge to build better.  Corruption and greed.