Word: tort
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...large part by the executives who are often defendants in personal-injury lawsuits, promises to be "a President who is tough enough to take on the trial bar." Al Gore and the Democratic Party, who collect big contributions from trial lawyers, supported President Clinton's veto of a 1996 tort-reform bill backed by business interests. Advocacy groups are already running dueling TV ads. One suggests that lawmakers who would limit damages in lawsuits are out to deny victims of asbestos-related illnesses their just compensation, while another depicts trial lawyers as sharks in a feeding frenzy...
...trial lawyers in the U.S. are living large. Texas tort king Joe Jamail is widely known as the world's richest lawyer, with a net worth of $1.2 billion. When Frederick Furth, a top San Francisco trial lawyer, isn't litigating antitrust cases, he is engaging his passion for wine at his 1,200-acre Chalk Hill vineyard in Sonoma County, Calif. Wayne Reaud (pronounced Ree-oh) has used his hundreds of millions of dollars in fees from asbestos and other "toxic tort" litigation to buy the local newspaper and a chunk of downtown real estate in his hometown...
...would stand in front of the microphone, his body slightly hunched and his arms bent as if he were a boxer waiting to slap down his opponent's best shot. He was able to show off his expertise on education policy and say things like "I've been a tort-reformin' Governor and I'll be a tort-reformin' President!" and hear applause in response. "I like this," he told an adviser. "And I'm not bad at it either...
...Tort reform seemed inevitable, but after six weeks of negotiations in the spring of 1995, the package stalled over the issue of capping the punitive damages that juries use to punish defendants. Bush and the Republicans wanted a cap of $100,000; Bullock and the Democrats wanted it set at $1 million. When Bush refused to budge, state senator David Sibley, a Republican ally, told him the bill could die. Bush invited Sibley to the mansion for dinner that night. While they were eating, the phone rang. It was Bullock, calling to deliver something he was famous...
Last week Bush was making extravagant claims for his tort-reform package, saying he'd taken on the trial bar and saved Texans almost $3 billion in lowered insurance rates. As the Washington Post reported, insurance experts in Texas call the claim preposterous. Premiums have climbed since 1995, even as insurance companies have reaped windfall profits, because damage awards are smaller and lawsuits, even justified ones, are far more difficult to bring to trial. A grateful insurance industry has so far contributed nearly $1 million to Bush's presidential campaign...