Word: torts
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Last spring, the BLSA called for Law School Dean Robert C. Clark to punish Professor of Law M. David Rosenberg for telling students that “feminism, Marxism and the blacks have contributed nothing” to tort law. In a separate incident, one student had posted the epithet “nig” to a class website...
...Republicans, that would yield something closer to real legislative control. All it would take is the help of a few switch-hitting Democrats to give the G.O.P. the 60 votes needed to move legislation without risk of filibuster. With Orrin Hatch running the Judiciary Committee, the President's tort-reform measures will easily make it to the floor; if Richard Shelby takes over Banking from Paul Sarbanes, expanded federal oversight becomes less likely. Republican priorities like Bush's energy plan, missile defense, a partial-birth-abortion ban and continued tax cutting all stand a stronger chance of passage...
Reformers point to California, where jury awards for noneconomic damages, such as pain and suffering, are capped at $250,000 and malpractice rates have held relatively steady over the past year. With tort reform, says Ron Neupauer, a vice president of Medical Insurance Exchange of California, "you don't have the emotion-laden blockbuster verdicts." But plaintiffs' lawyers protest that curbing noneconomic damages will disproportionately impact women, children and the elderly, who typically suffer less "economic" harm, such as lost wages, when they are hurt...
Even when tort reforms are put in place, they can take time to bite. In Nevada, where liability caps were passed last month, most insurers have declined to lower rates until they see the change reflected on their balance sheets, which could take years. They may have a point: courts in six states have struck down as unconstitutional limits on a jury's ability to determine damages in malpractice cases, and lawyers in Nevada are readying a case against the new limits...
...toxic defoliant in Vietnam--in six weeks. Soon other judges and lawyers were asking him to step between warring parties, and in cases ranging from the faulty birth-control device Dalkon Shield to asbestos exposure, Feinberg got the job done, more or less inventing the field of mass tort mediation as he went along. "The secret to Ken's success," says a judge who has worked with Feinberg on a number of occasions, "is that he knows when to listen and when not to. He'll hear proposals from both sides, then ignore everybody and find a middle ground...