Word: torts
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...Democratic Senator Carl Levin that several of the businessmen had to perch on upended attaché cases. Levin warned them that "the whole spirit of Congress is to get away from regulation," but promised to take a careful look at the Danforth bill. Plaintiffs' attorneys, needless to say, oppose all tort-reform plans. They commonly accuse insurers of creating a sense of crisis to enact laws that would deny just compensation to victims of malpractice or injury. More troubling, they insist that all the tort-reform ideas would undermine a fundamental principle of democracy: the idea that any citizen should have...
...probability, that seriously overstates the case. Present and former trial lawyers populate state legislatures and Congress in numbers large enough to wield formidable blocking power. There is a question, too, of whether the courts would uphold any serious tort reforms that might be enacted. One omen: the Cook County, Ill., circuit court last year ruled that major parts of a newly enacted law stretching out damage awards in medical malpractice cases violated the Illinois constitution...
...mildly encouraging sign is that a growing number of legislators seem to recognize that, just as the crisis has no single cause, it cannot have any single solution. They are proposing various combinations of tighter insurance regulation and tort reform. A bill on the verge of enactment by the Minnesota legislature would set up "joint underwriting associations" to issue liability policies, written by the state, to customers who could not get commercial insurance; any losses would be picked up jointly by the state's insurers. But to limit those losses, the bill also would restrict punitive damages, among other tort...
...more formidable global competitor. This is a man who knew how to play hardball to get what he wanted. A lawyer before he was an insurance man, he thought nothing of phoning members of Congress or even Cabinet-level officials at the White House to express his views on tort reform, insurance legislation or international trade...
...Vioxx, commonly used as anti-inflammatory drugs, are also effective in fighting or preventing cancer. But the trials were halted last year after reports that the risk of heart attack or stroke doubled among a group of Vioxx users. Vioxx was summarily yanked from the market and the tort lawyers immediately canceled lunch. Celebrex was also implicated because it's in the same drug class. It's still available, but the FDA has called for a black-box warning about the added danger...