Suing Anyone, Anytime, Anywhere

El Capitan - photo by JoAnn Sturman

Scott Sturman

A judge can be dismissed for only a few reasons, and stupidity is not one of them.   --W.R. Priskna

My friend’s recent experience with personal injury attorneys confirmed that this group of predators are among the lowest life forms on the planet.  When unhampered by financial limits to their demands, they exhibit a rapacious and disingenuous ability to push damages to the extreme.  The larcenous quest is assured when dunderheaded judges preside over a carnival atmosphere, and jurists are selected by how well they fit into a court fool’s costume.

A death occurred on a job site, when an entry level employee with a wife and small child thoughtlessly put himself in harm’s way.  In the hands of an elite team of personal injury attorneys, the story would be rewoven and embellished to convince a jury the fault was due to the employer rather than a careless mistake.  Punishment rather than compensation became the objective, as the attorneys were quick to point out the lifestyle disparities between the deceased and his employer.  As it is in the political arena, class warfare is a handy tool in the courtroom, when jurists lose sight of facts and rely on emotion to redistribute wealth.

Of all the penalties, punitive damages, awards, and attorney fees levied in the case, one element typified how matters spin out of control when personal injury lawyers run amok:  The jury was convinced that without a man in the house, the widow feared for her personal safety at night.  The obvious solution was to provide a security guard in her home while the sun was below the horizon–seven days a week, 365 days a year, for a lifetime.  The cost was only $1.5 million, and one the jury agreed was entirely reasonable, although before his death the husband earned only $20,000 per year.  And what if the widow had a live-in boyfriend or remarried at a later time?  This was a trifling consideration compared to the pain and suffering she had endured since her husband’s passing.
 
Physicians in California are protected from exaggerated pain and suffering awards by MICRA legislation which caps limits at $250,000.  The program reduces medical costs and discourages physicians from fleeing the state to escape a predatory legal climate.  Now the program is under attack by personal injury attorneys, who feel emboldened by a 2/3 Democratic majority in both the California Assembly and Senate.  The lawyers, of course, declare their only concern is adequate compensation to injured parties.  A healthy share of the settlement has nothing to do with their love of humanity.

Californians should consider the following before tinkering with MICRA and its effect on the number of physicians practicing in the state:  There is already a shortage of physicians that only will intensify when Obama Care is foisted on the public.  Educational debt for physicians continues to escalate and often far exceeds a quarter of a million dollars.  With sagging reimbursements, adding more fixed costs in terms of higher malpractice premiums will further discourage highly qualified students from entering the medical field or force them to practice in more physician friendly states.

Listening to NPR’s California Report on the way to work, an anti MICRA advocate was asked what he thought was a reasonable limit to pain and suffering awards, “At least a million dollars,” he quipped.  To an increasing segment of the public who don’t know how many zeros are in a million, it doesn’t seem like a lot of money, but its impact on medical practices translates into a financial burden that a select profession must bear.  When there are too few doctors available to tend to life threatening medical conditions, consider having a personal injury attorney take care of the problem.  If they can’t talk your way out of it, at least they can find someone to sue to ease your pain and suffering.