Frivolous

Schmivolous

Tort Reform?
Ever hear of the great 'conservative' push to 'reform' tort law to cap punitive damages, require unwittingly mandatory arbitration clauses to deprive people of jury trial seventh amendment rights and otherwise pervert the basic system of justice we have?
You need to see the new HBO special coming out called "Hot Coffee" about how tort reform and capped damages affects real people. Take that famous or infamous McDonalds coffee case where an elderly woman put a cup of hot McDonalds coffee between her legs to put creamer in and spilled it. You may think that nutty to sue and she became the poster woman for greed gone amuck but a jury first awarded her millions which was lowered by a judge later. What happened? Was it frivolous? Was the jury just all crazy? All nine or twelve of them????
First the case has to survive a motion to dismiss and a motion for summary judgment (and the lawyer can get sanctioned for filing a baseless claim) so there are built in guarantees against frivolous suits. Second, did you see the photos of this woman's skin grafts that had to be performed on her eighty some year old body after fourth degree burns that looked infected???

Now lets talk mandatory arbitration clauses in everything. And where is the media with that case in Texas with the woman who was nineteen years old who was gang raped by Halliburton and locked in a shipping crate who could not get to court because she signed a mandatory employment arbitration clause in an employment agreement. Where is the media on that case? The woman testified before the Senate Judiciary committee and Al Franken championed her cause to void the mandatory arbitration so she could take the batards to court. Al Franken is to be taken way more seriously than I imagined.