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Re: tort reform; No Selfish Vengeance!

----- Original Message -----
From: "John Denker" <jsd@MONMOUTH.COM>
To: <PHYS-L@lists.nau.edu>
Sent: Saturday, June 24, 2000 12:51 PM
Subject: tort reform; No Selfish Vengeance!



There are obvious pros and cons to punitive damages:
Pro -- They provide a deterrent to certain types of wrongful behavior.
Con -- They encourage plaintiffs with relatively minor losses to file
huge claims. Lawyers call this "playing the lottery".


The question in my mind is whether punitive damages really have much or any
positive effect. If it is a large company sued, or the government (current
Davidians case for $650 million), and the plaintiff wins, who loses? You
and I! The company will pass their costs on to us, and of course WE are the
government. If one company in an industry loses a large case, I'll bet all
the others quickly up their liability insurance and pass the cost on to us.
Yes you might put a small company out of business, but that will primarily
hurt the employees who lose their jobs and maybe some investors, but from
what I see in the local industries around here, the owners are (legally)
well insulated from the failures of their enterprises--one goes under and
they quickly start another.

I would offer the medical profession as an example of what today's
litigation can do to us. We pay for the very expensive malpractice
insurance policies of the doctors AND we then pay for all the extraneous
tests ordered (surely at the demand of the insurance companies) so as to
reduce the 'possibility' of being sued. All this (and more) has driven the
cost of health care to the point where the government is on the verge of
making sure ALL citizens have health insurance--something for which we will
all pay. As far as I can see, the real winners in all this are the lawyers
and the insurance companies.

Just my prejudiced ramblings on this non-physics topic (use the delete key
Charles!) while nothing else is being discussed.

Rick

**************************************************
Richard W. Tarara
Associate Professor of Physics
Department of Chemistry & Physics
Saint Mary's College
Notre Dame, IN 46556
219-284-4664
rtarara@saintmarys.edu

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