[Mb-civic] Objection! Bush's Rap on Lawsuits Is Wrong

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http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-
kahn25jan25,0,3572240.story 

COMMENTARY
Objection! Bush's Rap on Lawsuits Is Wrong
By Robert S. Kahn
Robert S. Kahn is the author of "Other People's Blood: U.S. 
Immigration Prisons in the Reagan Decade" (Westview, 1996).

January 25, 2005

President Bush wants to reform the legal system. He wasted no 
time after the election, hitting the road to barnstorm on the theme 
that there are too many lawsuits for too much money in too many 
courtrooms. 

I probably read more lawsuits than anyone else in the country — 
more than 1,000 a day. As news editor for Courthouse News 
Service, I read daily summaries of every new lawsuit filed in more 
than 100 state and federal courts in 48 states, plus appeals court 
decisions from all the federal circuits. What I've discovered is a 
realm of real problems and real people. 

Lawsuits provide a close-up view of society. Historian Le Roy 
Ladurie produced a masterpiece of medieval history by analyzing 
the legal filings generated during the Inquisition in a small town in 
southern France. The statements of those who were investigated for 
heresy enabled Ladurie to reconstruct an entire society.

In much the same way, the numbers and kinds of American lawsuits 
tell us not so much about lawsuit abuse as about our regional 
politics, histories and realities. 

Bush singled out Madison County, Ill., as having compliant judges 
and juries ready to accept any lawsuit and pay a plaintiff any sum. 
He pointed out that many asbestos lawsuits land there. 

But the reality is that these days most asbestos lawsuits are not filed 
in a single, obliging county; you'll find them all over the upper 
Midwest and Great Plains. I don't think that's because judges or 
juries are suckers there. It's because those regions are full of old 
industrial buildings, built when people remembered the Great 
Chicago Fire and the Great Peshtigo (Wis.) Fire (which happened 
the same day and killed far more people than died in Chicago). So 
for decades, in the Midwest and the Great Plains, buildings were 
filled with asbestos. 

State laws, of course, can encourage or discourage lawsuits. For 
example, far more "lemon lawsuits" are filed in Pennsylvania than 
any other state. Next comes Maryland. Are the most bad cars sold 
in those two states? No, state laws make it easier for car buyers to 
sue there. And if that's the way the voters want it, why not? 

The state court in Beaumont, Texas, has the highest percentage of 
lawsuits involving toxic spills, chemical poisoning and industrial 
accidents. Take a region dependent on the petrochemical industry, 
add a state Legislature more likely to encourage that industry than 
control it, and that's what you get. 

What about discrimination? One surprising class of citizens stands 
out: pregnant women. If only one-tenth of the allegations are true in 
the lawsuits I'm reading, it would be shocking. Mothers-to-be are 
demoted, harassed and subjected to unconscionable behavior day 
after day, as though pregnancy were a loathsome disease. It's not 
unusual for a male manager to fire a pregnant woman, saying 
clients would not want to meet someone in that "disgusting" 
condition.

Congress and the president may think that the legal system is out of 
control. But I think it's a sign of a free society's health that people 
are not afraid to sue their neighbors, their bosses, big business and 
even the police. For all of us, the courts are a last recourse against 
injustice and abuse. Congress and the president should keep their 
hands off.

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Copyright 2005 Los Angeles Times 

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