Tort Reform
President Bush just signed legislation that changes the way civil litigation is handled. It is designed to do one thing. It is designed to increase your standard of living.
Here's how. Since no one in America starves to death except as the outcome of a malicious act, quality of life in this nation is not at the subsistence level. The poor in America have television sets. In the rare case that homelessness is the outcome of unearned hardship, it is usually brief. If you are willing to get up in the morning and go to work, you will have a watertight roof over your head at night. I point this out because we are not a nation of hunter-gatherers and dirt farmer scratching at the ground with sticks in order to eke out our subsistence. Subsistence is assured. (even for the indigent)
Since we are beyond subsistence, material goods and technologies determine quality of life. Technologies and goods that allow us to do things faster, to multi-task, or automate the mundane leave us free to work on relationships, spiritual health, entertainments and leisure. Together all of these things enhance quality of life.
Junk lawsuits do not punish corporations. They punish consumers. The hated CEO or business owner does not roll over and decide to operate his business at a loss because he loses a lawsuit. He just raises prices. He hires lawyers to write long-winded disclaimers and waivers and he passes those costs on to you. He does not pay his legal costs. You pay his legal costs when you buy his product. Twenty Percent of the cost of a ladder and 50% of the cost of a football helmet.
New nuance to an old phrase: It's the Cost of Doing Business. You just keep raising the price. If your product is as good as the competition, he's going to have the same cost. You both have to pay it.
Whether the ladder comes with a 19 page safety instruction boooklet or not, people fall off ladders and get hurt. They get hurt because mass bends time-space which causes an effect known as gravity. The victim didn't need a 19 page safety booklet to tell him about gravity. He knew enough about gravity to know he needed a ladder because every time he tried to levitate to that necessary height, gravity kept pulling him back down. Hard. Fast. Unforgivingly. Gravity causes impacts. Impacts can be dangerous. Buying a ladder is an implied statement ", I need something to allow access to a place that I will fall from because of the effect of mass on time-space. Therefore, I am buying this 20 foot telescoping vertical bridge across time-space.
Football is dangerous. Bodies running around as fast as they can in a confined space. The intent is to control the momentum and position of an oblongated pneumatic device of animal hide. This requires impact. A clue would be the fact that people wear pads and helmets for this activity. Armor. They wear armor. But no armor is impenetrable. No armor will protect you from the Magic BB. Ask any pilot, soldier or the captain of the Titanic. Dale Earnhardt's death was from a Magic BB. So was that Formula 1 driver, Ayrton Senna. Objects moving in a confined space collide. Impacts can be dangerous. Buying a football helmet is an implied statement. "I intend to run as fast as I can at an oncoming human being and attempt to stop him with my body."
Like guns, ladders and football helmets do not maim people. Impacts maim people. When you go up a ladder time-space is storing energy for your descent. When you take off from the line of scrimmage, you are in an energy state. If you bleed off the energy slowly, you'll be fine, but if the earth or someone else bleeds it off all at once, you could get hurt.
Junk lawsuits are a way of attempting to shift the unintended consequences of one's actions to someone who was providing a product, service or convenience that you chose to employ. But they do not shift the cost to the merchant or manufacturer. They shift the cost to the next consumer. And that next consumer is you.
By making it easier to defend against junk lawsuits and harder for people to make you pay for the unintended consequences of their own activities, GWB just increased your standard of living. Unless you are a parasite lawyer.
This reform will not protect firms or people that are guilty of egregious negligence or conspiracy. But it will protect you and I from filling the pockets of sycophant lawyers and their irresponsible clients.
Here's how. Since no one in America starves to death except as the outcome of a malicious act, quality of life in this nation is not at the subsistence level. The poor in America have television sets. In the rare case that homelessness is the outcome of unearned hardship, it is usually brief. If you are willing to get up in the morning and go to work, you will have a watertight roof over your head at night. I point this out because we are not a nation of hunter-gatherers and dirt farmer scratching at the ground with sticks in order to eke out our subsistence. Subsistence is assured. (even for the indigent)
Since we are beyond subsistence, material goods and technologies determine quality of life. Technologies and goods that allow us to do things faster, to multi-task, or automate the mundane leave us free to work on relationships, spiritual health, entertainments and leisure. Together all of these things enhance quality of life.
Junk lawsuits do not punish corporations. They punish consumers. The hated CEO or business owner does not roll over and decide to operate his business at a loss because he loses a lawsuit. He just raises prices. He hires lawyers to write long-winded disclaimers and waivers and he passes those costs on to you. He does not pay his legal costs. You pay his legal costs when you buy his product. Twenty Percent of the cost of a ladder and 50% of the cost of a football helmet.
New nuance to an old phrase: It's the Cost of Doing Business. You just keep raising the price. If your product is as good as the competition, he's going to have the same cost. You both have to pay it.
Whether the ladder comes with a 19 page safety instruction boooklet or not, people fall off ladders and get hurt. They get hurt because mass bends time-space which causes an effect known as gravity. The victim didn't need a 19 page safety booklet to tell him about gravity. He knew enough about gravity to know he needed a ladder because every time he tried to levitate to that necessary height, gravity kept pulling him back down. Hard. Fast. Unforgivingly. Gravity causes impacts. Impacts can be dangerous. Buying a ladder is an implied statement ", I need something to allow access to a place that I will fall from because of the effect of mass on time-space. Therefore, I am buying this 20 foot telescoping vertical bridge across time-space.
Football is dangerous. Bodies running around as fast as they can in a confined space. The intent is to control the momentum and position of an oblongated pneumatic device of animal hide. This requires impact. A clue would be the fact that people wear pads and helmets for this activity. Armor. They wear armor. But no armor is impenetrable. No armor will protect you from the Magic BB. Ask any pilot, soldier or the captain of the Titanic. Dale Earnhardt's death was from a Magic BB. So was that Formula 1 driver, Ayrton Senna. Objects moving in a confined space collide. Impacts can be dangerous. Buying a football helmet is an implied statement. "I intend to run as fast as I can at an oncoming human being and attempt to stop him with my body."
Like guns, ladders and football helmets do not maim people. Impacts maim people. When you go up a ladder time-space is storing energy for your descent. When you take off from the line of scrimmage, you are in an energy state. If you bleed off the energy slowly, you'll be fine, but if the earth or someone else bleeds it off all at once, you could get hurt.
Junk lawsuits are a way of attempting to shift the unintended consequences of one's actions to someone who was providing a product, service or convenience that you chose to employ. But they do not shift the cost to the merchant or manufacturer. They shift the cost to the next consumer. And that next consumer is you.
By making it easier to defend against junk lawsuits and harder for people to make you pay for the unintended consequences of their own activities, GWB just increased your standard of living. Unless you are a parasite lawyer.
This reform will not protect firms or people that are guilty of egregious negligence or conspiracy. But it will protect you and I from filling the pockets of sycophant lawyers and their irresponsible clients.
posted by ironcross11 | 9:52 AM
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