SAN FRANCISCO--When someone in Washington tells you "it isn't about the money," you can rest assured on one point.
It's about the money.
The Association of Trial Lawyers of America insists that its members' opposition to tort reform isn't based on protecting their billions of dollars in annual contingency fees. Now they've installed a new chief, veteran Washington public relations specialist John Haber, to promote that fallacy by putting a good face on what really amounts to unbridled greed.
Haber is being paid a cool half-million dollars to transform the image of America's personal injury bar--the equivalent of giving Ebenezer Scrooge an extreme makeover. Which leads one to ask, "Why do personal injury lawyers--who love to portray themselves as Robin Hood--suffer from an image problem?"
One answer would be because they overestimated what the American public would tolerate. Whether suing fast-food restaurants, flooding the media and the Internet with carnival barker ads promising easy money, or systematically targeting our health-care system, the plaintiffs' bar has proved repeatedly there's little it won't try if there's money to be made.
Another reason is a growing acknowledgement that personal injury lawyers are subverting our justice system to the detriment of those who need it most. There may be no better example of this than the current asbestos litigation crisis.
In this, the largest mass tort in U.S. history, lawyers manipulate venues, file lawsuits based on junk science and recruit uninjured plaintiffs to join lawsuits--all at the expense of those who truly have been injured.
In a recent study by Academic Radiology, a board of independent doctors reviewed chest X-rays that had been entered as evidence by lawyers in asbestos lawsuits. In the original trials, doctors paid by the lawyers to serve as "expert" witnesses concluded that 96 percent of the X-rays showed asbestos-related abnormalities. Doctors conducting the study found that fewer than 5 percent of the X-rays showed such damage.
Steven Kazan, an Oakland, Calif., lawyer who has represented asbestos victims since 1974, testified to Congress: "It used to be that I could tell a man dying of mesothelioma that I could make sure his family would be taken care of. Today, I often cannot say that anymore. And the reason is that other plaintiffs' attorneys are filing tens of thousands of claims every year for people who have absolutely nothing wrong with them."
But there is good news. There's increasing awareness among consumers that lawsuit abuse is making lawyers very rich at the expense of most Americans. The frivolous, self-enriching lawsuits filed by these lawyers now impose a hidden annual tax of $3,200 on a family of four.
More people also understand that personal injury lawyers' constant barrage of lawsuits costs them more than money. They are threatening our basic needs, such as our doctors, hospitals and the medications that can improve the quality of our lives.
People get it. They've seen the barrage of personal injury lawyer ads targeting every element of our health-care system. They've seen their doctors leave town, paid higher prices for health care and watched treatment options dwindle as new procedures and products are sidelined by fear of litigation.
Is it any wonder our elected officials are finally saying enough is enough and acting accordingly? States across the nation have led the way by passing meaningful reforms to stop lawsuit abuse. Now, after years of deadlock, federal class-action reform has been signed into law.
Federal asbestos reform and medical liability reform are the next prominent items on the reform agenda. Faced with clear signs of trouble in paradise, the personal injury bar is desperate to get back in the public's good graces and regain lost territory. Hence the pressing need for an expensive PR campaign to polish their tarnished image.
What they might not have counted on is that the American public is smart enough to figure out that this PR campaign has little to do with fighting for the rights of consumers and everything to do with keeping the money rolling into lawyer bank accounts.
As the multimillionaires at ATLA launch a PR blitz to win the hearts and minds of us common folk, they would do well to remember that actions speak louder than words. If they really want to convince the public, they should stop abusing our courts with lawsuits that have little to do with justice and everything to do with greed.
JOHN MERCHANT is chairman of California Citizens Against Lawsuit Abuse.