Imagining life without lawyers

There is yet another book out there touting a world without lawyers, and extolling life without litigation. Philip Howard’s “Life Without Lawyers: Liberating Americans from too Much Law” contains a highlight reel of misguided cases which are presented for their ability to persuade people that there is a problem with civil justice in this nation. Howard’s alarmist presentation permeates old myths which distort the truth.

We know that everyone hates lawyers until they need one. And it is for those occasions when we may indeed need a lawyer, that we should be suspect of anyone who seeks to eliminate them.

How many times have we heard the rallying cry quoting from Shakespeare’s Henry VI: “THE FIRST THING WE DO, LET’S KILL ALL THE LAWYERS?” But those who use this phrase against lawyers are as miserably misguided about their Shakespeare as they are about the judicial system which they disdain so freely.

Even a cursory reading of the context in which the lawyer killing statement is made in King Henry VI, Part II, (Act IV), Scene 2, reveals that Shakespeare was paying great and deserved homage to lawyers as the front line defenders of democracy. The accolade is spoken by Dick the Butcher, a follower of anarchist Jack Cade, whom Shakespeare depicts as “the head of an army of rabble and a demagogue pandering to the ignorant,” who sought to overthrow the government. Shakespeare’s acknowledgment that the first thing any potential tyrant must do to eliminate freedom is to “kill all the lawyers” is, indeed, a classic and well-deserved compliment to the legal profession.

Writing for Newsweek magazine, Dahlia Lithwick imagines life without lawyers and concludes: “the one thing scarier than a bus full of lawyers is a bus without them.” She talks about America after 9/11 and the loosening of laws protecting civil rights and civil liberties. She asks rhetorically whether these changes have made us safer? I think the conclusion is quite clear; the last eight years have shown us just how troubling it can be when we move from away nation of laws. You can read her full story by clicking here. For a quick review of the book from Time magazine, click here.  You can read an interview with the author from US News and World Report by clicking here.

To the extent that Howard’s book encourages conversation about improving civil justice, it is worth the read. But if it is used as a rallying call for so-called tort “reform”, then it is nothing other than dangerous propaganda.

Howard talks a lot about accountability in his book. We agree on the premise that accountability is important. But the truth is we need a strong and vibrant justice system to hold people accountable and succeed as a democracy. Any efforts to restrict or restrain the jury system hinders civil rights for all. In doing so, these efforts make us less free.

I’ll end with this: several years ago, a former colleague of mine (a journalist from the other industry that fosters accountability) captured the essence and importance of lawyers. I posted it then encourage you to read it again by clicking here.

Secret deals with insurer behind rising health costs in Massachusetts

For years, we have been brainwashed into thinking that lawsuits and litigation have been behind the rising costs of health insurance in this nation. Indeed, the insurance industry and United States Chamber of Commerce have made a concerted effort over the years to convince people that lawsuits are out of control and destroying the healthcare system. We discussed this corporate gall in a recent post which you can view by clicking here.

For the last several days, the Boston Globe has been running a spotlight series on healthcare, highlighting a sweetheart handshake deal between Blue Cross Blue Shield (a health insurer) and Partners Healthcare (one of the biggest hospital companies in Massachusetts) which has resulted in skyrocketing healthcare costs having nothing to do with litigation. The deal wasn’t reduced to writing because a written agreement between the state’s biggest hospital company and its biggest health insurer that would make insurance more expensive statewide might raise legal questions about anticompetitive behavior.

As reported in the Globe, as part of the deal, Blue Cross gave Partners doctors and hospitals the biggest insurance payment increase since Massachusetts General and Brigham and Women’s hospitals agreed to join forces in 1993. In return, Partners would protect Blue Cross from its biggest fear: that Partners would allow other insurers to pay less. Those who helped broker the deal say Partners promised to push for the same or bigger payment increases for everything from X-rays to brain surgery from Blue Cross’s competition, ensuring that all major insurers would face tens of millions in cost increases. Blue Cross called it a “market covenant.”

The deal, never before made public, marked the beginning of a period of rapid escalation in Massachusetts insurance prices, a Spotlight Team investigation has found, as Partners repeatedly used its clout to get rate increases and other hospitals tried to keep up. Individual insurance premiums have risen 8.9 percent a year ever since the “market covenant,” state figures show, more than twice the annual rise in the late 1990s.

To read the full report about this deal and its consequences to healthcare consumers, please click here.

For more information, we urge you to visit Health Care for America Now. Health Care for America Now is a national grassroots campaign organizing millions of Americans to win a guarantee of quality, affordable health care for all. At that site, you’ll also find out how the insurance industry bends the rules to cost you more money.

Corporate gall that simply goes too far

A CBS News report from Andrew Cohen has revealed a tale of corporate gall that shocks the conscience. The report outs a plan by corporations seeking to “reform” the very system they broke. Here are some of the highlights from the report:

Like the child who kills his parents and then begs for mercy because he is an orphan, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce now is begging President-elect Barack Obama to protect corporate interests in the nation’s civil litigation system as a way of restoring jobs and bolstering an economy shattered largely (as we now know) by corporate greed and misfeasance.

The Chamber has been pushing tirelessly for decades to rein in plaintiffs’ attorneys (who look to punish corporate negligence or fraud with civil lawsuits), deregulate industry and commerce (we all know how well Wall Street did with its freedom), and nullify important consumer protection laws (like the one in Maine which is allowing smokers to go after tobacco companies for false advertising). The lobbying effort has been national and local, highly-public and super-secret, and devastatingly successful.

Thanks in part to the Chamber and its Orwellian-named Institute for Legal Reform, the Securities and Exchange Commission backed off its scrutiny of screwy deals and schemes, the Congress was lax in its oversight of the mortgage industry, litigators were thwarted or punished, and the White House and Justice Department pushed a legal doctrine (“preemption”) that almost always helped employers over employees.

All of these things, and more policies and practices endorsed by the Institute, helped unshackle the savageries of corporate America and left individuals less protected against an ever-freer and more predatory market.

To read the full report, click here. If you are as appalled as the rest of us, let President-elect Obama, your Senators, and Congressman know that enough is enough, and that you would like them to pass laws that put people first.

Illinois lawyer responds to WSJ editorial

In a letter to the Wall Street Journal, Philip Harnett Corboy Jr., president of the Illinois Trial Lawyers Association, offered a well reasoned and necessary response to that paper’s editorial urging the Illinois Supreme Court to impose arbitrary limits on jury awards. The case and editorial was the subject of one of our recent posts (click here for that post). The full text of that letter is included below:

In your Dec. 1 editorial “Messing With Malpractice Reform,” you urge the Illinois Supreme Court to “side with the patients and the rule of law” in considering a case that could overturn the state’s cap on damage awards. Yet the editorial never mentions the patient who is at the center of that case. 

She is a three-year-old little girl named Abigaile LeBron, whose life has been forever changed by the severe brain damage she suffered as a result of medical negligence. It is likely that Abigaile will have to be fed through a tube for the rest of her life. She will never develop cognitively or physically as her peers do. And she will likely never live independently. It is inarguably a very painful tragedy for Abigaile and all who know and love her. 

The insurance industry and its brethren in the tort reform world have argued that Abigaile’s compensation for lifelong disability, pain and suffering should be arbitrarily limited, despite what a jury of average citizens may decide. The question before the Illinois Supreme Court is whether the Illinois Constitution allows Abigaile’s rights to be limited in this fashion to the benefit of insurance company profits. Twice before, our state’s highest court has decided in favor of patients and against the insurance companies that would limit these rights to protect their own profits. No new arguments have been offered by the insurance industry. 

You argue that a reduction in malpractice premiums and the return of doctors to the state have resulted from the law containing caps. Nothing could be further from the truth. Not one case has been litigated under the new cap in Illinois. The simple fact is that those positive developments have resulted from strong, long-suppressed insurance reforms in the legislation. That law has now forced malpractice insurance companies to provide greater transparency on rate-setting and payouts that has in turn spurred competition, motivated more companies to enter the marketplace, and lowered premiums for doctors. Important to the discussion for your readers is the additional fact that Illinois’ largest malpractice insurer has reported that payouts have remained flat for the past 13 years. By the way, it’s the same insurance carrier that admitted during the run-up to this legislation in 2005 that capping awards would not guarantee lower premiums for its doctors. 

The Illinois Constitution was put in place to ensure individual rights and freedoms. While corporations and profit-hungry executives often stack the decks against individuals in the marketplace and the halls of government, the courtroom can still provide all parties with a level playing field. The Illinois Supreme Court will now decide whether that standard remains in place for patients like Abigaile LeBron. You should let it do its job. 

Philip Harnett Corboy Jr.
President
Illinois Trial Lawyers Association
Chicago 

To view the WSJ issue that contains the letter, click here.

Medical malpractice caps argued in Illinois

The Illinois Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case which calls into question the constitutionality of caps on non-economic damages in medical malpractice cases in that state. An Illinois trial court ruled last year in Lebron v. Gottlieb Memorial Hospital that the law violates the Constitution’s separation of powers clause by allowing the General Assembly to restrict deliberations by judges and juries. Circuit Court Judge Diane J. Larsen ruled that the cap on damages “operates as a legislative remittitur which ‘disregards the jury’s careful deliberative process in determining damages that will fairly compensate injured plaintiffs who have proven their causes of action’” and thus violates separation of powers. The full text of the ruling can be viewed by clicking here.

Illinois Trial Lawyers Association President Bruce Kohen praised Judge Larsen’s decision, calling it “an important victory for the rule of law and constitutional government over the rule of special interests.” He added that “today’s ruling provides further confirmation that, despite the power and influence of the insurance lobby, laws that violate the state’s Constitution will not stand.”

We have repeatedly noted that these efforts at “reform” are misguided and unjust. Our previous blog posts on the topic can be found by clicking here. These types of tort deform make bad law and do not encourage or mandate that individuals take responsibility for their actions. In 2007, Public Citizen issued a must-read report entitled The Great Medical Malpractice Hoax which goes to the heart of the issues being tested in the Illinois courts. The report examines the issue of medical liability in two parts. The first part reviews NPDB data and shows that the claims of the business and medical lobbies are exaggerated and unsupported by the facts. The second part examines data related to physician error and discipline. This section notes some disturbing trends and reveals that the real medical crisis is the high incidence of preventable medical error, as well as the lack of accountability for a small set of doctors who commit a substantial number of avoidable errors that seriously injure patients.

The Wall Street Journal is touting the benefit of medical malpractice reforms without in any way acknowledging the harms they have wrought on innocent consumers. In an editorial in today’s paper, the WSJ editors applaud the fact that in 2005 the Illinois legislature passed a law that artificially capped medical malpractice jury awards for pain and suffering at $500,000 against doctors and $1 million against hospitals.

Lawyers opposing the caps argued that the 2005 law limiting the amount of money juries may award in medical malpractice cases unfairly targets those most seriously injured who deserve the most compensation. It has been suggested that everyone must sacrifice on so-called tort reform efforts. But the sacrifice is uneven, said Michael Gottesman, a Georgetown University law professor representing Abigaile LeBron and her mother. The LeBron family’s non-economic damages, for example, might far exceed the caps, Gottesman said. In the case of a wealthy person whose injury causes millions of dollars in lost income, he would recover all of it because the law puts no restrictions on jury awards of economic damages.

“Even though the attorney general says health care consumers ought to contribute to the solution, the only people being asked to contribute to this solution are the most seriously injured people – almost by definition the people least capable of making this contribution,” Gottesman said.

The American Bar Association submitted a friend of the court brief urging the Illinois Supreme Court to find the caps unconstitutional. That brief can be viewed by clicking here.

You can view the oral arguments from the case by clicking here.

Supreme Court hears argument in Wyeth v. Levine

The Wyeth v. Levine case was argued before the United States Supreme Court yesterday. The American Association for Justice (AAJ) provided this synopsis of the press reporting on the oral arguments:

Wyeth v. Levine went before the Supreme Court on Monday. The case was heavily covered, with articles appearing in national newspapers and on all four wire services. A number of papers described the court as divided and predicted that the case will be decided on narrow grounds.

In an article on the front page of its Business section, the Washington Post (11/4, D1, Markon) reports that Diana Levine’s suit against Wyeth is “one of the most hotly contested cases of the Supreme Court’s term. The justices yesterday debated Wyeth’s contention — which is supported by the Bush administration — that the lawsuit should be thrown out because federal law preempts such state court claims.” There were “divisions within the conservative bloc on the court.” Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. questioned how the [Food and Drug Administration] (FDA) approved a drug “as ’safe and effective’ when ‘you have the risk of gangrene.’” Also, “Justice Anthony M. Kennedy disputed Wyeth’s contention that it could not have followed the Vermont law under which Levine sued without violating the federal law that regulates drug labeling.” However, “Justice Antonin Scalia grilled Levine’s attorney intensively, scowling at him.” There is “an intensifying national debate over ‘preemption,’” and “Levine’s lawsuit struck a particular nerve, with both sides mounting intensive media campaigns before yesterday’s argument.”

The New York Times (11/4, A20, Lipak) reports that this “was supposed to be the term’s blockbuster business case,” but the argument “quickly turned into a search for limiting principles.” According to the Times, “Several justices appeared open to the idea that preemption could follow from the FDA’s approval of a drug label — but only if drug companies remained subject to lawsuits if they failed to disclose new information about potential risks,” and “other justices seemed prepared to allow preemption — but only if the drug agency had considered the particular risk before approving the label.” The Times adds, “Given the justices’ interest in those refinements, the court seemed unlikely to rule broadly on the larger issues in the case: whether the agency and other federal regulators set minimum safety standards that states are free to augment or whether they make judgments about the optimal balance between risks and benefits that states must follow.”

The AP (11/3, Sherman) added, “Several justices indicated that if the U.S. Food and Drug Administration had clear information about the risks of Wyeth Pharmaceuticals’ anti-nausea drug Phenergan, and approved its warning label anyway, then Wyeth probably would prevail in its court fight against Diana Levine of Vermont.” However, “there was considerable skepticism among the justices — and disagreement between the opposing lawyers — that the FDA had a clear picture of the disastrous consequences of improperly giving Phenergan by” IV push.

The Wall Street Journal (11/4, A3, Bravin) notes, “Several Supreme Court justices expressed skepticism with arguments given Monday by business interests hoping for wide immunity from lawsuits over federally regulated products.” Also, “several justices seemed to be searching for a moderate position, whereby private lawsuits might be permitted in extraordinary circumstances. The justices seemed disinclined to permit private lawsuits to simply re-evaluate data that the FDA had fully considered.”

USA Today (11/4, Biskupic, Appleby) points out that “much of the give-and-take centered on what happened in Levine’s case. A majority of the justices did not tip their hand, although they emphasized different issues.” While “Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Samuel Alito raised questions of patient safety and the adequacy of FDA review of the drug label,” both “Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Antonin Scalia focused on drugmakers’ ability to meet federal requirements without further demands from the states.” Another USA Today (11/4, Biskupic) article reports, “A majority of the justices did not tip their hand during the hour of oral arguments. Many suggested a key question may be how the FDA had handled any attempt by Wyeth to change its label to made clear the dangers from the particular administration used on Levine.”

The Legal Times (11/3, Mauro) reported, “The Supreme Court appeared torn” during the argument, and “the case could be decided narrowly, giving little guidance about broader preemption issues beyond the area of drug labeling.” In contrast, McClatchy (11/3, Doyle) reported, “several justices appeared ready to declare that federal regulations preempted certain state lawsuits. That would be a major victory for the drug company.” CongressDaily (11/3, Edney) also reports that Levine’s lawyers “faced hefty skepticism from justices.”

The Los Angeles Times (11/4, Savage) reports, “If the court agrees with the administration, congressional Democrats have said, they will seek to revise the law and restore consumers’ right to sue.” The Kiplinger Letter (11/4, Craver) reports, “Lawmakers have already taken action to help remedy the issue. In reauthorization legislation for the Consumer Product Safety Commission, Congress nullified the preemption language by inserting a section that preserves the right of consumers to seek restitution from those who caused them harm.” During President Bush’s administration, “over 60 proposed or final regulations put out by government agencies include language aimed at shielding companies from product liability claims. Les Weisbrod, president of the American Association for Justice, said, “In effect the Bush administration has made the safety of Americans secondary to corporate profits.”

In the Health blog on the Wall Street Journal (11/3), Sarah Rubenstein wrote, “what happens in tomorrow’s presidential election may be every bit as important as what the Supremes say about Wyeth v. Levine,” because “a Wyeth victory in court could be offset by an Obama presidential victory and a Democratic Congress.”

Dow Jones Newswires (11/3, Favole) and NPR (11/3, Totenberg) also cover this story. Dan Slater, in the Law blog of the Wall Street Journal (11/3), and Sarah Rubenstein, in a separate Health blog posting on the Wall Street Journal (11/3) website, also cover this story.

Sen. Leahy argues Levine should prevail. In the Congress blog on The Hill (11/3), Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, wrote that “every American consumer will have a stake in the outcome” of this case. “The justices’ ruling in Ms. Levine’s case will affect the millions of Americans who use prescription drugs and may suffer avoidable injuries.” Meanwhile, “the Bush Administration is taking the drug companies’ side against consumers, putting corporate profits above all else.” However, “corporate accountability and the right of American citizens to seek justice in their state courts hang in the balance.” Should the Court overturn “the Vermont jury’s decision, even the most misleading, inaccurate or insufficient drug label, if okayed by the FDA, will immunize a company from virtually all attempts by injured consumers like Ms. Levine to receive compensation.”

WSJournal argues Levine victory would stop drug innovation. The Wall Street Journal (11/4) editorializes that the “drug-approval system…balances the risks of treatments against the risk of not being treated at all. And a jury, faced with a single sympathetic plaintiff, is in no position to rule on the correctness of those FDA judgments.” The Journal adds, “it amounts to double jeopardy to say, even if you” go through the approval process and correctly label the drug, “that you can still get sued if something goes wrong because someone else made a mistake. If a known and disclosed medical risk can still lead to a law suit, drug companies can literally be sued for anything.” The Journal concludes, “if we want state juries second-guessing the FDA at every turn, let’s pass a law in broad daylight so everyone knows whom to blame when drug innovation stops cold.”

Supreme Court to rule on consumer’s right to sue negligent corporations

It’s billed as the business case of the century by the Chamber of Commerce. But for Diana Levine, a Vermont guitarist who lost her arm to gangrene caused by an improperly administered nausea drug, it’s a quest for justice. For consumers, it’s a vital test of the ability to seek redress against powerful drug companies.

On Monday, November 3, 2008, the United States Supreme Court will weigh in. In a case called Wyeth v. Levine, the Court will review a $6.7 million verdict delivered by a Vermont jury against Wyeth. As found by the jury, Ms. Levine’s arm was amputated because Wyeth failed to warn against using a method of administering its anti-nausea drug Phenergan that causes precisely the type of injury that Ms. Levine sustained. The issue before the Court will be whether federal law preempts state torts claims imposing liability on drug labeling that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had previously approved.

A win by Wyeth in this case could provide negligent corporations complete immunity from lawsuits, a sort of “get out of jail card” for manufacturers. The preemption of state law urged by Wyeth means complete immunity from lawsuits for corporations and a full escape from accountability when they have knowingly injured and endangered Americans. The civil justice system offers corporations a powerful incentive to make their products safer. All people should have a fair chance to receive justice through the legal system when they are injured by the negligence or misconduct of others—even when it means taking on the most powerful corporations.

The brief submitted by former FDA Commissioners Dr. Donald Kennedy and Dr. David A. Kessler highlight the importance of litigation to enhance drug safety. Failure-to-warn litigation has always played an important role in ensuring that manufacturers bear responsibility for the safety of their drugs. Failure-to-warn litigation does not challenge FDA’s decisions about labels; rather, it challenges a company’s failure to alert physicians and patients to risks that were unknown or poorly understood when FDA approved the drug’s label, but were evident to the company at the time the plaintiff sustained injury. Litigation of that sort complements, not undercuts, FDA’s job of protecting consumers from dangerous drugs. The full brief can be viewed by clicking here.

Even the editors of the New England Journal of Medicine submitted a brief in support of Ms. Levine. In their brief, the editors noted that the FDA is in no position to ensure the safety of prescription drugs. The full brief can be viewed by clicking here.

You can review the opinions and briefs related to the case by clicking here. The Vermont Supreme Court decision upholding the verdict can be viewed by clicking here.

The New York Times report on the case can be viewed by clicking here. The Wall Street Journal report of the case can be viewed here. In addition, the Journal posted a three-minute video description of the case and issue which can be viewed by clicking here.

We can only hope that the Supreme Court will preserve the integrity of the American jury system by upholding the verdict from the state of Vermont. However, given the Court’s pro-business leaning (see our post “Will the little guy ever get ahead?”), consumer justice may be in jeopardy. We will keep you posted on the case and the decision once delivered by the court.

Will the little guy ever get ahead?

Will the little guy to get ahead? That’s certainly a legitimate question in light of Jeffrey Rosen’s new article which appeared in the Sunday New York Times Magazine on March 16, 2008. To view the article, click here.

In the article entitled Supreme Court Inc., Rosen contends that the United States Supreme Court has been shaping up nicely for business interests at the expense of ordinary consumers. With their pro-business jurisprudence, the justices on the Supreme Court are capturing an emerging spirit of agreement among liberal and conservative elites about the value of free markets. It goes on to suggest that this is a culmination of a carefully planned, behind-the-scenes campaign over several decades to change not only the courts, but also the country’s political culture.

The article speaks a lot about the powerful influence of the United States Chamber of Commerce, which over the course of the last 30 years, has championed business interests before the Supreme Court. At the same time, there has been a decline of economic populism in Congress, a weakening of trade unions, and the rise of globalization. This combination has led to a series of decisions that have limited access by consumers to the courts in product liability cases, have undermined jury awards of punitive damages, and has let corporate corruption go unchecked in the courts.

The article has not gone without criticism. Indeed, some have suggested that Rosen has supplied little evidence that the Court has become pro business in recent years. Others have suggested that Rosen has distorted legal history and misunderstands the proper role of the judiciary. In either event, the article is a compelling read and certainly signals a seismic shift in the ability of ordinary consumers to have their day in court.

Consumers have been inundated with tort reform legislation that has severely limited their ability to seek justice, and now it appears that the courts themselves are closing the doors. You can view a series of tort reform pieces by clicking here.

FDA ignores Congress and lets drug companies off the hook

This news just came in from the American Association for Justice (AAJ):

Last month, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a proposed rule which directly contradicts Congress’ expressed intent when it passed the Food and Drug Administration Amendments Act of 2007 (FDAAA), an act which encompasses the Prescription Drug and User Fee Act.  If the rule becomes final, drug companies will enjoy more relaxed labeling requirements and will surely use the rule to claim immunity for failing to warn patients of potential drug hazards.

When Congress passed the FDAAA it included language confirming the responsibility of the drug manufacturer to promptly update its drug label when they become aware of new safety information.  Congress was clear that it intended to keep the burden squarely on the drug companies to update warning labels. 

Nevertheless, the FDA has promulgated this new rule against Congress’ expressed wishes.  Congress explicitly stated that it did not intend to ease the requirements on drug companies to inform consumers of potential drug hazards.  It reiterated the need for drug companies to change its label if the drug company learns of reasonable evidence of that risk. 

In fact, the drug companies fought and lobbied hard to include language to loosen warning label obligations that the Congress specifically left out of the final bill.  But since the drug companies couldn’t get Congress to agree to lessen their responsibilities towards consumers, they turned to the Bush Administration.

Unfortunately, the FDA’s tactics are not new to Bush Administration bureaucrats.  Unelected federal agencies have been ignoring congressional directives in a number of other cases.  The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), and others are also engaging in this tactic of Bureaucratic Activism.

How can we undo this system of backdoor tort reform and prevent it in the future?  We are asking Congress take action to safeguard Congressional prerogatives and protect the public.  It is important that your Member of Congress hears from you so that they understand that this matters to you. You can obtain a pre-formatted letter To Congress by clicking Contact Congress Today.

We are committed to putting an end to this unjust form of backdoor tort reform and will continue to fight against it.  Your help in alerting Congress will also be important.  We also encourage you to take the effort one step further by making a phone call to your Members of Congress.  Send a letter, set up a meeting, whatever it takes, let them know how the FDA is letting drug companies off the hook and ignoring Congressional intent.  You can look up their contact information easily at www.peopleoverprofits.org/legdirectory. To view some talking points for your conversation, click here.

With your help, we can put an end to this bureaucratic activism. 

Debunking a frivolous lawsuit myth

The annual Stella Awards, which lists the most extravagant lawsuits of the year, has recently made the rounds on the Internet and in in-boxes. However, this year’s top lawsuit was nothing more than popular urban myth, writes Houston Chronicle columnist Rick Casey. To view the article, click here.

Casey cautions the public to take stories like those enumerated in the Stella Awards with a grain of salt and notes that stories about most “frivolous” lawsuits are usually nonsense. His lesson that he hopes readers will take from his article: The next time an Internet tale makes you think things are even worse than you thought, check it out. Especially when the tale suggests that the American system is stacked against wealthy corporations.

One easy way is to visit Snopes.com, a site that investigates urban myths.