Boy, Professor Engel has some axes to
grind against reforming torts. His whole premise is wrongheaded: just turn on
the evening news and watch all the crazy injury awards given by American
courts. And what you can find on the Internet about sue-crazy people is nothing
short of amazing – and the insane awards some people get! Figures… he’s a professor of law at one of those state universities, wasting good tax dollars.
Well, he did plug some figures into his
book. He says that only ten percent of injuries result in some form of claim in
America. He then compares this with numbers from England & Wales, finding a
similar rate of claims[i].
He also compares the rate of actual litigation between America and Japan,
finding that the American rate of litigation (two percent) is about five times
greater than the Japanese rate (0.4 percent). So even his own numbers show that
America is apparently near the top for claims and dwarfs Japan for litigation.
Not surprising, if you turn on the news.
Professor Engel sure has some strange
ideas about how people decide to sue[ii].
Daytime TV is chock-full of ads by injury lawyers – and who is it that watches
daytime TV, anyway? Loafers and couch potatoes, that’s who: people living on
welfare, just waiting to sue some enterprising businessman for his hard earned
money. Yep, that’s what reforming these torts is all about: keeping America a
great country by letting entrepreneurs work their magic.
Professor Engel spends a lot of time
explaining “lumping.” This is basically what he calls it when someone decides
not to sue after an injury. As if anyone needs to explain NOT suing… jeesh –
spoken like a true lawyer! “A whoooooooole lotta lumps” for me, thanks[iii].
Reading this book does let you know how
academics are trying to foul up the movement for tort reform, though. First, by
trying to mystify something as easy to understand as cause and effect; then by
talking about social and cultural “environments” – pure commie stuff,
completely alien to America’s exceptional spirit of ruggedly self-reliant individualism[iv]. Engel
even goes on about how the “haves” are pulling one over on us yokels. If this
isn’t coastal elitism, then nothing is.
Engel did get me thinking about how to
fix the tort system, though. He’s dead wrong about regulation being able to fix
anything, but it’s reassuring that even he thinks that this path is blocked. For
reforming torts, there should be a hefty fine paid by people who bring
frivolous lawsuits against good American companies. I mean, how am I supposed
to get motivated to start my thriving business when I see it all being taken
away in court by sue-happy freeloaders?
Another way to fix torts is to tighten
up on negligence. If Engel is right when he says that negligence was brought in
to help American industry grow through limiting frivolous lawsuits by shirkers
and agitators, then raising the standard for culpability seems to be just what
the doctor ordered. In today’s world where companies compete globally, we just
can’t afford to be hamstringing our best companies. When other countries are
helping their companies to compete, we cannot suffer raising the costs of doing
business here.
That’s how we should be reforming the
tort system, so that we can make American companies competitive again. Dollars
should not be lining the pockets of lawyers, but instead should be flowing to
employees as paychecks from booming companies that are unencumbered by
frivolous lawsuits. This is what the movement of tort reform is all about:
giving American companies the chance they deserve to compete and win across the
globe. And when American companies do well, so do Americans. It’s probably
never been said better than by Charles Wilson: “… for years I thought what was
good for the country was good for General Motors and vice versa[v]."
[i] Engel, David
M., “The myth of the litigious society” (University of Chicago Press, 2016): p.
30.
[ii] Engel: pp. 33,
70.
[iii] Merry Melodies
(Bugs Bunny), “Rabbit’s Kin”: spoken by cartoon character Pete Puma (Oh, three
or four). <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbit%27s_Kin>.
[iv] Engel: pp. 84,
138-43.
[v] Wikipedia,
“History of General Motors.”
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_General_Motors#Post-war_growth>.
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