Tort reform. You’ve heard the term thrown out as something that is needed to cut down on so-called “frivolous” lawsuits. Generally industries or medical practices that do not want to be regulated champion tort reform as a way to fix the economy and reduce health care costs. These industries and medical societies have a lot of money to conduct very effective campaigns that encourage everyone to be cynical about the law and lawyers.
After all, it is a right under the Seventh Amendment to the Constitution to take our grievance to a jury as a way to right a wrong. Lawsuits hold companies accountable that harm average consumers and they serve as a deterrent to reckless and negligent behavior.
The Center for Justice & Democracy, a New York- based consumer group, finds there are no huge awards and runaway juries. On the contrary, when the Center looked at the Department of Justice data, it found that a jury rarely awards punitive damages on top of compensatory awards. And any punitive damage awarded tends to be modest – in 2005 a median of $64,000.
Let’s not forget that it is the punitive damage that sends a message to wrongdoers that the cost of doing bad business is not worth the risk.
The paper is called What You Need To Know About Punitive Damages and it argues that “the imposition or threat of punitive damages is so critical in the fight against reckless corporate behavior that any effort to restrict them undermines the safety of us all.”
The concern is that medical malpractice lawsuits create financial uncertainly and discourage economic growth. But what do limits on med mal lawsuits do? Leave the critically injured person with few options other than to live off taxpayers on disability.
The Center says 38 states limit punitive damage and Florida is among them. Louisiana and New Hampshire have banned punitive damages altogether. That makes for a very good place to do business and a very bad place for injured consumers.
Punitive damages force corporations to take dangerous products and doctors off the market and fix the problems that result in injuries and death. Is there anyone who doesn’t want that? When you vote for tort reform, Farah & Farah reminds you, you are voting against your own interests and the interests of your family to remedy a situation by seeking fair and just compensation after being injured by some company or a doctor’s negligence or recklessness.
Source: http://www.fairwarning.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/PunitiveRelease2011F.pdf
Florida’s Gulf waters have been reopened to commercial fishing. The announcement was made in late July by federal officials opening more than 26,000 square miles of the Gulf of Mexico off Pensacola to commercial and recreational fishing.
FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg reassured the public that the seafood from the area is safe in an official statement on August 2.
“Through close coordination with our state and federal partners, we are confident all appropriate steps have been taken to ensure that seafood harvested from the waters being opened today is safe and that Gulf seafood lovers everywhere can be confident eating and enjoying the fish that will be coming out of this area.”
Hamburg talks about the importance that commercial fishermen and seafood processors return to their livelihoods, but makes no mention of the chemical dispersant that was used in Gulf waters to break up the crude oil dumped by BP following an April 20 explosion on its Deepwater oil rig.
At the same time, Hamburg announced the opening of some Mississippi state waters to commercial fishing.
Captain Kenneth Daniels Jr. and his crew have been out of work for three months and heralded the reopening to fishing, he tells the Bradenton Herald. A wide range of people and businesses have felt oil spill economic loss.
The National Marine Fisheries Service and the U.S. Coast Guard both confirm there has not been a light oil sheen observed in the northeastern Gulf since mid-June.
Safe Seafood?
To determine whether the seafood is safe, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration took 52 samples of fish species from the Gulf from June 23 to July 13. After determining where the fish were caught, they went to a lab in Pascagoula where the fish underwent a taste and smell test as well as chemical analysis. The green light was issued after it was determined the food was safe for consumption. However, more than 57,000 square miles of federal waters will remain closed, which represents nearly a quarter of the Gulf’s economic zone.
We certainly hope the seafood is safe, but federal officials told first responders following 9/11 in 2001, that the air at Ground Zero was safe too. It turns out it wasn’t and many today have lung cancers as well as respiratory problems and sued over environmental health issues. Let’s hope our government learned from that error and has not put economic considerations above public health.
By Eddie Farah on June 13, 2008 -
It was one of the most horrible trucking accidents this area can
remember.
On January 25, 2006, a tractor-trailer driver reportedly fell asleep behind the wheel and drove his trailer into a car full of Lake Butler children waiting for a school bus.
All seven children died in an inferno. They were all from the same family. And five children onboard a bus that was then hit by the car, not only witnessed the accident but were injured and taken to the hospital.
Read the rest »
By Eddie Farah on June 7, 2008 -
Jacksonville is recognizing a dubious distinction.
The city’s infant mortality rate tops all of Florida. Within the black community, the numbers are nearly twice that of whites, according to findings by the Jacksonville Community Council Inc.
In 2006, 130 infants died before their first birthday in Jacksonville. The mortality rate overall in the city is 9.5% with the rate for whites 7.2% and for blacks 12.7% in 2006.
“Jacksonville has the highest rate in the state,” said Helen Jackson who is the JCCI Board of Directors President. “This is not something we want to be known for.”
Why is this happening? Access to decent food is one reason. Our increasing gasoline prices will only make that problem worse.
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