TLR Spokesman Misdiagnosed Cancer in 16-Year Old Girl

How quickly we forget? (0.00 / 0)

Prior to Ardmore and Albuquerque, the special sessions on redistricting, and more sessions dedicated to the great tax shift passed under the guise of school finance, the iron fists of Team Craddick/Perry/TRMPAC/TAB/TLR engaged in legislative malpractice for weeks to pass a 2003 "tort reform" plan that barely got voter approval on a rigged election date.

Now that the political tide seems to be turning, it's time to remember the need to restore some the basic rights we've lost. Surely there's a better way to drive down the cost of insurance than by allowing negligence to take life and limb from people and saying, in effect, "oops."

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by: Ed Martin @ Mon Oct 01, 2007 at 15:14:15 PM UTC

Every time I hear about the sham organization Texans for Lawsuit Reform (0.00 / 0)

I'm reminded of Mimi Swartz's great article, "Hurt? Injured? Need a Lawyer? Too Bad!" Here's an excerpt, but the whole article is well worth a read:

Once upon a time, the purpose of tort law was to make injured people whole. In Texas, victims of medical malpractice or corporate wrongdoing, no matter how poor or powerless, had some redress through the legal system. The Texas constitution plainly states that "all courts shall be open" and that every injured person "shall have remedy by due course of law." But through the efforts of a small group of wealthy and politically influential businessmen and a legislature slavishly devoted to the organization they founded, Texans for Lawsuit Reform (TLR), those days are gone, and these rights may disappear across the nation as President Bush pushes his campaign against "greedy trial lawyers" and "frivolous lawsuits."

Here is what can happen to you in Texas today, thanks to tort reformers and the Legislature: If you go to an emergency room with a heart attack and the ER doctor misreads your EKG, you must prove, in order to prevail in a lawsuit, that he was both "wantonly and willfully negligent." If you took a drug that was later recalled after studies proved it could cause fatal complications, the manufacturer can escape liability for your serious injury or death if the instructions inside the package were approved by the FDA when you took the medicine. If your child is blinded at birth because of medical malpractice, there is a good chance that her only remedy is to receive a few hundred dollars a month for the rest of her life. If a driver hits your old Ford Pinto from behind and burns you beyond recognition, Ford will almost certainly be able to shift the blame from its defective product to the driver of the other car. If you live in an apartment complex that lays off security guards and fails to maintain its locks and you are raped as a result, the apartment owner can still avoid liability. All of the above presumes that you can find a lawyer to take your case; many can no longer afford to do so because tort reform has reduced your odds of winning. And should you by some slim chance win and the defendant appeals, your odds of ultimately prevailing on appeal are 12 percent as of 2004-the paltry rate at which the Texas Supreme Court, which has also been subject to the influence of the tort reformers, has found for the plaintiff in cases involving harm to persons or property, according to Court Watch, an Austin-based public-interests organization.

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by: Texas Bob @ Mon Oct 01, 2007 at 19:02:05 PM UTC