[ql06] TORT: Damn the recession, U.S. "Tort Warriors" make double Coca-Cola revenues
- From: "Ken Campbell -- LAW'06" <2kc16@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <ql06@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 27 Sep 2003 12:06:57 -0400
Trial Lawyers, Inc.
Wall Street Journal
September 23, 2003
That's how the folks at the Manhattan Institute now refer to what may be
America's only recession-proof industry: the plaintiffs' bar.
We hope the moniker catches on. For decades trial attorneys have
nurtured a public image as little Davids standing up with their
slingshots to America's corporate Goliaths.
But as a study to be released later this morning on Capitol Hill
underscores -- "Trial Lawyers, Inc.: A Report on the Lawsuit Industry in
America 2003" (www.triallawyersinc.com) -- these litigators have become
an industry unto themselves.
By now, most every American has his own tale about some silly lawsuit
run amok, from the post-tobacco obesity suits targeting McDonald's to
the $7.2 million settlement former "Tonight Show" sidekick Ed McMahon
won after suing over house mold he claimed had killed his dog. When the
Manhattan Institute's researchers added it all up, the result was
staggering: Not only have tort costs risen much faster than either
inflation or GDP, the estimated $40 billion in revenues our tort
warriors took in for 2001 was 50% more than Microsoft or Intel and
double that of Coca-Cola.
One good measure of their size is their political clout: In 2002 the
trial lawyers' PAC ranked third in America -- and was the Democratic
Party's most generous contributor. We're not saying that there's no role
for trial attorneys in the American legal system, or that they don't
occasionally secure justice for a wronged individual. But with the
billions its firms rake in each year putting them squarely in the
category of Big Business, shouldn't their self-serving claims be treated
with the same skepticism routinely directed at, say, Halliburton or
Philip Morris?
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