The Urgent Need for Tort Reform!

The insurance company will never let the Yale Club of New York allow a wingnut hyena to darken its door again!

Washington Wire: Peter Lattman: Bork Files Slip-and-Fall Lawsuit: Our colleagues at WSJ.com’s Law Blog report on a lawsuit filed by Robert H. Bork against the Yale Club: One-time Supreme Court nominee Bork is suing New York’s Yale Club for $1 million, alleging he was injured when he fell at an event there last June. “When it was his turn to deliver remarks to the audience, Mr. Bork approached the dais,” the lawsuit said. “Because of the unreasonable height of the dais, without stairs or a handrail, Mr. Bork fell backwards as he attempted to mount the dais, striking his left leg on the side of the dais and striking his head on a heat register.” Bork, 80 years old, suffered a large hematoma in his lower left leg as a result of the fall, according to the lawsuit...

Comments

[randomeconstudent]

Though it's hard to tell from a 1/2 page story, this looks like a much more legitimate case than most slip/fall suits. He has, apparently, suffered serious damage, and it wouldn't be too difficult to provide railings, or help an 80 year old up. I dislike Bork as much as the next person, but I'm not sure this is a fair way to make fun of him.

[Count Cant]

it's not making fun of an 80-year old who had a fall, it is making fun of another glaring and egregious example of right-wing hypocrisy:

for years, the right-wing, from the WSJ country-club elite down to the wing-nuts, has been frothing at the mouth about "tort reform", i.e. the alleged plan to purify the system of "frivolous lawsuits".

IN fact, of course, it is a systematic plan to keep poor people from ever getting a day in court. a "frivolous lawsuit" is one filed by a plaintiff who isn't wealthy enough or doesn't vote republican.

it is really the twin brother of the "voter-fraud" fraud. Citizenship has as its most central components access to the vote and access to the courts, and the right wants to take away both from anyone they don't like.

as always--the right-wing shows us the most unprincipled thugs, pretending to take ideological stands. until they are the ones who need to file a law-suit.

and all along, the greatest number of lawsuits are filed by one corporation against another, or against private citizens--but "tort reform" was always designed to preserve those sacred rights, of course. they don't want to make it harder for suits to bring suits, they just want to make it harder for anyone else to bring suits.

and since bork was quite happy to keep company with the "tort reform" racketeers, he deserves some mockery for being so quick to file. it's like trent lott after Katrina--as soon as it is his property that is at stake, he runs to court before you can say "frivolous lawsuit".

despicable people

[howard]

count cant, you beat me to the punch on all of your key points (including the trent lott example that i was set to bring up), so let me simply say: second!

[obexo]

The mind just reels. Course there's not much news these days to calm frantic psychic surf. Think they'll settle or what?

[Count Cant]

well i'm disappointed in you, howard. there is always room for more execrations and maledictions when it comes to the right wing.

for instance, you could have pointed out how the attack on citizens' right to legal redress is at the same time an attack on the trial lawyers' bar, which has been a reliable source of funds to democratic candidates.

so just as in one direction the "tort reform" scam is a twin for the "voter fraud" fraud, in another direction it is a twin for the union-bashing campaign. they are both twofers in that you not only impoverish the working class, you also choke off a reliable money source for the opposition.

you see? we haven't even scratched the surface of right-wing viciousness. and bork was in it up to his hematomas.

["As you know" Bob]

Cosmic justice does seem to follow the man.

Remember that Bork is also the guy who blandly told his confirmation hearing that Americans have no right to privacy.

So then he and his supporters had absolutely no reason to complain when reporters went and looked up the records of his video rentals. Yet - they complained anyway.

Oh, wait - did I say "cosmic justice"? Guess that should read "boundless hypocrisy".

[kate G.]

Count Cant,
you said it all. Thank you so much. the very fact that this case *is* meritorious *but would be hampered if not forbidden with the kind of tort reform the republicans argue for* is what makes it so delicious. Its not that bork's suit is without merit, its that bork, like all republicans, reserves the right to decide that everyone else's suit, if htey are not republican, is not meritorious and shouldn't be permitted to be filed. Its a variation of "my abortion was necessary...those other women are just sluts" also known by the acronym IOKIYAR

kate g.

[trevelyan]

For what does IOKIYAR stand?

[Matthew Saroff]

Serious damage?

He got a bruise on his butt.

[Matthew Saroff]

IOKIYAR=It's OK If You;re A Republican.

[Count Cant]

omg--he hasn't just filed suit, he is seeking punitive damages! (seen via atrios).

brad--this deserves an update. if one thing got the wing-nuts into even more of a lather than 'frivolous lawsuits', it was the whole concept of punis--they hate punis with a vengeance, and have done everything in their power to stifle the entire common law on the matter.

so the fact that bork is going for punis--icing on the cake.

it's good to see (via atrios) the american constitution society having to face up to it. i look forward to the press release from the federalist society, too.

[John Emerson]

Are you sure that this wasn't from "The Onion"?

"Hematoma" is Latin for blood blister, approximately. A pretty superficial injury.

[eman]

Make that a three-fer. Any Medical Malpractice cap on NON-economic damage could redirect medical resources away from the poor and toward the rich. Negligently maim the CEO of a large corporation and the ECONOMIC damages could be huge; you'd have to replace his or her income stream. So here's where you lavish the tests and treatments to make sure you avoid mistakes. However, if you botch the low-income patient, your risk is capped low. The low-income patient will get a 90-second check-up and an aspirin.

Farfetched? Think about the short shrift you already get at the doctor visit. If you think that's how the doctors treats the local CEO, you've got another think coming. With tort reform, the next low-income 80-year-old who falls off a dais will get crappy representation in court, and crappy medical care, too.

[Emma Anne]

The Count is *on* today!

"there is always room for more execrations and maledictions when it comes to the right wing."

[nemo]

Falling backwards and hitting his head -- isn't that Bork's standard operating procedure for deciding any legal question?