Comments on: Your Own Private Tort Reform

By: NC Mountain Girl

NC Mountain Girl — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 19:42:51 +0000

Call the 800 numbers, too.

A very effective drug I was using to treat a chronic condition was taken off the market because the tort bar began to file suits about alleged side effects and the maker panicked. My MD, a nationally known expert on the condition, told me most of the problems were both exaggerated in number and easily prevented had the patients gone in for the recommended screening tests the first year on the medication.

Everytime I saw an ad asking “If you used xxx, you may be entitled to…” I called the 800 number, said I had used xxx and asked if they were going to compensate me because they may have shortened my life by forcing it off the market.

By: lefroy

lefroy — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 03:15:43 +0000

Most nations find it hard to accept that when something is done differently elsewhere, it might also, just occasionally, be done better, but in the US it is the national vice. That americans cannot see and correct the destructive idiocy of their tort law system is wondrous to behold. It is the reason no sensible compromise can be found in the health care debate (why are the people of New York taxed at welfare state levels, but get nothing like the welfare state in return?). Worse, absurd jury verdicts inflated by statutory sanction of punitive damages awards have brought whole industries undone – the light aircraft industry is one, but there are many other more significant examples. And when industry tries to draw attention to this idiocy, the reaction is olympic standard navel gazing.

By: ZombiBoy

ZombiBoy — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 22:23:01 +0000

My favorite mail pastime was to return credit card solicitation disclosure pages with “F*#k You” written over the interest rate and fees. Stuff like APR 19-32%, “we can change your interest rate at any time for any reason”, “we will apply a default rate of a bubbazillion percent if you enter a late payment on this or ANY account”.
Man, that stuff still makes me laugh.

By: Poor Citizen

Poor Citizen — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 18:28:35 +0000

Great Article and it does work. And, I hope they include Tort reform in the health care bill. Thanks!

By: jWarrior

jWarrior — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 16:39:06 +0000

Sodajerk is right. The postage paid envelopes cost the recipient close to a dollar apiece. If you are feeling real mean, you can put a bit of fine sand or dust in them which will mess up the machines that open the envelopes. You can also mark “Refused – return to sender” on mail and get it sent back at the sender’s expense. Of course, if you put yourself on the Do Not Junk Mail list, you won’t get so much.

By: John

John — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 16:05:14 +0000

If you are going to do this, you should be aware that clicking several links at the same time, or clicking one link several times, will trigger a google alarm and they will determine that they were phony clicks and the advertiser won’t be charged anything. More than 2 or 3 clicks is enough to trigger the google guardians.

By: Harris Tweed

Harris Tweed — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 15:55:01 +0000

Maybe President Obama and the progressive Democrats could do something to reduce our “lawyer footprint,” to reverse “litigation warming,” and to limit “global suing”?

By: Michael

Michael — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 15:01:00 +0000

biblio, please at least try to add something to the conversation besides your well known hatred of everyone on this site. Che, there is no social contract between mass mailers and the irritated consumer. I don’t see any wrong there.

Unfortuantly the lawyers are a necessary evil in society but they have gone out of control to the point they don’t even try to justify the damage they do to this country. Control of the out of control lawyers would reduce the cost of living in the US by at least 10%. (That is probably an underestimation.)

By: myth buster

myth buster — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 14:49:32 +0000

I’ve seen ads suggesting Google pays people to run this scam, and it is a scam, albeit a legal one, because the people clicking on the ads have a 0% chance of buying anything. Caveat emptor, yes, but I still don’t like the idea of hiring people to do that sort of thing.

As for Google as an enterprise, despite the underhanded tactics and questionable ethics, it is a publicly traded corporation, which makes it much more vulnerable to popular opinion than these privately held law firms.

By: Michael Kirsch, M.D

Michael Kirsch, M.D — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 12:37:26 +0000

While everyone of us is suffering from metastatic litigation, no one feels the pain more acutely than the medical profession. (See http://www.MDWhistleblower.blogspot.com under Legal Quality category.) The only stakeholder who wants to preserve it is the one who is enriched by it. Would physicians stifle a new medical breakthrough which would prevent illness because it would be ‘bad for business’?