What Lawyers hath wrought

[Exile_In_SJ]

Lawyers and the Little Guy
How Helpful Were V.P. Hopeful Edwards’ Courtroom Triumphs?

Commentary
By John Stossel


July 23, 2004 — Trial lawyers are making a case for putting John Edwards in the White House. If a former plaintiff's lawyer is so close to the presidency, we should take a closer look at the unintended consequences of what these lawyers do.


Vice presidential candidate Edwards made millions of dollars by doing good, say his supporters.

He was a personal injury lawyer who punished bad doctors and was awarded money for those who were victims of malpractice. He won't give the total of how much money he made doing that, but in just the four years before he became a senator, he made over $26 million.

Lawyers were the biggest contributors to his presidential campaign, and now they've become the biggest givers to the Democratic Party — bigger than labor unions, corporations — bigger than anybody.

Trial lawyers comprise one of the most powerful professions in America, yet we rarely hear about the unintended consequences of what they do, and how the lawsuits they pursue impact our lives.

Profitable Litigation

Edwards' career as a lawyer was such a success, juries gave him record-breaking verdicts. He was such a powerful speaker that other lawyers went to court just to watch him.

He's described as an "articulate advocate for his client," by Richard "Dickie" Scruggs. Scruggs may be America's most successful trial lawyer. He made a billion dollars from tobacco lawsuits alone.

John Edwards has said he loved being a trial lawyer because he was able to help the little guy, but lawyers hurt the little guys, too. Every product you buy has a built-in cost to cover what lawyers make through lawsuits. The cost of paying Dickie Scruggs a billion dollars in the tobacco settlement gets passed on to consumers in the form of higher prices on cigarettes.


But paying higher prices is not the biggest effect of what the lawyers do. What may be worse is what the fear of lawsuits do to medical care and innovation.

Litigating Health Care

In hospitals, the lawyers have bred so much fear that patients now suffer more pain, and may be less safe because doctors are concerned about being sued.

"That fear is always there," said obstetrics professor Dr. Edgar Mandeville. "Everybody walks in mortal fear of being sued."

The Department of Health and Human Services found doctors order painful tests they consider unnecessary, for fear of being sued. And the majority of doctors say they recommended invasive procedures more often than they believed were medically necessary in an effort to prevent potential litigation.

I asked Scruggs if he thought that was accurate, and he said, "That's probably true … but why do they do it? … They make more money, the more they do."

But the doctors say it's because of fear of the lawyers.

"Well I would say that too, if I were gouging someone and wanted to get away with it and blame it on somebody else," said Scruggs.

Are they all gouging patients? Clearly, there are bad and careless doctors, but in certain specialties most doctors are being sued.

In fact, 76 percent of American obstetricians have been sued. Yet lawyers, like Scruggs, often say there are only a 'few' physicians who are causing all the problems.

Then how is it fair that three-fourths of the obstetricians get sued?

"Well, you know … that's why they have insurance," said Scruggs.

Consumers pay for that insurance in increased costs, but the result doesn't necessarily make us safer. A government study found this fear of lawsuits has made many hospitals reluctant to report problems, with as many as 95 percent of adverse events believed to go unreported.

Are the fear and the secrecy making us less safe?



Scruggs' response: "I disagree with that. I think that's what doctors say."

Example: Edwards' Cerebral Palsy Case

Vice presidential candidate Edwards made millions suing doctors and hospitals on behalf of people whose children had been born with cerebral palsy.

Cerebral palsy is a central nervous system defect that makes it hard for people to control their muscles. At the time of Edwards' cases, the defect was often said to be caused by a lack of oxygen to the baby's brain during delivery. Edwards and other lawyers have argued that if the doctor involved had only done a Caesarean section, the child's cerebral palsy could have been prevented.


He won a record verdict in a cerebral palsy case after he told the jury he was speaking for the injured infant, in the womb. He was very convincing and the jury awarded his clients over $6 million. Scruggs told me, "Wouldn't you want your lawyer to be just as clever and just as effective?"

One thing doctors may have learned from these kinds of cases was to do more C-sections. The procedure is more common today for many reasons, including scheduling convenience, but doctors say fear of a cerebral palsy lawsuit has had a big impact.

Since 1970 C-sections have gone from 6 percent of all births to 26 percent. "And there has not been one small decrease in the cerebral palsy rate across the board," said Mandeville.

In a report released last year by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the American Academy of Pediatrics, scientists now say the disease is seldom caused by anything a doctor does in the delivery room. However, today many C-sections are still done in hopes of avoiding a lawsuit, even though C-sections are a more painful way to give birth, as well as more expensive, requiring a longer hospital stay, and carrying greater health risks.


So are women today experiencing unnecessary surgery partly because lawyers like Edwards scared doctors?

Edwards wouldn't talk to us about this, but his campaign sent us the following statement: "As a lawyer, Senator Edwards took his responsibility to determine if cases were merited very seriously and would spend months investigating his cases. He employed a full-time medical staff to make sure the cases he took were those with the most merit, and he would not go forward with any case without the support of experts in the particular medical field. He also believes that we need a national system in place that will weed out the meritless lawsuits without taking away patients' rights."

Maybe all of Edward's cases were good ones, where C-sections were called for. It's possible that's true, but the fearful atmosphere that these kinds of lawsuits create has far-reaching consequences. Consider the minister who will no longer hug a grieving parishioner because of lawsuit concerns or the teachers who are told not to touch their students, or allow them to climb onto their lap for fear of lawsuit.

It makes it hard to trust job references. Employers can't tell the truth about their former employees, as the truth might have legal consequences. This threatens our safety, too. It's one reason a nurse who was killing patients kept getting jobs at new hospitals. The previous hospitals were too afraid of lawsuits to warn others that they suspected the nurse had harmed patients at their hospital.

This kind of fear doesn't make Americans safer. Give me a break.

[Spider]

at least LABF keeps his spam in the Political forum .............

[bendog]

You know Dickie Scruggs is Sen. Trent Lott's brother in law and a bankroller of his political career?

[Rascal]

It will be moved shortly.

[Exile_In_SJ]

yet Lawyers get richer, some clients have a big payday and the rest of us suffer and pay the price of these lawyers getting rich.

[Spider]

hm I thought you was for capitalism ............ I guess it is different now

[Exile_In_SJ]

Spam? no spam here. And this isn't politics, it's blatantly anti-lawyer.

[Exile_In_SJ]

I'm proudly anti-lawyer.

[kappys]

Originally Posted by §Pide®

hm I thought you was for capitalism ............ I guess it is different now

Hmmm... If you're so in favor of capitalism how about allowing ER's to refuse treatment to people who don't have the money to pay?

[Rohirrim]

John Stossel... jerk off.

[Spider]

Originally Posted by kappys

Hmmm... If you're so in favor of capitalism how about allowing ER's to refuse treatment to people who don't have the money to pay?

you are preaching to the chior .........
My post was aimed at the We dont need American Jobs crowd that told me that Jobs going over seas is Capialism at its finest

[Spider]

I mean back then some told me here it was all about the Buck .........
Spider hates people making money I heard ........
Now they are talking about how Laywers are evil for making money ........

[Moon§hiner]

I'm sure this will be moved, but I don't see it so much as a political statement as a given of why our medical insurance, car insurance and products in general are so outrageous....it's a sue happy world and there is a reason that we see all these injury claim attorneys advertising on local TV....it's a moneymaker...

my ex brother in law hurt his knee on the job and called one of these guys....got 28,000 at the snap of a finger...he seems to get around pretty well to me...goes fishing all the time and has a lawn mower repair business....I'd wager that the attorney got 50 percent....so workmans comp rates go up for all...which means that wage raises that should happen don't.....I have no respect for lawyers

[Exile_In_SJ]

Lawyers aren't evil for making money they are evil for what they do.

[Exile_In_SJ]

we are an over litigated society. Everything that happens is someone elses fault and should be sued for it.. There are no more accidents, no more chances of fate. We must sue everyone in sight to get justice.. or money..

food companies wiill get sued because people are fat. Some schmucks are suing gun manufacturer's because someone got shot with a gun, never mind the jerk who pulled the trigger. Will auto makers be sued because a drunk driver killed someone driving their product? What about knife manufacturers?

hey, sue Columbia because the cocaine they made killed a relative. Can't collect? If they could only figure out a way..


The alltime classic is the McDonalds coffee.. if you're to damned stupid to put a cup of hot coffee between your legs you deserve to get burned, hell, I'd vote for having hat person fined for stupidity. Well she was smart, she hired a lawyer and hit the lottery.

[Exile_In_SJ]

You're trapped in a room with a tiger, a rattlesnake and a lawyer. You have a gun with two bullets. What should you do?

* You shoot the lawyer. Twice.

[Hotrod]

dante is a lawyer.

[Exile_In_SJ]

I have some friends who are lawyers, one even went so far as to tell me, never trust a lawyer. You may someday need one, but never trust them.

[Hogan11]

Everyone is sooo anti-lawyer..........until they need one.

Here's hoping you anti-lawyer types never need one ...and if you do, here's hoping none take your case.

[Pezman]

I'm still chuckling at Exile's spelling thread...

[Tom G]

Here's a 1st hand data point. Husband of our cleaning lady died of asbestosis. She was part of the class action suit put together some time ago by Peter Angelos who owns, amongst other things, the Baltimore Orioles. Our cleaning lady got $4000. Angelos got $300 million.

[Hotrod]

Heres one "how can you tell who is the lawyer in the room"?


Its easy hes the one who gets mad at the anti-lawyer thread.

[Moon§hiner]

they have a purpose, Hogan....but I guarantee you that I'll never fill their pockets with stupid crap like Exile cited....and to be fair, I have even less respect for those that would file such lawsuits....this is the ultimate legal way of milking the system and worse than welfare IMO, because these guys go on TV and advertise for customers.

[Old Dude]

FWIW, 26 of our 43 presidents have been lawyers:

John Adams, John Quincy Adams, Chester Arthur, James Buchanan, Grover Cleveland,
Bill Clinton, Calvin Coolidge, Millard Fillmore, Gerald Ford, James Garfield, Benjamin Harrison, Rutherford B Hayes, Andrew Jackson, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, William McKinley, James Monroe, Richard Nixon, Franklin Pierce, James Polk, Franklin D Roosevelt, William H Taft, John Tyler, and Martin Van Buren.

.

[Exile_In_SJ]

Originally Posted by Hogan11

Everyone is sooo anti-lawyer..........until they need one.

Here's hoping you anti-lawyer types never need one ...and if you do, here's hoping none take your case.

I think I've built up good lawyer karma, In the 80's I could have sued the hell out of Denver General Hospital, where I very nearly died. I didn't. I figured people make mistakes and no oneis perfect. They tried to help me and do their best. Mistakes were made. But I didn't feel it was right to sue. If I would have sued, that would have taken care away from someone else who would have needed it. Yet lawyers go looking for cases with less merit so they can make a huge payday. Never forget, lawyers, no matter how much they protest otherwise are only in it for the money, the big payday. They may take some pro bono work or some cases for smaller fees ( Geragos and Scott peterson for example) but they get the publicity for it.

Now I know there are good people who are lawyers, but instead of 1 out of 10 lawyers being the sleazoids, it the opposite, 1 out of 10 are probably good guys....