dayman

Why would you cap noneconomic damages before punitive damages? Some of the worst things that can possibly happen to you are noneconomic in nature. $250K would make me whole if some gross negligence on the part of a manufacturer causes me to lose my eye sight for the rest of my life? That's justice b/c we need to "stop excessive jury awards" from hurting the manufacturing industry? Maybe Texas justice...but not my idea of justice.

LOL are you saying he thought I was talking about SCOTUS? If that's the case...then LOL I mean there isn't much I can say about that we're talking tort reform here...lol...and "I've lost credibility"...

LOL well that's not my fault 3rd. Look it up. Why the hell would I say we elect justices in many states if we don't? It varies from State to State obviously there are a number of different processes. In Texas, needless to say, they elect them. And Karl Rove did a lot of work w/ that. If you don't even know this...then you probably have some reading up to do about the civil justice system generally and tort reform as a whole. Maybe even just what it is... And to his credit Rove is good at what he does he and the Chamber of Commerce and other business interests he flipped that court hard since the late '80s.

LOL don't be mad that you apparently don't realize that...yes 3rdling we do in many states. Take care of your precious credibility.

And the hot coffee case itself was one of the prime examples of tort reform lobbying at it's best. Old lady orders coffee..pulls into a parked spot to put in sugar, spills it on herself (she was held 20% liable for that)...the coffee is unGodly hot it causes 3rd degree burns within seconds all over her legs and crotch and the back of her legs...over $10K in damage to repair it. They write a letter asking McDonald's to cover teh costs...nope...they offered $800. So she sues. Turns out the policy of all McDonalds was to have all coffee that hot "to hot to drink" according to their manuals" b/c that's the way people like it...to hot to drink right away. They had badly burned many people before her...done nothing to change. She sues and wins 5ish Million and it's later reduced to 400kis along with a gag order so she can't talk. Then magically she's the new story everywhere! (by magically I mean...Chamber of Commerce magically) ...she's the new evil face of tort reform! The punitive damages in the first place were 2 days worth of coffee sales...and she didn't get that anyway... This is what she got: https://encrypted-tbn3.google.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTvImvUQoqGWyNskdwuvROw71HetcGWK1q_6090CkprmYRYK7qp https://encrypted-tbn3.google.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTCFVWg_Sdev0cyTMawTlsmSfSNpX4GK3a-Lgtun_ND9M-dxcCYBw https://encrypted-tbn2.google.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcR-MsJYKEC-cY2ojdu3dvd0Q9pKcznhjRz-Q_MdxCu2Y7zLTtxG ....but this story...this became the story of tort reform. The story of all things evil about the civil justice system. A story so bad we need to give up our rights to court and cap damages!

The hard truth is it's Karl Rove finding the perfect wedge issue that further marries the Chamber of Commerce to Republican candidates and can be spun to sell to the people as if giving up their rights is in the public interest. He's been buying elections for supreme court justices since the '80s, the Chamber has been misrepresenting the facts of individual cases to turn the American people against their own civil justice system (as well as slandering supreme court justices), and so on... And by the way...if you cannot basically prove that there is unbelievable benefit for tort reform that is measurable then you've lost b/c the costs are very real...people rant and rave about our general "freedom" and our "rights" on a number of issues...our access to courts and interest in jury trials are one such case where the issue is real....and to people who get jury verdicts reduced by these arbitrary caps set by state congressional officials who have no idea about their case it's even more real. http://theincidentaleconomist.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/Reimbursements-per-enrollee-500x383.jpg http://www.citizen.org/documents/Texas_Liability_Limits.pdf Supporters of limiting health providers’ liability have touted Texas’ medical malpractice experiment as the solution for improving national health care. For example, Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann held up Texas as a successful liability “pilot program” in an address in September, stating, “The state of Texas did a wonderful job of lawsuit reform and actually saw medical costs come down. We know it works.”1 Others have echoed Bachmann’s claim. Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas) and 11 other members of the House of Representatives cited Texas in a recent report that claimed positive effects of limiting liability.2 Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) struck a similar theme in the “findings” of a proposed amendment to Senate health insurance legislation that he filed this month.3 But most of the claims touting positive effects of the Texas law – which took effect in September 2003 and included a $250,000 per defendant liability cap – are flatly contradicted by the data. By the measures commonly used to evaluate health care – such as cost, the uninsured rate, and access to care – Texas has regressed since its liability law took effect. Collectively, these measures show that Texas has one of the worst health care systems in the United States. Moreover, since 2003 Texas has either failed to improve or grown even worse compared to other states on almost every measure. Since the liability laws took effect: • The cost of health care in Texas (measured by per patient Medicare reimbursements) has increased at nearly double the national average; • spending increases for diagnostic testing (measured by per patient Medicare reimbursements) have far exceeded the national average; • the state’s uninsured rate has increased, remaining the highest in the country; • the cost of health insurance in the state has more than doubled; • growth in the number of doctors per capita has slowed; and • the number of doctors per capita in underserved rural areas has declined. Malpractice insurance costs in Texas have gone down. Medical costs have not. Health insurance costs have not. More people are not insured. on and on...but this is a success....we should ALL be like Texas. In 2010, the average premium for family coverage in Texas was $14,526. That’s $655 higher than the U.S. average. Those numbers seem to indicate that doctors have not passed on their own insurance savings to their patients and that they are not practicing medicine any less defensively than before tort reform was enacted. http://wendellpotter.com/2011/09/the-mythical-benefits-of-tort-reform-in-texas/

I don't have the answer but I've posted in this topic some ideas I would support over a wall Don't let them get ya down man, not everyone is for the wall here lol

The simplification of set of facts, and the subsequent vilification of an award (many of which are reduced) gets quite a bit of press. And it's not by accident btw, that people know of these stories. God forbid the truth of some of the most famous cases be known (when a gag order expires or can somehow be avoided), or the human costs of caps have light shed on them (both noneconomic and for God's sake the poor people in states with caps on all damages). You need to understand the powerful lobbying effort that works towards aggressive tort reform.

On this issue I'm fairly passionate so sure. MDP me on tort reform. Hell I would just encourage you to do your own research and come to your own conclusions and I'm sure you wouldn't have it any other way. There is a fairly well received documentary that I can link you to if you would like to spend 90 minutes and hear one side of the argument through that and then do whatever additional research on your own you want to affirm or refine your own opinion. I would have to PM it to you though so you can PM if you want the link....it's not some come-to-jesus fight propaganda w/ propaganda video but it is admittedly anti-tort reform...in either event for 99% of people it's worth watching. You or anybody else that wants it can PM I'll paste the link and you catch it, bash it, find some parts reasonable others unreasonable...ignore it...it's just a movie...you can do whatever you want with it.

I'm sorry you are in such a hurry to marginalize the civil justice system in the name of lobbying forces who have misled you 3rdling.

Well agree to disagree. The facts are grossly distorted. Obviously the simple phrase "tort reform" is meaningless and there may in fact be laws in some states that could use a second look...but the "tort reform movement" as it is...is nothing short of evil....use enough money and misinformation to take people's rights away and they'll thank you for it.

Tort reform. The ACA. Let's all just believe the machine on every issue.

LOL the legal system isn't perfect so let's start capping everything by statute. A bad verdict? Some bad lawsuits the judge didn't have the wisdom the throw out? Let's just be unfair to everybody and solve the problem. And lets distort the facts on the overall cost argument to make it seem like people should support this.

Ugh Doc...get your tort reform out of here. If someone doesn't wake up one day b/c you are negligent for God's sake don't look to some statute to put low price on their life.

hmmm you must not live in the south? you out west or something?

Old news? Obama compromised to get the bill he believes in (right or wrong)....how terrible.

Perhaps we enact reasonable immigration reform and decide we can't and shouldn't fight terrorism with a wall.

Which GOP primary candidate wanted two walls? I think Herman was going to use wire at the top...but did someone say 2 walls?...

Now now, I'll take the women of my state against Australian women any day. Although their accent and perceived Crocodile Dundee attitude makes it close.

Maybe we could hire them and they could build it from the other side.

And lets be real here, what you've said DC is basically what I consider to a reasonable thing to say. Not, "we'll cut our way out of depression" and "if only Obama's 10000 trillion debt weren't crushing us all!" But a realistic assessment ... something a few of my libertarian friends aren't afraid to say "we should feel the pain, GDP should contract, this should be ugly and will take a lot time to get through" isn't the way to get elected I know...but people who are willing to talk that way deserve credit in my book.

So what are we to think about these public sector workers? Reagan/HBush/WBush all added more during recession to help and we've been in the worst recession basically ever and yet we've lost public sector workers. TV crap says 1.whatever million workers could be added with the money Obama wants Congress to give to states. Theoretically this is 1.whatever million unemployed people now employed with income who are then ready to buy housing and goods and get off unemployment/food stamps/other programs etc...spend this income to help the private sector come back...and we've done this over and over in the past to help the overall economy in times of need. At the same time...the money isn't forever and a lot of the states that fired all these people did so b/c they ran out of money... presumably they will again unless we get back to booming and the revenue is back up which is a big "if" relative to when the money runs out etc...it does put the states in a rough spot...plus as we all know reform in public sector benefits is a big issue (rightfully so in many states) and until that is taken care of it's even more reasonable for states themselves to feel apprehensive about this from a management standpoint...even assuming they would phase some out gradually as the economy gets better b/c some may be unnecessary they fired them at great political cost even now it will be more difficult in a theoretical future where we are back to normal and revenues are better... All that said...these unemployed people live in these states so it's not as if they take on the burden without getting some of the benefit. Then there's the money in the first place...some people want to aggressively attack the federal deficit now others are fine for now provided we link it with long term stability... ...what to think...is there truth somewhere in the middle? Should we maybe hire some back but not all, should we hire a bunch, should we not hire any, should we cut more? How does the answer to that effect how we view the actions of past Presidents who have increased public sector workers in recession? Also we know Romney doesn't plan to slash government spending/public employment when he's in office based on his Time interview so are we just waiting until Obama is out? As 3rdling posted in the other topic: So we know that over the course of economic depression the states have fired hundreds of thousands...overall gov't drops 407K while the Fed increases 225K...so while we may want to downsize what we are doing right now is one of the greatest downsizing in modern times during one of the greatest depressions in modern times. And while Mitt Romney will hit the campaign trail and say it's great...that's not what he says in interviews...maybe he should talk to Congress or something....but we have BEEN downsizing and it's not helping in the short term so I think at the very least we should admit that if this is the way we are going to go it's going to prolong the economic disaster...maybe it's worth it...that's the debate.

Probably be more excited about it if we weren't coming out of a depression and stalled in recession

When overall government jobs are down 407K despite a 225K increase in Federal hiring you know something just hit the fan.

Well to be fair the top 10% would have to have some really expensive houses to take that kind of hit...