Nothing feels quite like being proven right.

Some time ago, I blogged about a defunct Colorado effort to limit the amount of money a plaintiff’s attorney could charge. I suggested that this was the future of “Tort Reformers,” reducing access to attorneys by attempting to lower the amount of money they earned, rather then the past effort to convince people that injuries and lives could only be worth set amounts.

Well, guess I’m right.

Now comes Oregon Republicans with a horrible ballot initiative, that they have tried to claim will “Protect Citizens from Excessive Attorney’s Fees.” Never mind the fact that the limit proposed is far, far, far below the industry wide norm. Never mind that nothing in the initiative would prevent defense attorneys defending corporations, or otherwise representing the people that can afford to pay high hourly rates upfront, from charging any amount they want an hour.

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The Supreme Court issued a decision, reducing the punitive damages Exxon would have to pay as a consequence of their continued employment of a known drunkard who caused the catastrophic Exxon Valdez oil spill. Thus ends a long and storied battle over responsibility for a massive oil spill.

In 1994, a jury awarded punitive damages of $5 billion, which was then reduced to $2.5 billion. Now, the Supreme Court has further reduced the punitive award to $500 million, stating that in these situations (which are admittedly limited), the ratio of compensatory damages to punitive damages must be 1 to 1.

The Court based their decision on a perceived need for consistency, stating that punitive damages are sometimes high and sometimes low, and similar facts do not necessitate a similar award. I have a hard time arguing with that; one of the underlying theories of the Common Law is that it should be consistent and built on precedent. But I feel that the Court missed the forest for the trees, so to speak.

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Tort Reformers have a problem. They can push through laws that limit damages by harping on the “litigation lottery,” but inevitably, people will start to realize that what those laws do is essentially declare “You, an individual citizen, cannot possibly be harmed more then this amount.” This statement doesn’t sit well with most people, since Americans tend to recoil from legislative fiat. So now, the tort reformers have another tact they’re trying: the tort system needs to be reformed because plaintiff’s attorneys are making too much money.

Comes now a Colorado ballot initiative, aimed at severely limiting attorney’s fees. The initiative would have set a schedule for contingency fees, reducing from the standard 30%, down to 20% and then to 10% as the amount of the jury award rises. It also would have set a severe limit on overall contingencies, essentially allowing the percentage to plummet with no bottom in certain circumstances.

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Most of us take for granted that what we see in the media is fairly accurate, factual and the truth. But how much of the truth are we really getting? Remember the the hot coffee lawsuit? Stella Liebeck of Albuquerque, NM, sued McDonalds in 1992 when her coffee that she placed in her lap spilled, causing severe burns? What if we were to tell you…

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Autumn in Colorado - it’s a beautiful season. The weather is mild, the leaves are changing, and political ads are on the air (and in our mailboxes).
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Recently Justinian Lane, a Michigan technology consultant who does trial presentations, published an article in the Association of Trial Lawyers of America (ATLA), Trial magazine about the real economics of the “tort reform�? movement. Lane pointed out that in a thorough examination of the so-called “litigation crisis�? that business groups, politicians, and insurance companies are crying about, that economic arguments actually work in favor of preserving the justice system.
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