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Part IV: Tort Reform or Pork Reform? What about Madoff's lawyers?

By Steve Lombardi

I'm back again today to answer to Mr. McKinney and the A.T.R.A. Today let's talk about corporate wrongdoing and the legal thugs the Wall Street CEO's send in to create the smoke screen that allows the Bernard Madoff's and whoever helped him swindle investors for $50 Billion in cold hard cash.

First though here is the ATRA thinking about trial lawyers. Trial lawyers using a contingent fee contract are getting rich off of frivolous lawsuits. That's preposterous to say the least; it's really the thinking of a high school age child. First something frivolous is worthless. Second a contingent fee agreement is a percentage of the recovery. So take a percentage of zero and you earn nothing. How do lawyers get rich from earning no fee?

They don't want the working people of this country to have access to the courts.

Second, Wall Street doesn't use the contingent fee agreement; working people and the disadvantaged use the contingent fee agreement. People without millions in savings use the contingent fee agreement. So doing away with the contingent fee agreement simply takes the keys to the courthouse away from working people. And that's really what the financial backers of the ATRA and the Chamber want. They don't want the working people of this country to have access to the courts. Here's a few examples of how access to the courthouse cut into their profits by forcing corporate responsibility. Had there been no contingent fee agreements Big Tobacco would still be running TV ads during Saturday cartoons using Fred Flintstone for child bait. And Big Pharma would still have free rein to pay doctors to write phony research studies to back up another billion dollar drug that cooks your liver, sends you into kidney failure or gives you a stroke or heart attack.

A good recent example of corporate irresponsibility is the recent post about the Yamaha motorcycle that can reach speeds of up to 190 mph in a mere 9 seconds. On the race track that's fine but this is a bike being sold to teenagers to drive in our cities and town. Corporate responsibility isn't something the ATRA or the U.S. Chamber of Commerce like to talk about. They preach individual responsibility but shy away from discussing the ills from Wall Street that are rotting the foundation of the American way of life. And that's what today's post is about; Corporate Responsibility and the Wall Street wrongdoing that the ATRA and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce don't discuss. So here we continue with our letter to the Communications Director of the ATRA.

YAMAHA and the ATRA might ask: Why are there so many personal injury lawyers?, June 17, 2009.

Dear Mr. McKinney:

How come the ATRA never says a word about the corporate lawyers and what they do on Wall Street or in the Cayman Islands or Bermuda or Switzerland or China? You know what I'm talking about don't you? Remember all those tax shelters and foreign accounts that shy away from paying U.S. Income taxes while making billions in the world's largest consumer driven economy? Remember, the corporations that don't pay any U.S. income taxes. Yes those are the ones I'm referring to. Does the ATRA get money from any of those corporations or their hedge funds? Why is it always the personal injury lawyers who represent the American consumer and those who avail themselves of the civil justice system for compensation as a result of personal injury that get picked on? I could argue that at least injured citizens who get large civil damage awards actually spend it in the United States and do pay income taxes to the United States government. Let's take a break for a minute because I wanted to show you something interesting. Stick with me because you're going to like this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NeGRbfN-_08

The pea under the shell game and the ATRA along with the ad campaigns by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce have a lot in common.

The civil justice system is much more than just civil claims for personal injury. It also includes corporations suing each other. As well as corporations that uses the civil justice system to sue retirees, homeowners, car owners, employees, writers, producers and many others. Some people even sue for stock fraud. But we never hear about even a single case where a corporation has filed a suit or defense that the ATRA considers to be frivolous. Why is that? Why do you selectively choose only individuals and not corporations? Is there something about an individual that is different than a corporate plaintiff? If so what is it? Could it be because working people usually don't have the money to defend themselves?

There aren't too many lawsuits. There are too many injuries.

And why does the ATRA want injured people to shoulder the burden of corporate mistakes and malfeasance? Why isn't your organization promoting corporate responsibility?

You and I will probably disagree on this point, but I don't believe there are too many civil lawsuits for personal injury; I think there aren't enough. And the same goes for civil trial lawyers; we need more and if your campaign to promote corporate greed over responsibility is successful we are going to need a lot more trial lawyers. In my opinion we need to unleash a whole Army division of trial lawyers upon Wall Street. And we need more because of what the ATRA is doing to encourage corporate irresponsibility. The more you encourage corporate America's freedom from responsibility the more shoddy products and shyster services they put in the marketplace that don't perform as intended. With more corporate irresponsibility, the more people will be injured and damaged. The more that occurs the more the general public will need a civil trial lawyer on their side. So keep it up and keep throwing all of those babies under the bus because you're creating more work for trial lawyers, not less.

And the same goes for civil trial lawyers; we need more and if your campaign to promote corporate greed over responsibility is successful we are going to need a lot more trial lawyers. In my opinion we need to unleash a whole Army division of trial lawyers upon Wall Street.

Here is another point we should talk about.

There aren't too many lawsuits. There are too many injuries. Why would the ATRA and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce focus only on the lawsuits and not the injuries? Experience tells me it's because you don't want juries to hold corporate America responsible for the damage they are doing to people. In other words your goal is to shift the cost of those shoddy services and products to the working person who was damaged or injured. In the Madoff case that would amount to the civil justice system telling the investors tough, too bad, it's your own damn fault for trusting him. That message is lousy policy for America and especially for Americans.

So let's talk about Wall Street and its Army-like-divisions of lawyers. Why does the ATRA and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce never talk about the damage Wall Street CEO's and their lawyers have and continue to do to this country's financial and investment infrastructure? It seems to me the ATRA campaign's focus is taking attention away from what is going on with Wall Street. Which is more than likely what your organizations intend to happen. The focus on injured people takes attention away from Wall Street financial wrongdoing. Focusing away from Wall Street fraud allows more investors to lose their retirement savings to corporate criminal enterprises. Which as we know increases Wall Street's profits and provides more money for unearned bonuses.

Why does the ATRA and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce never talk about the damage Wall Street CEO's and lawyers have and continue to do to this country's financial and investment infrastructure?

Why pick only on the injured?

I dare say there aren't too many civil trial lawyers; there just aren't enough honest Wall Street CEO's and Wall Street lawyers.

What your organization asks is for the American juror to accept the premise that corporate wrongdoers be allowed freedom from corporate responsibility. You're asking those injured, through the fault of others to accept the shifting of the cost of those mistakes to their lives for the sake of increasing the bottom line and more bonuses for the Wall Street crowd. And the public can do just that so long as they know what they are signing up for. Be the injured one and there will be no exception for you no matter how honest you may be. Injury is injury and we don't grade the right to receive compensation for the injured with a self-graded honesty index.

Tort reform has no honesty exception. Tort reform has no conscience. Be the injured one and no exception will be made for you no matter how honest you may be. Injury is injury and we don't grade the injured with a self-graded honesty index.

Knowing that Wall Street is getting away with enormous financial wrongdoing while the ATRA plays this shell game, we are faced with asking a simple question. Whose side are you on anyway? Are you siding with the working people of this country, the one's who built it and still want to build it along with the honest business owners who accept responsibility or are you siding with those practicing corporate greed and corruption? Your organization along with the Chamber chooses sides every day. And don't tell me they don't. They choose to distort reality in exchange for freedom from responsibility. They focus attention away from Wall Street wrongdoing and onto those who haven't the resources to fight back. Like the Chinese Communist Party and those business interests in Russia you're a bunch of bullies picking on working men and women who run this country, working men and women, widows, widowers, retirees, the poor, the under-represented, the unrepresented, the disenfranchised, the migrant workers and all the laborers who've built the things you use to try and put them in their place.

Yes your organization is even destroying the chances of a little girl mauled by a pit bull from getting a fair trial for civil damages. And the reasons why the pit bull owners don't care about the four-year-old neighbor being attacked is because organizations like the ATRA and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce have and continue to pursue a campaign of distortion in hopes of paying less in civil damages. Your organizations are putting profit over corporate responsibility and individual responsibility. Yes Darren, your organization is throwing the little girl under the bus along with those plaintiffs who pursue class action lawsuits that the ATRA hates.

Are you proud? If it were your daughter would you be accepting of your neighbor with the pit bull that nearly tore her face off? Would you care to meet some of those parents whose children are dead, maimed, mauled or murdered?

The Face of Tort Reform - The one the Chamber won't show you. June 9, 2009

Your campaign if it were truly honest would state what is obvious to me, that you're not asking for individual responsibility, it's about sacrifice from those who already sacrificed their retirement earnings for Wall Street bonuses and corporate greed.

If you want to be a hero in your neighborhood then stand up for your neighbors.

Had enough for today? You look puzzled and tired. Sorry if I'm asking you and the rest of the ATRA thugs to think too hard. Let's stop for today and come back tomorrow. See you on father's day.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Steve Lombardi

Full post as published by Des Moines Personal Injury Lawyer on June 20, 2009 (boomark / email).