culture, politics, commentary, criticism

Friday, January 24, 2003
McTort Reform. This letter appeared in The Wall Street Journal:
In regard to yesterday's editorial "Left Coast Justice": District Judge Robert Sweet's immediate dismissal of the frivolous lawsuit against McDonald's for selling Big Macs, etc., is an example of how to fix the tort system with several strokes of the pen. The fundamental problem of large recoveries in meritless litigations requires not legislation but a firm commitment to choosing judges who will, at the earliest possible stage, screen out of the system such claims. The fundamental requirements for excellence in judging are evident: intelligence, industriousness and common sense. Cases such as those brought against McDonald's (including the hot coffee case) would never pass the bar of dismissal.

Steven J. Stein
Greenwich, Conn.

Updated January 24, 2003
Emphasis added. The boldfaced sentence above describes the root of the medical malpractice problem (see
this earlier post).

The professional wrangling between greedy lawyers and sarcastic physicians sidesteps the basic objective: proportional judgments in favor of actual victims. Determinations of "proportional" and "actual" should be screened by the courts, not the legislation. Caps, especially ludicrously low ones, are a distraction from the responsibility of judges and juries to make sense of damages and their compensation.
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