For another side of how our litigious society is negatively impacting
our ability to offer goods and services I feel compelled comment on a
few recent events that affect me directly.
Our small rural office hired a part-time employee who fell down a stair
case the year before in her school and injured her wrist. Then she
stressed her wrist several times and complained at work by painting her
entire room and ceiling in one day, working on her car (changing the
oil, etc.) Then one day she picked up a partially-filled bottle of
water (less than 12 pounds) and sued us for worker's compensation. Even
though every employee on the staff wrote letters verifying the false
complaint, the insurance company paid the bill. They said it was less
money than would be spent if she hired one of the greedy advertising
attorneys that are on every phonebook cover and regularly run television
ads. After one year (this week) we received notice that she is now
doing fine and completely restored to health. The cost was only $30,000
for the compensation and medical expenses.
This weekend I had to attend an update and review of jurisprudence as a
part of an attempt to slow down the petty actions of greedy people who
look for any reason to shift responsibility to another person. At this
time our state is now the number one state in the US for litigious
action--lawsuits against most anything--people, services, etc. Whoever
believes that huge settlements are necessary so as not to deprive
ordinary folk of reasonable settlements need a very good explanation of
"severe harm" is making it tough on everyone. The price of goods and
services reflects all the payouts that have supported ordinary folks
grand settlements. And I am not referring to death or maimed bodies.
I'm talking about inconveniences. One person actually told me that the
going settlement for blaming a dental practitioner for not "saving a
tooth" was about $100,000 and this was fifteen years ago. Thankfully,
our records documented poor bone, smoking, cancellation of appointments,
failing recall maintenance and more. But technically, she wanted to be
compensated for her personal neglect and the sad thing is that she
thought she was entitled to compensation because she paid for services
on the tooth.
I also think I may have earlier mentioned that we were sued for 1.3
million dollars (we are simple middle-class people) when our son's car
tagged the fender of another car--the only damage being a scrape on the
fender. Because a passenger inside the car was pregnant, she sued for
the amount saying that she became so terrified by fear that she could be
hurt that she could no longer have ordinary sex with her husband. Ha!
At least this case was thrown out by the judge. However, the legal
paperwork took our insurance company's attorney over three inches high
of paper in documentation and cost the company thousands of dollars.
Well, we need tort reform. The only way to restore our country to
reasonably supporting employees and reducing production costs will be to
reduce the ability of any dissatisfied person to hire the evil attorneys
that suck the system. It is well known that most brag that they never
have to go to court because they can screw the money people (insurance
companies or business owners) without doing so. At this time part of
the American disease includes a cure for tort action. One solution
would be that if a fair trial included the ability of the person being
sued to be compensated for the same amount of money for which the person
suing requested if the court found that the lawsuit was frivolous, it
would greatly reduce risk takers from jeopardizing their own liability/
responsibility.
Thanks for listening and understanding an individual approach that
applies to my everyday life. And being true to one's self includes
evaluating ones life in terms of what we actually encounter.
Best wishes,
Peggy
Is It Time For A Corporate Death Penalty Act?
by Karyn Strickler
George W. Bush recently announced that he was going to end asbestos
damage lawsuits; limit medical malpractice suits; and ban class
action lawsuits of all sorts. It's part of his high priority, tort
reform plan.
Instead of Bush's proposed tort reform -- depriving ordinary folk of
reasonable settlements in cases of severe harm and making the rule of
law meaningless -- Timothy G. Hermach, President of the Native Forest
Council (www.forestcouncil.org), proposes a Corporate Death Penalty
Act.
Regardless of your position on the death penalty, when an individual
murders someone, they know that they may face the death penalty.
While it is badly administered, the death penalty is supposed to be a
deterrent.
Juan Alvarez, the man who recently abandoned his car on the train
tracks in Glendale, California, injuring hundreds and causing the
death of 11 people in a train derailment there, has been charged with
murder. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty, which can only be
used in exceptional circumstances in California, because Mr. Alverez
knew, or should have known that his actions could be lethal.
Corporate leaders kill people regularly, often consciously, with
personal impunity. Why not hold the individuals behind corporations
that poison, harm and kill people accountable the same way we do for
individuals who commit murder, deliberately or otherwise?
The idea seems kind of whacky, until you consider the fact that, in a
capitalist society, making money reigns supreme, even if doing so
kills someone - or thousands of people - as in the case of Dow
Chemical's Union Carbide plant in Bhopal.
Russell Mokiber and Robert Weissman of the Multinational Monitor
(www.multinationalmonitor.org) named Dow Chemical among it's top 10
worst corporations of 2004 because, as they say:
* The world's largest plastic maker, Dow purchased Union Carbide in
1999. At midnight on December 2, 1984, 27 tons of lethal gases leaked
from Union Carbide's pesticide factory in Bhopal, India, immediately
killing an estimated 8,000 people and poisoning thousands of others.
* Today [Dow Chemical owns Union Carbide and] in Bhopal, at least
150,000 people, including children born to parents who survived the
disaster, are suffering from exposure-related health effects such as
cancer, neurological damage, chaotic menstrual cycles and mental
illness. Dow refuses to take any responsibility.
Should not Dow's denial of corporate responsibility be put to the
test of a criminal trial? If convicted, shouldn't those responsible
pay the ultimate price for such a horrific crime?
Also making the top 10 Multinational Monitor list for 2004 is the
drug company Merck which makes the infamous drug Vioxx, generically
known as rofecoxib.
The Associated Press reports that Dr. David Graham, a Food and Drug
Administration drug safety official wrote in an article published in
the British medical journal, the Lancet, "An estimated 88,000
-140,000 excess cases of serious coronary heart disease probably
occurred in the U.S.A. over the market life of rofecoxib."
Dr. Graham also concluded, "The U.S. national estimate of the
case-fatality rate (fatal acute myocardial infarction plus sudden
cardiac death) was 44 per cent, which suggests that many of the
excess cases attributable to rofecoxib use were fatal."
That's between 38,720 - 61,600 people who likely died from taking
Vioxx. Merck says it pulled the drug as soon as it saw conclusive
evidence of the drug's dangers, but Dr. Graham says that Merck knew
of the adverse effect of the drug four years before they took it off
the market. If Vioxx was on the market four years after its ill
effects were known, profit was the likely motive. The Times of London
reports that, "Vioxx was one of the most heavily-promoted drugs for
patients with arthritis, bringing in sales worth $2.5 billion a
year." A Corporate Death Penalty Act, properly enforced, might deter
tobacco companies, for example, from making profits by soliciting
five thousand young people age 12-17, to try cigarettes for the first
time each day. Within days or weeks of the first cigarette, symptoms
of nicotine addiction appear, according to the American Legacy
Foundation.
Tobacco Free Kids says:
* The 1998 legal settlement between the states and the tobacco
companies prohibited the tobacco companies from taking 'any action,
directly or indirectly, to target youthİ in the advertising,
promotion or marketing of tobacco products.' [Nevertheless]İtobacco
companies have increased their marketing expenditures by more than 84
percent to a recordİ$34.8 million a day, according to the Federal
Trade Commission. Much of this marketing is still targeted at kids.
* One of the tobacco industry's most outrageous new tactics is the
introduction of candy-flavored cigarettesİ (View advertising
examples): R.J. Reynoldsİhas launched a series of flavored
cigarettes, including a pineapple and coconut-flavored cigarette
called 'Kauai Kolada' and a citrus-flavored cigarette called 'Twista
Lime' (see Campaign statement).
Deliberately hooking children on their poisonous product is the only
way for executives, Board members and shareholders to continue to
make profits. Twelve hundred people die every day -- that's 438,000
annually -- as a result of tobacco use or being exposed to
second-hand smoke. Tobacco Free Kids reports that "More than 5
million children alive today will die prematurely from
smoking-related illnesses."
What's really whacky is that our society allows this to continue. It
is breathtaking in its consequence. It's immoral, corrupt, depraved
-- and it's perfectly legal. Corporate killers rarely see the inside
of a jail cell, let alone face real consequences for their deplorable
behavior.
In business school, Tim Hermach was taught that his mandatory, prime
directive as a manager was to maximize shareholder values, regardless
of consequences -- that there were no moral or other deterrents.
Mr. Hermach raised his hand and, in an attempt to expose the
absurdity of the theory said, "You're telling me that we must kill
the goose and take two gold eggs today rather than take care of the
goose and allow it to give us one gold egg daily, for the rest of its
life. Under your corporate accounting and profit theory, I should
kill you and sell your organs for $100,000 on the open market,
because you're worth a lot more dead than alive, when figured in
today's dollars."
That's obviously not legal, but it is certainly the principle upon
which extractive industry operates. Corporations rip out the forests
which are the lungs of the earth, providing us with topsoil to grow
our food, air to breathe and water to drink. They destroy the
wetlands which are the kidneys of the earth, providing flood control
and keeping our water clean -- all in the name of the more money.
Extractive industry believes the earth and its ecosystems are more
valuable when sold in pieces, instead of being left in the intricate
tapestry that sustains life.
In his history of Shell Oil Company, Riding the Dragon: Royal Dutch
Shell & the Fossil Fire, Jack Doyle documents hundreds of cases of
human rights violations, pollution, injury and death caused by the
company and its leaders (See www.shellfacts.com ).
In May, 1994, Doyle says Shell agreed to pay a fine of $3 million to
the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, for federal safety
violations and to pay multi-million dollar wrongful death settlements
to the families of dead workers killed from a fire at their Belpre,
Ohio plant.
The fire spread to a "nearby chemical storage tank area, touching off
an explosion and ferocious chemical fire, causing four of the big
tanks to burn and lose millions of gallons of chemicals. Four workers
are killed in the incident and 1,700 people evacuated. Theİleakage
from the site pollutes the Ohio River with a 22-mile plume of
ethylene dibromide, killing fish and forcing downstream
municipalities to seek alternative water supplies," according to a
timeline at www.shellfacts.com .
Shell claims to be moving beyond fossil fuel economy, the economy
that is driving global warming to the point of no return and
jeopardizing life on earth. But the Multinational Monitor reports
that, in fact, "They continue to secure long-term contracts that tie
them to the fossil fuel economy, with all of its geopolitical
hazards, all of its human rights abuses and all of its environmental
destruction."
Corporate biographer Jack Doyle, told the Multinational Monitor,
"Corporationsİare not controlling the full costs of their operation,
and we are picking up the tab for their externalities in form of
disease, illness, lower immunity, altered reproduction, birth
defects, cancerİThat's a mortal trespass, an unforgivable
transgression that must be stoppedİThey need to be prosecuted."
The Corporate Death Penalty Act could provide that every member of
the Board of Directors and executives of a corporation who knew, or
should have known about the likelihood of their product or services
to cause death, will be subject to the death penalty if their product
or service results in the death of an individual or group of
individuals.
Tim Hermach thinks that Fox TV would be an appropriate venue for
televising corporate executions and says, "No more payoffs, no more
get offs. You, corporate executives and Board members are the few.
We, the people that you kill, are the many. Those left standing, will
hold corporate killers accountable for your lethal actions."
Karyn Strickler is a writer and activist. You can reach her at
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
C 2005 Karyn Strickler
