Elana Levin

Firing off a charge against the insurance gang

The gun lobby must be firing pistols at the ceiling in celebration. Congress has just voted to shield gun manufacturers from responsibility for their own irresponsible sales practices.

Ok, so now we know who's in the pockets of the NRA but beyond that this is an attack on the civil justice system. This is backdoor "tort reform" or more accurately Tort DE-form.

The gun industry is far from the only group engaging in this sort of lobbying to gut the civil justice system. For example, our friends in the insurance lobby (the good folks who brought you the AIG scandal). The insurance industry has been fighting against the public's right to sue by claiming that malpractice suits are the reason rates are high.
They're not.
And we can prove it.

America's civil justice system provides a mechanism for ordinary people to hold giant corporations and government agencies accountable when they act wrongfully. The threat of lawsuits also serves to make better corporate citizens by forcing companies to do right by the public in the first place less they have to pay damages later.

If you want to hear more about the coordinated attack on the justice system and how it impacts everything from your rights to your pocketbook to how corporations conduct business check out our "Marketplace of Ideas" event this Monday with Harvey Rosenfield, the man that took on the insurance industry and won.

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Posted at 2:36 PM, Oct 21, 2005 in Civil Justice | Insurance Industry
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