THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, April 21, 1995 TAG: 9504210012
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A16 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Letter
LENGTH: Medium: 58 lines
Your recent editorial on tort reform was both misleading and misplaced. Here are some of the views of other writers around the country:
What could be more appealing than a law called ``The Common Sense Legal Reform Act of 1995''? Who is against reform or common sense? As it turns out, that very mislabeled bill, a part of the House Republican Contract With America, runs counter to America's long-standing law reform tradition and fails the test of common sense. - editorial, The New York Times, Feb. 21.
Unfairness in the system can be addressed without denying injured people their essential right to rely on the courts to right wrongs. The so-called reformers exaggerate the tort system's problems to justify drastically overdone solutions. Two wrongs don't make a right. - editorial, The Charlotte News and Observer, March 8.
Says White House counsel Abner J. Mikva, a former federal judge, If the English rule (loser pays) had been in effect here, none of the civil-rights cases would have been brought. If they had lost, a single lawsuit would have wiped out their treasuries. - columnist Mary McGrory, The Washington Post, March 7.
The entire Republican package deserves a more searching examination in the Senate than it is receiving in the House. It looks less like meaningful reform than a threat to American civil justice. - editorial, The New York Times, March 8.
Under the `loser pays' provision of the Contract With America's tort-reform legislation, many middle-income individuals and small businesses will be the losers. - editorial, The Tennessean, Feb. 20.
The right of aggrieved individuals to seek justice in our courts, which possess rigorous referee powers to throw out cases, set aside verdicts, and reverse decisions of the trial judge, should be the pride of genuine conservatives. - Ralph Nader, The Washington Times, March 6.
Neither I nor any other person who is against this bill is taking the position that there are not certain things that can be made better in our legal system. All we are asking is that there be a genuine debate as to what is the best way to effectuate legal reform. We are especially concerned when people do not take the time to either understand the system that we currently have in place or understand the ``reforms'' that are being proposed and, instead, simply jump on the band wagon because the bill has such a fine name.
The bottom line is that while there will always be the attention-grabbing lawsuit that seems to indicate our judicial system is out of control, the vast majority of lawsuits are brought for a valid purpose and end up with a just result. On those rare cases that justice is not done, the trial judge always reserves the right to reverse the jury and almost always, the judge exercises that right and justice is ultimately accomplished albeit not through the jury's verdict.
ROBERT J. HADDAD
Virginia Beach, April 13, 1995 by CNB