CT-16-01

							                                Chapter 16 – Section 1                                1
                                     Civil Cases


Female Announcer: Who is responsible if you get hurt? Some people say we have
gone lawsuit crazy. Our Senior Consumer Correspondent Hadi Kaufman looks at two
sides of that heated issue, good morning again.
Hadi Kaufman: To keep things simple we are focusing on product liability law. Now
we all know about the famous cases like the women who sued MacDonald’s when she
spilled hot coffee on her lap, but what’s really behind these headlines? Well, first the
business prospective. Connie Klimenkos’ company makes inflatable boats and sleds in
his first 32 years of business he was never sued but in the last five years he has been
sued 40 times.
Connie Klimenko: Anybody can claim anything. The big danger is that if we have
many lawsuits, even nuisance lawsuits that the insurance companies have to answer
we will not be able to get insurance.
Hadi Kaufman: Well now the other side consumer advocates say the threat of large
damage awards is the only way to get companies to make their products safer,
consider the case of the automatic garage door openers.
Patty Fritz: Our 6-year-old daughter Katie was crushed by our garage door opener. If
the safety feature would have been working the way it should have, she wouldn’t be
dead.
Hadi Kaufman: Patty Fritz sued; Patty’s attorney says the bottom-line is the only thing
corporate America listens to.
Shawn Bartish: Without the threat of a large economic reward against the companies
they have no incentive to get rid of the hundreds of thousands of death traps that are
sitting out there waiting for another child to unfortunately get killed or injured.
Female Announcer: And we continue our conversation right now with Ralph Nader
who joins us again from Washington. Here in New York, lawsuit reform advocate
Victor Schwartz and our Consumer Correspondent Hadi Kaufman welcome back. I
wanted to pick up on a point that we’ve just wanted to start to address and that was
the idea of putting a cap on punitive damages, there are folks out there who say in
doing that you remove the incentive from manufactures to make safe products. Mr.
Schwartz.



                         All content provided by BBC Motion Gallery
                                  Chapter 16 – Section 1                            2
                                       Civil Cases
Mr. Schwartz: I can understand that, but there is a sanction should be swift, sure and
understood. Today, decisions are appealed all over the place and the people who
benefit are wealthy personal injury lawyers and lawyers because there is so much
litigation. If you know there’s a sanction and the maximum amount it can be applied
and with products it can be applied again and again and again. A breast implant
manufacturer can be sued a dozen times. So if the cap is five million, its five million
once, twice and there is plenty of punch. Right now we have an unlimited liability
exposure totally with no rules and it hurts America.
Female Announcer: Mr. Nader, do you think these caps will make companies be
honest or not?
Ralph Nader: No, these caps will simply protect the worst performers in the industry,
the ones who engage in criminal activity that damages innocent peoples lives and
health and safety. Victor Schwartz should know better he was a former law professor
before he turned corporate lobbyist. Now he is part of a propaganda campaign, it’s the
only way to describe that, he wants to gut the rights of people to have their day in
court. You know the judges are in control of our courtroom. Most judges are formerly
business lawyers. They are conservatives. They don’t read Karl Marx on their lunch
break, the civil juries have a record of responsibility studied again and again by places
such as Duke Law School, we are trying to tie the hands of judges and civil jurors by
politicians in Washington, greased by campaign money from the very interests who
want to escape responsibility for their wrong doing so that the people do not have their
full day in court. It’s very difficult to win a product liability lawsuit.
Hadi Kaufman: We hear about these huge million dollar awards actually the median
award is only $51,000. The plaintiff attorney makes on average $6000 on these cases.


                                              *****




                           All content provided by BBC Motion Gallery