Reply #29: "Tort Reform" is a GOP propaganda scam.

[TexasObserver]

They've used it the past 25 years or so, and it has always been a propaganda theme for the GOP and two of its favorite business sectors - insurance companies and big businesses.

It is propaganda, put out to argue that those bad old plaintiffs' personal injury lawyers are creating cases out of thin air, and making the insurers and their business customers pay money they don't really owe. They argue that the only real reason for such lawsuits is to make more money for the Democratic personal injury lawyers.

The reality is that the insurance and business sectors oppose any concept that would allow plaintiffs who are successful to recover their attorney's fees as part of their recovery, as is the practice in contract cases.

In most cases in law, there is the potential for an award of attorneys fees. But in tort cases, that is not available in most states. That's how the insurance industry likes it, because they can force a plaintiff to have a contingency fee lawyer or none at all, and then they can wail mightily about it, so they can complain about the fee the plaintiff's lawyer gets on contingency.

The solution is simple. Make the insurance industry pay the winner's attorney's fees in such cases, and add that number to the recovery. That way, the plaintiff who is getting less than his or her full recovery under the current system would be paid in full their recovery.

I have long favored that approach, because the current one vastly favors the insurance industry.

Being a lawyer representing civil defendants and their insurance company pays a lot better than being a lawyer for the personal injury plaintiff, in all but a handful of cases. It's only the big recoveries, which are a very, very small percentage of the total, in which the plaintiff's attorney pulls down more cash than the lawyer for the civil defendant makes.