Tort Reform

It seems that our elected officials in Jefferson City have nothing better to do than play tort reform again.  Please contact your Missouri state representative or senator and tell them to oppose all tort reform.  Here are the top ten ironies of tort reform:

1. Legislators try to wreck your 7^th amendment right to a jury trial, while zealously protecting your  2^nd amendment right to bear arms.  Both are important and should be protected.
2. Important and meaningful issues could be dealt with – but insurance companies and large corporations pay lobbyists and politicians to destroy your rights.
3. Elected officials who try to pass tort reform must believe that voters who are smart enough to elect their representatives are not smart enough to sit on juries and evaluate cases competently.
4. Jury verdicts are not going up or out of control, rather insurance companies lose money on stock investments and other speculation. But the legislature pushes this subject over and over again - an insult to the facts and us citizens.
5. If caps for non economic damages are passed, the worse you are injured the worse the artificial cap hurts you – and your kids and your parents when they get hurt.
6. If caps for non economic damages are passed, many folks will be told that they're not hurt bad enough to bring a claim.
7. Elected officials believe an injured retired (older) person's pain is less than a wage earners. Is this fair to senior citizens?
8. Our fellow citizens affected by this are the future injured – we don’t know who they are yet and no one thinks they will be injured one day.  But with the high rates of car crashes and medical errors, it is assured that a current tort reform supporter will regret that support soon in the future.
9. Tort reform doesn’t protect the community – it makes our community less safe and more dangerous.
10. Holding bad companies or dangerous people less accountable is the wrong lesson and precedent.  We teach our kids to be fully accountable for their actions.

Supporting tort reform only protects negligent companies and negligent people while at the same time limiting the rights of ordinary citizens who are the victims of these negligent actions. If you have been injured by the negligent actions of another, would you want your damages already limited before you even get a chance to try your case before a jury of your peers?