Rudolph Giuliani, the keynote speaker at an annual conference sponsored by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's Institute for Legal Reform, used his experiences as mayor of New York City to talk about why he believed tort reform was necessary.
Giuliani said at the Chamber's Legal Reform Summit that almost every year he was mayor, the city's tort bill for hospitals was $300 million because of all the malpractice lawsuits. "I would have to say without even worrying about being contradicted that half of that and more was just absolutely phony claims because we have a tort system in new York that is completely unfair, completely biased," he said.
Giuliani said this was because when jurors in New York saw the city as a defendant, they sometimes forgot that they are part of the city, which has to pick up the tab when plaintiffs win such cases.
As an example, Giuliani cited the case of a man who was fleeing from the police when he tripped on a pothole and became paralyzed. The man recovered a $70 million dollar settlement, he said. The number was reduced to $4 million--but it still made him the richest man his prison, he said.
Giuliani said Texas was a good example of a state that has benefited from tort reforms. This includes an increase in the number of doctors there, and lowered healthcare costs, he said.
He said New York City's system, and the trial lawyers who benefit from it, had the opposite effect. "All they did was make my doctors paranoid that the decision they made was [going to] get second-guessed, and made them practice much worse in medicine than they would have practiced if they had acted normally."
He concluded that "our legal system needs checks and balances on it to make sure that it is equitable and fair."
The American Association for Justice, formerly known as the Association of Trial Lawyers of America, said Giuliani's remarks were entirely off base.
“Keep in mind, Mr. Giuliani was the keynote speaker at a corporate sponsored, U.S. Chamber event dedicated to undermining the civil justice system," said AAJ spokeswoman Michelle Kimmel in a statement. "Time and again we see the U.S. Chamber act in ways that hurt American consumers and small businesses in order to benefit multinational corporations, but the last thing our country needs is the reduced accountability prescribed by Giuliani and the U.S. Chamber."
Estoy totalmente de acuerdo contigo, creo que te estas dando con una pared, no insistas e invierte donde creas, este foro no es de consulta, se mueve por intereses de unos pocos que hablan del interés personal de lo que debe de hacer un valor y no un estudio de cada valor.
Posted by: Fesydehenda | November 02, 2012 at 06:03 AM
Over here in England, the damages are awarded by the judge. There is a standard scale, though the idea is only to compensate the physical damages. We also have the "loser pays" system.
As a result, awards of more than £500, 000.00 are very rare.
There may be some merit in comparing the different systems.
The eagle eyed will note that Scotland has its own legal system, but there isn't a lot of difference in awards
Colin
Posted by: Colin | October 30, 2012 at 03:10 PM
Hard to believe any jury would award a criminal with any money, let alone 4 million. Fraudsters are out there cheating in every aspect of society. Checks and balances to protect law abiding citizens are a necessary part of the legal system.
Posted by: Mary Kaplan | October 25, 2012 at 01:37 PM
Shorter version: judges and juries are so stupid they don't know where taxes come from and don't know to deny "absolutely phony" claims.
"Everyone in the world is stupid but me" is rarely a persuasive argument.
Posted by: Max Kennerly | October 25, 2012 at 07:04 AM