Most of you have heard the old joke, “What do you call a bus load of lawyers going over a cliff?…A good start!” Or how about the old maxim, those who can’t do, teach. Those who can’t teach, go to law school. I realize some in this PC world may take offense, but rest assured I am not an attorneyphobe, but a couple of recent newspaper articles reignited my reticence in dealing with the legal eagles. Let me say for the record that I have many good friends who are lawyers and they are all upstanding guys and gals, so this diatribe is not targeting the vast majority of ethical, hard working attorneys. This rant specifically is against the blood sucking worthless pieces of epidermis that are illustrated by the following examples.
Recently the mega company Johnson & Johnson was hit with a $417 million dollar verdict alleging that their baby powder was responsible for a woman’s ovarian cancer. This is in spite of groups like the National Cancer Institute issuing statements like “The weight of the scientific evidence does not support an association between perineal talc exposure and an increased risk of ovarian cancer.” And that is just one statement, Google this stuff and there are literally hundreds of well done research papers that concur, there is no connection between baby powder use and ovarian cancer. None…that means NOT ANY. So you may ask, how did a jury find for the plaintiff? It’s not about truth, it’s about the show. One of the major plaintiff’s expert witness was Dr.Daniel Cramer, a researcher who has been looking at this question for 30 years, and who has made a substantial living over the years testifying in these cases. Of note, in all his own peer reviewed scientific papers published on this topic, he himself has never written that talc caused ovarian cancer. But he puts on a good show for the lawyers and the jury.
What has come from these studies is a lucrative cottage industry of weasel lawyers who see a pay day from filing and subsequently settling suits. They know that bad publicity and expenses often outweigh the costs of making these fraudulent claims go away. These lawyers are no better than the scamsters who prey on the elderly. One successful class action suit can set them up for a lifetime, and they have no problem throwing ethics out with the sham science.
The second article that got my panties in a wad was from the Wall Street Journal this past weekend. It involved a class action suit against Subway because some idiot thought their sandwiches were too short. They hired an ambulance chaser to file a suit because the “footlong” ad campaign was misleading because some of the sandwiches actually only measured 11 inches. I’m not making this up. I am amazed that the mouth breathers even knew that there was 12 inches in a foot. Some brain challenged judge ordered a judgement of $525,000 to be paid to the plaintiffs because their feelings were hurt by not getting their extra inch. Thank goodness an appeal resulted in the award being thrown out, but unfortunately not all for the right reasons. They didn’t reverse the decision because it was absurd and foolish, but because the lawyers rigged it so that they would get all the settlement money! One judge actually said, “A class settlement that results in fees for the attorneys but no meaningful relief for the class is no better than a racket.” At least he called a spade a spade.
Granted there are some class actions that are justified. Suing Justin Bieber for murdering Pop music is a no brainer, but many of these scams are simply the fodder for unscrupulous lawyers and greedy plaintiffs. I believe we need legal reform just as vitally as we need insurance, medical, and tax reform.
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