Civil Justice checks and balances and the Honey Bees
I came across an interesting blog by the name of Tort Deform that discusses the public's access to the courts. Hats off to the Executive Editor, Kia Franklin, and team for putting together a great blog. I enjoy reading this blog, topics are always current, timely and thought provoking. Keep up the good work....
We recently received a comment from a Tort Deform contributor, in response to our blog post "Shedding Light on Attorney Contingency Fees. Executive Editor, Kia Franklin, raises some interesting points in her Tort Deform blog post, "Civil Justice to Fee or Not to Fee".
I really appreciate that there are people in the world, other than Plaintiff attorneys, who understand what we do and the function we serve. The world has a balance to it.
This reminds me of a movie I recently saw, The Bee Movie. In the movie Jerry Seinfeld portrays a Honey Bee who figures out that humans are using Bees to make honey for human use and that the humans are not paying the Honey Bees anything for their labor or the product (honey). With that knowledge he befriends a human woman and they sue the honey industry.
The remainder of the movie was a mélange of lawyer jokes and silliness. In the end, the Seinfeld character wins his lawsuit against the honey industry and all bees around the world are free to stop working. That, of course, sends the world into a tailspin. Without bees we have no pollination, and without pollination we have no flowers. In the movie they only dealt with flowers, but the truth would be that without bees the world would significantly change. Millions of plant and animal (probably humans as well) species would disappear in the process. One of the movie's lessons is that, within a system, if you take out a step you may change or destroy the entire process because the balance is no longer in check.
Our government system is similar. We have a unique and wonderful system of checks and balances. Our founding fathers developed, through sheer brilliance, a fantastic system. The system works between the executive, judicial and legislative branches. It also works between private and public services as well as between corporate and individual rights. One major component to that system is that individuals and corporations are held accountable for the damages they cause to the social compact. Part of that social compact is that no party or person is permitted to use "self help" to right a wrong. We are not permitted to shoot our neighbor if they put a fence up on part of your property. Instead of self-help we have a finely developed court system. People trust and believe in the general fairness of our entire system. Their belief and trust in that fairness is what keeps society generally peaceful. Most people will sue each other to correct the behavior or damages one party does to the other. Most people will not take JUSTICE into their own hands and use a gun or a knife to right their own wrong.
If we take away the people's right to sue to right their wrongs then we have seriously changed our system of justice. We have taken out a critical piece in the checks and balances system of our society. The people cannot be forced to live with government oversight as their sole method of solace because when something goes wrong they need to feel empowered to do something to "fix" the situation. In our system, we need to have a method of taking action, of taking self-responsibility, to help oneself. That system calls for lawsuits and not guns. If government takes on that responsibility and doesn't do a good job (which is inevitable) then over time the public will feels greater discontent with government. This discontent, historically, has led to revolution.
I am not advocating that by allowing federal preemption to work in drug cases that we will head down the road to revolution because I think people will not feel that is a legitimate analysis. When we change the system, over time it opens the door to more and more changes. The accumulation of those changes can ruin the basic system that worked in the first place. The end result of the initial changes can be disastrous.
Federal preemption is simply a bad idea. The drug industry makes billions of dollars per year. Lawsuits have not inhibited that profitable industry in the past. There is no lack of new drugs in the market. There is no lack of new scientific breakthroughs every year. There is no lack of money, both private and public, in the science industry. In my own neighborhood the Scripps Institute is building hundred of millions of dollars in new biotech science buildings to house hundreds of scientists to develop thousands of new drugs. They are doing this without tort reform. They are doing this with without federal preemption. They are doing this flush with funds.
The balance works. Let's not change the system. Keep the drug companies responsible for the harm they cause with dangerous drugs. Let the federal government do its job and let the private sector stay empowered to protect itself.
This way the system stays in check and the bees will keep making honey so the flowers can bloom.
Stepping off the honey box.
Brian
Civil Justice Prosecutor
