Copyright 1999 Chicago Sun-Times, Inc.
Chicago
Sun-Times
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August 11, 1999, WEDNESDAY, Late
Sports Final Edition
SECTION:
EDITORIAL; LETTERS; Pg. 50
LENGTH: 1489 words
HEADLINE: Tort reform caused more harm
than good
BODY:
Years ago, insurers were wailing
that unreasonable jury verdicts were forcing insurance rates through the roof.
They maintained that the only way to keep from canceling policies was to enact
tort reform. These were legislative proposals to undo legal concepts at the
heart of our democracy -- the ability of injured people to hold
wrongdoers accountable in court and the right of victims to full compensation
for injury or death due to deliberate negligence.
If undercutting these
rights sounds heartless, it was. Tort reform was a scheme to exact a pound of
flesh from the most severely injured in order to protect corporate profits. Even
worse, tort reform didn't seem to deliver what it promised. And now there is
indisputable evidence.
Citizens for Corporate Accountability and
Individual Rights has compiled the most comprehensive statistics to date on
insurance rates. They show that some states actually saw higher-than-average
jumps in insurance costs after restricting tort laws. Some states that resisted
tort reform had lower-than-average cost hikes. Undoubtedly, the same people who
brought us tort reform will try to capitalize on two recent jury verdicts that
found corporations liable for large sums of money. Jurors in one suit were privy
to internal General Motors documents that estimated that it was cheaper to pay
the victims of gas fires and cover up leaky fuel tank design flaws than to
prevent the fires. The jury found the automaker liable for $ 4.9 billion in
punitive damages -- approximately the cost spent advertising the cars.
Likewise, Florida jurors slapped cigarette-makers with a multibillion-dollar
punitive verdict for deliberately hiding the dangers of cigarettes.
Punitive damages, awarded in 3 percent or 4 percent of successful suits,
are an important tool to warn corporations away from sacrificing lives for
profit. They underscore the horror with which average people greet the cold
calculus of death that corporate renegades use to trade away
safety -- a calculus much like tort reform.
Where do so much
gruesome facts come to light? In the courtroom, of course -- that very
institution that the proponents of tort reform want to dismantle. Ironically,
it's the only place where we are sworn to tell the truth, the whole truth and
nothing but the truth. That, in and of itself, makes it worth preserving,
uncorrupted by special interests like the insurance industry.
Nancy
Cowles,
executive director,
Coalition for Consumer Rights
No excuses accepted
The Sun-Times is exactly right: The recent
electricity fiasco was indeed "Two times too many" (editorial, Aug. 4). For four
years now customers have been saddled with the inadequate equipment at the
Addison and California substation, and the fact that Commonwealth Edison is
going to pay millions of dollars in grocery bills does not remedy that. It
probably will end up coming out of customers' pockets anyway in the form of
higher rates.
I urge the Illinois Commerce Commission to launch a full
investigation of ComEd's business practices. If it is discovered that the faulty
equipment is the result of management decisions to pinch pennies and boost
profits, then such officials should be fired.
Chicago is the
third-largest city in the richest, most technologically advanced country in the
world. We pay some of the highest rates for electricity in the country, too.
This is not simply a matter of us having too many air conditioners and
refrigerators running.
If ComEd can keep the lights on in Lincoln Park,
it can keep the lights on in Lake View, too.
David Philippart, Lake View
Parental complex
I am disappointed at the decision of the James
Dale case against the Boy Scouts of America in the New Jersey Supreme Court
(news story, Aug. 5). The Boy Scouts are a private organization. They are not
required to abide by the state's discrimination laws.
Why do courts and
judges feel it necessary to make decisions for us in our private manners? If
this judge didn't know the Boy Scouts is a private organization, he had better
wake up, smell the coffee and find a new profession.
I wish the
government -- local, state and federal -- would get their
noses out of our homes and private organizations and leave the raising and
teaching of children to the parents.
Jim Rafferty, Lisle
Not-me
generation
Hillary Rodham Clinton's assessment of President Clinton's
infidelity is as pathetic as the actual act.
The first lady shouldn't
insult the public in the same manner her husband did. She seems to have a
political heart aching not for forgiveness but position.
Is it always
the parents' fault?
Joan Krohn, Portage Park
Picking on postmen
The two most recent workplace killings in Atlanta andAlabama once again
demonstrate the carnage that can spill over into our work environment.
As I try to recall where these two gunmen worked I can't remember,
because the media do not overplay their place of employment. However, this is
not the case with the Postal Service.
Whenever there is a shooting in
the Postal Service, that fact that it happened in a post office upstages the
actual killing.
Most workplace killings do not occur in post offices, as
the media would lead you to believe. I resent the media painting post offices as
the pasty, the whipping boy and the poster child for all of the dastardly deeds
that occur in the workplace via the term "going postal," which has slipped into
our lexicon.
Rosemarie Erby, Gary, Ind.
Gift keeps on giving
A heated debate is under way about the kind of system to adopt to
determine how donated organs are allocated. I am happy to see this subject
receive the level of attention from both policymakers and citizens it deserves.
The fact is, organ transplantation is at a crisis: There are not enough organs
for those waiting.
If everyone eligible to be an organ donor consented,
there would not be a need to re-evaluate any allocation system. According to
July 1999 statistics provided by the Regional Organ Bank of Illinois, more than
65,000 patients are on the organ transplant waiting list in the United States;
approximately 65 percent of these are waiting for kidneys. More than 15,000
people who die each year meet the criteria for organ donation, but fewer than
half have agreed to become donors.
In Illinois, the organ bank reports
nearly 4,000 people on the organ transplant waiting list -- more than
half of them waiting for kidneys. That's a 20 percent increase over 1995.
All the facts, once known, strongly support organ donation. A single
donor can provide organs and tissues that can help more than 25 people live.
Organ donors can be almost any age, from birth to 80. Virtually all religions
approve of organ donation as the ultimate charitable act.
Willa Iglitzen
Lang,
executive director,
National Kidney Foundation
of
Illinois
If it rains, stay home
I am glad that we'll finally be
getting new license plates for Illinois drivers. My current plates are older
than my teenage daughter, and they resemble strange metal tablets covered with
undecipherable characters.
However, it seems excessive to pay $ 78 for
them since it costs only $ 2.66 to make a license plate. And if the aim is to
make it easier for the police to read these plates, why did they use such dull
and muted colors in the new design?
Hopefully, criminals never will pick
dark or cloudy or rainy or snowy days to drive on our streets and highways.
David Graf, Hermosa
Light the oil lamps
According to
reports, Chicago has spent $ 1.8 million on a computerized system to light up
bridges at night for the amusement of tourists (news story, July 30).
Not mentioned in these same reports is that every other lighting fixture
at Pritzker Elementary School is empty for lack of funds.
R.M. Schultz,
Loop
They can see clearly
I found it very gratifying that one
day after Robyn Blumner's biased and distorted column (Aug. 2) about Sen. Jesse
Helms and the Christian Coalition, a federal judge came to the opposite
conclusion about the organization.
The use of the voters guides has been
going on in churches in my area for many years. All they do is point out the
candidates' views on issues that concern Christians. They never endorse a
candidate.
Blumner asserts that the Christian Coalition distorts and
lies about liberal candidates' views. I have yet to see these types of
distortions in a voter guide.
Kevin Doerksen, Edgewater
Free
beluga
I'm not sure which would be the greater tragedy: for the newborn
beluga whale at the Shedd Aquarium to lose his desperate battle to survive, or
for him to live and never know the joy of migrating intuitively through great
arctic regions, or diving 3,500 feet to rub his belly on the ocean floor, or
joining in a wondrous symphony of vocalizations that earned his free-roaming
counterparts the nickname "sea canary."
Either way, his future is grim.
Rachel Lang, Lombard
LOAD-DATE: August 12, 1999
