Copyright 1999 The Houston Chronicle Publishing Company
The Houston Chronicle
September 30, 1999, Thursday 3 STAR EDITION
SECTION: A; Pg. 27
LENGTH:
588 words
HEADLINE: Legal experts debate tort
reforms after record jury verdict in L.A.
SOURCE: Staff
BYLINE: RON
NISSIMOV
BODY:
Legal experts agreed Wednesday that
a record $ 4.9 billion jury verdict against General Motors in July was improper,
but disagreed whether the verdict shows that further tort reforms are necessary
in Texas and other states.
The Los Angeles judge who presided over the
GM trial reduced the award to $ 1.2 billion in August, saying the initial
punitive damage award of $ 4.8 billion was excessive, but refused to reduce the
$ 107 million award for compensatory damages. GM is appealing. Texas Solicitor
General Greg Coleman, speaking in Houston at a luncheon hosted by the
Washington-based Federalist Society, said 1995 tort reforms would have likely
prevented such a large verdict in Texas, but that additional changes are needed.
"Texas has a better system, but don't think we've fully resolved all the
issues," Coleman told the audience of about 100 lawyers and judges.
Coleman, head of appellate litigation for the Texas Attorney General's
Office, said his opinions were his and do not necessarily reflect the views of
the office.
Well-known Houston plaintiffs' attorney Ronald Krist said
the California case was an isolated incident and that there are existing
safeguards to correct such verdicts. Such highly publicized unfair verdicts hurt
plaintiffs, he said, because they are used as fodder to enact further tort
reforms.
"I disagree with the California verdict," said Krist, former
chairman of the Texas Department of Public Safety. "It has added anecdotal fuel
to the fire used to persuade the public we have a jury system gone amuck."
Coleman and Krist said the GM verdict will likely be reversed on appeal
because Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Ernest Williams improperly kept
out evidence that could have helped the company.
Patricia Anderson of
Los Angeles, her four children and family friend Jo Tigner suffered severe burns
when a drunken driver rammed Anderson's 1979 Malibu at 70 mph on Christmas Eve
1993.
The family's lawyers contended GM installed unsafe gas tanks in
Malibus to save money. The company said the Malibu was one of the safest cars
designed at the time and that the drunken driver was solely responsible.
Williams did not allow jurors to hear that the driver was heavily drunk
or that GM had run tests and concluded that the fuel system was safe and that
Malibus had an excellent overall safety record.
Texas tort reforms
enacted in 1995 have placed caps on punitive damages, Coleman said, but the
Legislature still needs to examine whether there should be caps on compensatory
damage claims.
He also said Texas judges should try to use a 1997 law
that allows them to dismiss cases for lack of evidence. But Krist, who won a $
41 million award in Houston last April for the families of executives killed or
disabled in a car wreck, said juries should determine the fair value of
compensatory claims.
"Corporations perpetuate lies every day - it's up
to the American jury system to ferret that out," he said. "Most of the safety
developments have come from lawsuits, not legislative actions. Cripples don't
have lobbyists; corporations do."
Tim O'Brien, program moderator and
former legal correspondent for ABC News, said punitive damages are essential to
prevent abuses. But, he added, it would be best to award the large portion of
punitive damages to public entities instead of enriching lawyers or plaintiffs.
The 25,000-member Federalist Society, founded in 1982, promotes ideas
such as states' rights and a limited judiciary, said spokesman Leonard Leo.
LOAD-DATE: October 1, 1999
