Coffey and Nichols

Lately, insurance companies, drug companies and others have pushed hard to get laws passed reducing the rights of people to sue for personal injury. They say the system for compensating people is out of control and costing business, insurance and the doctors too much. In 2005, for medical negligence cases, Missouri capped awards for losses, other than wages and medical bills, at $350,000. So if you are killed by medical negligence, and you are retired, or a child, or disabled, and there weren't medical bills caused by the negligence, the most your family could ever get may be $350,000. And your family will probably have to go all the way through a trial to get that. Insurance companies don't normally offer in settlement the most the Court could ever order them to pay. They offer some percentage of what they call their "maximum exposure" because there is always a real chance they could win the case and not have to pay at all.

In our experience, jury awards are not out of control. It is very hard, very expensive, and very risky, to bring a case to court and verdict. For years, there have always been systems in place to fix unjust results on a case by case basis . Trial judges and the courts of appeals have full authority to reduce or eliminate unjust damage awards on a case by case basis. Most of the so-called outrageous jury verdicts people have heard about are either propaganda or were later reduced by the trial judge or the courts of appeals.

Doctors complain of increases in insurance rates, but research has shown that increases in insurance rates are largely caused by losses from insurance company investments, not from increases in liability pay-outs. Some critics say that caps had to be put on recoveries to get rid of "frivolous lawsuits," but the caps only affect lawsuits with substantial non-economic losses, not frivolous claims.

We believe most so-called "tort reform" is just a form of protection for insurance companies. Big business wants to hold on to its money, and hates anything—like lawsuits, government regulation, and taxes—that takes its money away. Trial lawyers are attacked by big business because trial lawyers are one of the few groups with the power and interest to challenge them.

We hope you will let your legislators and the media know that you do not support restrictions on the rights of victims. If regular folks do not fight back, their rights will be taken away.

If you want to protect your rights, write your legislator about this. You can find out how at www.peopleoverprofits.org.

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