If Bush/Cheney are Re-Elected, Only Halliburton Will Have Lawyers

The insurance industry & the business community spent millions to convince the public that personal injury lawsuits are killing American business. It's a crock -- they just want to be able to operate without checks on their power. If tort reform (which should be known as tort deform) is passed, only businesses will have lawyers. But the court system won't be any faster. The people will be shut out, but folks with money will always find a way in.

U.S. Businesses File Four Times More Lawsuits Than Private Citizens And Are Sanctioned Much More Often for Frivolous Suits

But Corporate America and Their Political Allies Bush and Cheney Campaign to Limit Citizens' Rights to Sue

WASHINGTON - October 4 - American businesses file four times as many lawsuits as do individuals represented by trial attorneys, and they are penalized by judges much more often for pursuing frivolous litigation, according to a report issued today by Public Citizen.

The survey of case filings in two states (Arkansas and Mississippi) and two local jurisdictions (Cook County, Ill., and Philadelphia, Pa.) in 2001 found that businesses were 3.3 to 5.8 times more likely to file lawsuits than were individuals. This comes as businesses and politicians are campaigning to limit citizens' rights to sue over everything from medical malpractice damages to defective products. By way of comparison, the number of American consumers (281 million) outnumbers the number of businesses in America (7 million) by 40 times.

The report also found that businesses and their attorneys were 69 percent more likely than individual tort plaintiffs and their attorneys to be sanctioned by federal judges for filing frivolous claims or defenses. The report, Frequent Filers: Corporate Hypocrisy in Accessing the Courts, is available at http://www.citizen.org/congress/civjus/tort/myths/articles.cfm?ID=12369 .