The Role of Trial Lawyers

The following is an article Mr. Bolles wrote about the role of trial lawyers in our society. It was published in The Daily Ardmoreite , where Mr. Bolles is an original member of the Editorial Board:

Story last updated at 11:30 a.m. Thursday, July 10, 2003

Trial lawyers help to balance the scales

By: Brad Bolles

The term trial lawyer is routinely attached to lawyers who represent people who have been injured or otherwise civilly violated in some way. We are sometimes called plaintiff's lawyers or tort lawyers. Tort simply means civil wrong.

Trial lawyers have been taking a bashing in recent years. For example -- Cal Thomas, a Republican editorialist from Chicago, wrote in July of last year that "trial lawyers are out of control." He also stated that "we have too many fathead lawyers and judges who treat the law as a game."

I certainly don't mind a good lawyer joke. Even the comparison of a lawyer to a shark sort of amuses me. It's better than a duck, isn't it? Seriously though, I believe it's time trial lawyers exposed the negative and often misleading public relations campaign against us by uncaring tort reformers such as Mr. Thomas.

Trial lawyers are not out of control. According to the nonpartisan National Center for State Courts, more than 95 percent of all tort cases are filed in state courts. Significantly, the NCSC found that tort claims account for only about 5 percent of all civil claims filed. Our courts are primarily backed up because of family law, criminal, juvenile, and small claims cases, not tort litigation.

I also don't know any "fathead lawyers and judges who treat the law as a game." I have, however, seen and heard of countless injured people over the years who were being treated unfairly by insurance companies and big corporations and were forced to go see a trial lawyer. Lawyer jokes and shark comparisons weren't important to them. All they cared about was getting some justice, whether it be for them, or a loved one who was killed because of negligence or by a defective product.

They didn't view their claims as a game, nor did the trial lawyers and judges involved. Our civil justice system is not perfect, but rest assured, the insurance companies and big corporations trial lawyers sue for Average Joe aren't either.

Without trial lawyers, Average Joe would have no way to take on the big insurance companies and corporations. Yes, believe it or not, insurance companies and big corporations dump on Average Joe every day. And they don't and won't stop -- UNLESS there is a trial lawyer out there who is willing to help Average Joe.

Trial lawyers have also done more to make the marketplace safe for consumers than all the state and federal legislation combined. Defectively designed cribs no longer strangle infants. Flammable children's pajamas have been taken off the market. Farm machinery have safety guards. Automobiles are getting safer all the time. Trial lawyers helped to accomplish all this and more.

We don't need tort reform. The only people screaming for tort reform are those who have never been a victim of negligence or a defective product. The concept of tort reform is nothing more than the attempt of big business to diminish its liability so it can continue to put profits ahead of people. Corporate America lives and breathes profit margins. There's nothing wrong whatsoever with profit margins, but trial lawyers help to remind Corporate America that safety is not secondary when lives and limbs are involved.

The next time you read or hear something negative about trial lawyers or the tort system, ask yourself who and where the message is coming from before reaching any conclusions. Tort reformers have misrepresented the facts in many instances over the last several years. The purpose is to convince the public that frivolous lawsuits abound.

For example, consider the widely-known 1994 McDonald's coffee case involving then 79-year-old Stella Liebeck. Insurance companies, big corporations, and tort reformers want you to believe a trial lawyer and a jury made this woman a multi-millionaire merely because she spilled some hot coffee on herself.

The real truth is McDonald's continued to serve its coffee at scalding temperatures (between 180 to 190 degrees) despite knowing coffee that hot was not fit for consumption and would cause third-degree burns in two to seven seconds when coming in contact with human skin. McDonald's was also aware that more than 700 other people before Ms. Liebeck were burned by McDonald's scalding hot coffee from 1982 through 1992. (Note: the coffee you make at home is usually less than 140 degrees and the danger for serious burns decreases exponentially at 155 degrees and less.)

Ms. Liebeck, a passenger in a stopped car, was severely burned while removing the lid on a cup of scalding-hot McDonald's coffee. She sustained third-degree burns over 16 percent of her body and was hospitalized for eight days. She required extensive whirlpool treatments for debridement, underwent major skin grafting, and was disabled for more than two years. Even with these painful injuries, Ms. Liebeck offered to settle with McDonald's for $20,000. McDonald's refused.

A New Mexico jury, after hearing all the evidence, awarded Ms. Liebeck $200,000 in compensatory damages and found her to be 20 percent at fault in causing her own injuries. After the mandatory 20 percent reduction for Ms. Liebeck's own negligence, the net compensatory award was $160,000. The jury also found McDonald's actions and attitude to be callous and further awarded $2.7 million in punitive damages. (To put this in perspective, McDonald's revenue from coffee sales alone is in excess of $1.3 million a day.)

The trial judge, however, reduced the punitive award to $480,000 -- three times the compensatory damages. As expected, even with the reduction, McDonald's threatened to tie the case up on appeal for years, so Ms. Liebeck settled for an undisclosed amount. (The remaining details of the Liebeck case can easily be found by visiting the Web site for The Center for Justice & Democracy, a nonprofit, nonpartisan public interest organization not connected to any business or trial lawyer organization, at www.centerjd.org.)

The McDonald's coffee case was not wacky and outlandish like the tort reformers characterized it. It had merit, as do the vast majority of cases filed. Cases without merit almost always get punted like it's fourth down and 50 yards to go. Moreover, it is extremely rare for a plaintiff to ever receive a punitive damages verdict like Ms. Liebeck. Punitive damages are an exception and get awarded in less than 4 percent of all tort cases per RAND's Institute for Civil Justice.

As a trial lawyer, I am proud of plaintiffs' verdicts like the one in the McDonald's coffee case. They illustrate the importance of trial lawyers in our legal system and in our society -- both past and present. Men like Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, John Quincy Adams, and Abraham Lincoln were not just great Americans, they were also trial lawyers. Trial lawyers have always cared about America. We help to balance the scales.

Editor's Note: This guest editorial is offered by Brad Bolles who is a member of The Daily Ardmoreite Editorial Board. The views expressed here are his and do not necessarily reflect the views of the newspaper.