Blame it on the Trial Lawyers

Ken Margolin

Contributor

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I was thinking the other day about the gripes of the anti-justice forces who would reserve the courts for corporations and the wealthy and who enhance political careers by bashing trial lawyers. If they long for an America of 100 years ago, they have a good reason for their animosity. Want your segregated schools back? Sorry. Brown v. Board of Education took care of that, using trial lawyer tricks to convince the court that "separate but equal" was a big lie. Push people with retardation back into hell hole institutions? Too late. A series of trial lawyer-orchestrated federal court cases lay the foundation for the Fair Housing and Americans with Disabilities Acts and other laws protecting the dignity of vulnerable citizens. Missing those old Ford Pinto exploding gas tanks? They won't be replicated in any other cars, thanks to some bruising verdicts against Ford courtesy of trial lawyers. Your states won't be able to give back those billions in tobacco settlements that trial lawyers gained either. Sorry, but smoking-related deaths are on a downward slide for good. I don't have to tell you who was at fault. The list of old time pleasures that are now in retreat courtesy of trial lawyers, sexual abuse, medication errors, nursing home neglect, construction deaths, to name just a few, is far too long for this short piece. Shackle those lawyers and we may just get back to the good old days