(Filed: 28/03/2005)
In a nation so litigious that one attorney found he was suing himself, the White House's attack on frivolous lawsuits is proving popular, reports Alec Russell
Michael Cogan paces his office with the predatory panache that has won over many a jury in his brilliant career. From his ninth-floor window he has a premier view of Chicago's skyscraper skyline, a testament to his success as one of America's top medical malpractice lawyers.
But now his oratory and flair are facing possibly their sternest test. America's trial lawyers, the staple of many a Hollywood blockbuster, are in the dock and their chief prosecutor is the most powerful man in the land, President George W Bush.
Like so many issues in Mr Bush's America, their role divides the nation. While they are heroes to those they have championed against negligent doctors and drug companies, to the White House they are money-grabbing ambulance chasers.
In a society where a customer has sued successfully for being served scalding coffee by McDonald's, the idea that litigation is out of control has struck a popular chord.
If headlines are any guide, round one in the court of public opinion has gone to Mr Bush in his drive to rein in "frivolous" lawsuits and multi-million dollar payouts. He opened his offensive with a tour of the region dubbed by Republicans the nation's "number one judicial hell-hole".
In recent years the local courts of Madison Co, Illinois, have become known for their sympathetic stance toward medical malpractice and class action (collective) lawsuits. The result, according to doctors, has been a flood of cases, skyrocketing insurance premiums and an exodus of doctors.
Dr Deborah Fowler Dixon, the president of the county medical society, says more than 100 doctors have left Madison and neighboring St Clair county in the past few years. Her insurance premium has increased threefold in the past four years.
"All along we've said if someone has suffered they should get compensation. But should someone get $10 million for pain and suffering? This is a very litigious place. It's just gone nuts, with lawsuits for anything. Common sense has gone out the window."
The headline on the front page of The Madison Record earlier this month ran "attorney accidentally sues himself". According to the report a lawyer filed a class action lawsuit, but inadvertently ended up with four law firms that he had hired seeking his money.
Dr Tibor Kopjas, who has joined the president's campaign, said doctors are terrified of being sued. "We are practicing defensive medicine. We're not allowed to rely on instinct. We order CAT scans for everything, driving up the cost."
In his office 250 miles to the north, Mr Cogan accepts reform is needed. But he is bitterly opposed to Mr Bush's proposal for a cap of $250,000 for "pain and suffering".
He argues that many victims, including a recent client of his who died after two years on a ventilator because of a mistake in the operating theatre, deserve much more; he says high payouts are necessary if lawyers are to take on the wealthy insurance companies.
"If you compare trial lawyers to the insurance companies we are weekend players and they are Las Vegas. They can outlast us. They have big pockets."
The lawyers dispute that high insurance premiums are a result of huge awards. Rather, they suggest insurance companies are seeking to recoup their losses from the September 11 attacks. With Mr Bush's flagship domestic policy - a partial privatization of pensions - floundering, law reform is shaping up as the most promising part of his "domestic revolution".
In his first major victory of the year, Congress last month passed a law restricting class action lawsuits. Mr Bush is now pushing his medical liability reform.
But the battle may be just beginning. Democrats have called Mr Bush's plan "nothing but a shameful shield for drug companies".
Yet more powerful is the testimony of Mary Steinberg, of Chicago. Her husband died a year ago after a surgeon left a four-inch piece of metal inside him after a cancer operation, and she is in the closing stages of seeking compensation.
"It was gross negligence," she said. "So when I hear the term frivolous lawsuits I find it demeaning and infuriating."
Source: The Daily Telegraph, 28 March 2005
