I've been looking over ALEC "model bills" since the Center for Media and Democracy released over 800 of these on the site ALECexposed.org.
If you don't know what ALEC is, it's the American Legislative Exchange Council.
"ALEC is not a lobby; it is not a front group. It is much more powerful than that. Through ALEC, behind closed doors, corporations hand state legislators the changes to the law they desire that directly benefit their bottom line. Along with legislators, corporations have membership in ALEC. Corporations sit on all nine ALEC task forces and vote with legislators to approve “model” bills. They have their own corporate governing board which meets jointly with the legislative board. (ALEC says that corporations do not vote on the board.) Corporations fund almost all of ALEC's operations. Participating legislators, overwhelmingly conservative Republicans, then bring those proposals home and introduce them in statehouses across the land as their own brilliant ideas and important public policy innovations—without disclosing that corporations crafted and voted on the bills."
Kirk Dillard is a republican Illinois senate member representing the 24th district. He is also a state chairman for ALEC.
He is the sponsor of SB1974, introduced on 3/18/11, which amends the Code of Civil Procedure. This bill's purpose is to delete "language regarding joint and several liability in actions on account of bodily injury or death or physical damage to property, based on negligence, or product liability based on strict tort liability" As well as "adds language providing that: in actions for bodily injury or death or physical damage to property based on negligence or product liability based on strict tort liability in which recovery is predicated upon fault, each defendant found liable is liable for only that percentage of the plaintiff's damages that represents the contributory fault chargeable to that defendant." And the big doozy is "deleting and repealing certain provisions regarding contribution if the obligation of one or more of the joint tortfeasors is uncollectable and a plaintiff's right to recover the full amount of his judgment from any one or more defendants."
Ok so what does this bill have to do with ALEC? They had a model bill titled the "Joint and Several Liability Act." Let me quote you with a few lines from these bills.
ALEC's model bill:
"The liability for each defendant of damages shall be several only and shall not be joint"
Now Dillard's bill:
"No defendant shall be jointly and severally liable for plaintiff's damages."
ALEC's model bill:
"Each defendant shall be liable only for the amount of damages allocated to that defendant in direct proportion to that defendant's percentage of fault"
Now Dillard's bill:
"Each defendant found liable,
as determined by the trier of fact, is liable for only that percentage of the plaintiff's damages"
So what's the deal with this bill? It prevents patients who are injured or killed through medical malpractice from receiving full compensation for their injuries by abolishing joint and several liability rules that ensure full compensation among defendants that may share responsibility, such as surgeons, anesthesiologists, nurses, hospitals, and pharmaceutical companies.
The parallel between these 2 bills is undeniable. This bill is affecting YOUR rights as an Illinois resident. Open your eyes to the back handed corporate infiltration of our politics not only in our state, but the entire country.
(Alec bill: http://alecexposed.org/w/images/a/af/5O3-Joint_and_Several_Liability_Act_Exposed.pdf)
(Dillard bill: http://www.ilga.gov/legislation/BillStatus.asp?GA=97&DocTypeID=SB&DocNum=1974&GAID=11&SessionID=84&LegID=58116#actions)
On one hand, groups like ALEC
On one hand, groups like ALEC are pretty clearly shady, have obscenely inappropriate levels of influence on elected officials and are arms of corporate interests seeking to disempower everyday folk even further...that I will give you.
On the other hand, class action lawsuits more often than not seek absurdly high damages, file claims against defendants who have nothing to do with the claim at hand, and are often just generally an abuse of the legal system. Just from the example you gave...if a surgeon, say, accidentally leaves a sponge inside a patient when they sew them back up (don't laugh, it actually happens), why should anyone but that surgeon be sued? Too often in these lawsuits, people who are not involved are sued as well...in this case, let's say the hospital at large, a company that owns or holds a stake in the hospital, or even the manufacturer of the sponge could be dragged into the lawsuit. Or how about the idiots who smoke or gorge on fast food for decades, and then sue cigarette makers or fast food restaurants once health problems inevitably pop up? Oh, it wasn't my fault, their ads were deceiving and tricked me!
A middle ground between these two ridiculous extremes might be nice. Convince us further that limiting class action lawsuits is such a bad idea. Or find some more nefarious activities of ALEC's to report to us, I'm sure there are plenty.
You're confusing joint and
You're confusing joint and several liability and class action, which are 2 entirely different things. Class action allows people who are commonly victimized by the same entity to come together and file a joint suit, which affords the opportunity for people who do not have the resources or finances to take on the claim by themselves.
And joint and several liability also is not about people trying to sue as many people as possible. What it deals with is when there are multiple parties involved in injury/damage to the plaintiff filed in a single claim.
Ok let's take this scenario. You are on high blood pressure medication and go to your doctor for depression. You disclose your medication but your doctor still prescribes you an anti depressant that has the warning it should not be taken in conjunction with your blood pressure medicine (obviously you are unaware). Later the pharma company recalls that anti depressant because it causes cancer and you end up with cancer because of it. Both the pharma company and doc are liable. You have to go after both jointly because if you file suit on only the pharma company, it could get tossed or lost because you shouldn't have had the med in the first place and if it wasn't for the docs negligence, you wouldn't have cancer. So you go after only the doc, but that gets thrown out or lost because he wasn't the one that made the drug that gave you cancer. So you file both as at fault in a single claim. You win your case and you are awarded x$ for restitution. Fault will be assigned and let's say the doc is found to be 40% at fault and the pharma company 60% fault. The restitution will be divided along those lines. Great, now you can pay your medical bills, which makes up 80% of your restitution. But wait, the doctor defaults on his payment. That leaves you with 20% of your bills to pay. That wouldnt be a problem under pure tort law because since the pharma company has fault, they are responsible to ensure you get full compensation (that goes for all parties involved who are at fault, they are responsible to see that the victim receives full compensation). So the pharma company has to pay the 40% still owed and it is their own responsibility to have to collect from the doctor. You end up being able to pay your bills and it prevents you from being victimized again.
But no, under this reform the other parties have absolutely no responsibility to see to the full compensation of their victim despite the fact that the victim is innocent and the defendants are not. It's the victim who is left out in the cold. Now under this law not only do you have to front your medical bills but also the court costs and fees (if you even can) to try and go after the doctor.
http://www.stonekinglaw.com/blog/46-joint-and-several-liability.html [5]
This gives a good example of it as well as the in-between. (Note Dillard is NOT seeking the in between but the extreme opposite of the pure).
Generally the plaintiff is just a person while much of the time at least one of the liable defendants is a corporation (big pharma, insurance, hospital, etc). When one defendant defaults on their percentage of the restitution, that gives a larger percentage due to the others at fault. But with the reform, there is no shared responsibility, which takes the ball out of the victim's court and puts it back with the corporations.
I see. In that case then,
I see. In that case then, yes, this is pretty disturbing. Hardly a surprise though, sadly.