Justice for me but not for thee

With all the ranting about tort reform that folks like the failed Bush I nominee for the Supreme Court, Robert Bork, do, you'd think they really believed that most lawsuits brought by individuals against corporations are scams. And, when they demand that the government cap punitive damages on medical malpractice and other claims, they do so with such fervor, it would be easy to assume that they are truly offended by large damage awards.

Well, now we know: Bork is offended when, say, the person whose healthy right foot is mistakenly amputated, instead of his gangrened left, gets compensation from the doctors and hospital that botched things. When it comes to compensation for his tiny bump on the head, however, the sky is no limit.

[Robert] Bork spoke at the Yale Club last year, and fell on his way to the dais, injuring his leg and bumping his head. Mr. Bork is not merely suing the club for failing to provide a set of stairs and a handrail between the floor and the dais. He has filed a suit that is so aggressive about the law that, if he had not filed it himself, we suspect he might regard it as, well, piratical.

Mr. Bork puts the actual damages for his apparently non-life-threatening injuries (after his fall, he was reportedly able to go on and deliver his speech) at “in excess of $1,000,000.” He is also claiming punitive damages. And he is demanding that the Yale Club pay his attorney’s fees.

The above would be non-news if not for the Op-Ed that Robert Bork co-authored back in 1995:

Our expensive, capricious and unpredictable civil justice systems present precisely the kind of conflicting and costly state regulation of commerce that the Commerce Clause was designed to solve. Lawsuits, verdicts, settlements and the insurance necessary to defend and indemnify against them, are driving up the cost of goods and services everywhere, and consumers are paying the bill. The litigation explosion has no respect for the state lines because commerce and insurance are now national. Interstate commerce and trade have become the principal victims of a runaway liability system.

Courts are now meccas for every conceivable unanswered grievance or perceived injury. Juries dispense lottery-like windfalls, attracting and rewarding imaginative claims and far-fetched legal theories. Today's merchant enters the marketplace with trepidation - anticipating from the civil justice system the treatment that his ancestors experienced with the Barbary pirates.