Thursday,
May 10, 2001
by Jacquelyn Horkan, Editor
THE BEAT GOES ON
Trial lawyers continue their mad, frantic
jitterbug through the nation’s court system. In April came news that a
group of Italian-American lawyers are using language, known as the
"indignity clause," that is tucked away in the Illinois
Constitution to launch a lawsuit crusade against the producers of
"The Sopranos," the much-admired HBO series. The lawyers say
they seek not money nor cancellation of the show; they merely want a jury
to declare the show offensive to the dignity of Italian Americans.
Then there’s Peter Angelos, the lawyer who
used the bundles of money he won in asbestos lawsuits to buy the Baltimore
Orioles. He then manned the helm of Maryland’s suit against the tobacco
companies; when defeat in that suit loomed he had the legislature pass a
law similar to Florida’s that stripped the cigarette makers of their
defenses in court. Angelos’s latest venture is a series of class-action
lawsuits, filed in Maryland and three other states, against cell-phone
manufacturers. While the suit acknowledges the lack of evidence to support
his claim that the devices cause brain cancer — and also does not claim
any injury to any user — he nonetheless believes that the companies
should be forced to pay punitive damages and provide free headsets to
their customers, just in case the products should later be proved
dangerous.
And how could we forget the two Coral Gables
lawyers, Edgar Miller and Robert Parks, who claim to have discovered an
interesting anomaly among the 88 passengers and crew members who died in
the crash of Alaska Airlines Flight 261 off the coast of California last
year: Four of the men on the doomed plane, including one who was openly
gay, allegedly had secretly fathered children in Guatemala.
Coincidentally, the four also left no progeny to inherit the massive
estates that will accrue when they win their wrongful death lawsuits.
But on to a real threat: carbonless paper.
According to a group of workers and their lawyers, those handy little
message pads, credit card receipts, and miscellaneous forms release tiny
"microgranules" of poisonous chemicals that cause "multiple
chemical sensitivity," a medical condition invented by (surprise,
surprise) a trial lawyer.
At the apex of the litigation crescendo comes
this little gem from Escondido, California. Last year, Richard R. Espinosa
was enjoying the calm of the local library — accompanied by his dog who
helps him deal with the his panic and post-traumatic stress disorders —
when, lo and behold, the library cat attacked the dog. His ill-fated visit
to the library cost him $84.89 (vet bills for the dog, a chiropractor for
him) but it may cost the city $1.5 million. That’s the amount of damages
Espinosa is claiming for "significant lasting, extreme and severe
mental anguish and emotional distress including, but not limited to,
terror, humiliation, shame, embarrassment, mortification, chagrin,
depression, panic, anxiety, flashbacks, nightmares, loss of sleep (and)
loss of full enjoyment of life as well as other physical and mental
afflictions and pain." Let’s just hope he doesn’t have any late
fees.
AT LEAST WE’RE NOT MISSOURI
Florida’s last presidential election
featured befuddled voters, swamped precincts, error-filled registration
lists, and out-of-date equipment, but no one has yet to find evidence of
any attempt to manipulate the election. That, however, is not the case in
Missouri.
On the day before the election Al Gore
attended a rally in St. Louis during which Democratic Rep. Lacy Clay told
the gathering that he would "get a court order" the following
day to keep the polls open. Sure enough, a petition was filed in St. Louis
the next day listing Robert M. Odom, an aide to Rep. Clay, as the lead
plaintiff. The complaint alleged that long lines at his precinct had
denied him his right to vote. By the time the petition was filed, however,
Odom had already cast his ballot, so the plaintiff lawyers quickly dug up,
figuratively speaking, another Robert Odom to take his place. Crowds weren’t
the only impediment to the new plaintiff’s exercise of the franchise,
however; this Robert Odom had been dead for a year.
By neglecting to spread the word on this
little detail, the lawyers convinced a St. Louis judge to keep the city’s
precincts open three hours past the legal 7 p.m. closing time. A state
appeals court overruled the order 45 minutes after the statutory closing
time had passed; by then several hundred votes were cast.
A federal grand jury is now investigating
3,000 questionable voter registration cards that seem to include a number
of dead people, including three former city officials.
All of this might suggest a new rallying cry
for Florida voters: "We may be confused, but at least we’re
alive."
LETTING A PILOT PROJECT FLY
In 1999, Congress enacted a pilot project to
test the viability of Medical Savings Accounts (MSA), a type of
health-care reform popular with conservative think tanks. MSAs are an
adjunct to a health-insurance policy, typically one with a
high-deductible, which lowers the premium costs. The employer then
deposits money in an employee’s MSA account. During the following 12
months the employee can only use the money to pay for medical services
that are not covered by the insurance policy; after a year the employee
gets to keep any unspent MSA funds.
MSAs allow individuals to make their own
health-care decisions. Employers like the concept because it gives
employees an incentive to control costs. Doctors appreciate the
elimination of the money middle men when making treatment decisions with
their patients.
For all their benefits, however, MSAs are
rare, mostly because of adverse treatment under the tax law. Employer
payments for premiums are excluded from employee’s taxable income, but
deposits in an MSA are not exempt. In other words, the federal government
adds as much as 50 percent to the cost of the MSA.
The 1999 pilot project allowed tax-free
deposits to MSAs for the self-employed and employees of small businesses,
but Congress also attached strings that made the product less attractive.
The law allowed a maximum of 750,000 enrollees, which meant that large
insurers were unwilling to market MSAs to their customers. Restrictions
were also placed on the kinds of policies that could be offered. A $3,000
across-the-board deductible was required, which meant that employers had
to deposit at least $3,000 in the MSA for a family to break even. These
constraints doomed the pilot project to failure — only 100,000
households signed on.
South Africa provides the model for a
successful MSA program by allowing the free market to determine what kinds
of policies best serve MSA customers. As a result, MSA programs have
captured over half of the country’s private insurance market.
With health-insurance inflation reaching the
double digits, many large corporations are devising policies that give
employees more control over — and responsibility for —their health
care decisions. MSAs would give small and medium-sized employers the same
flexibility — but only if Congress revises the tax code and places its
trust in the ability of individuals to manage their finances and their
well-being.
