George Will Misses the Point

Rappaport, Glass, Greene and Levine is an injury law firm based in New York City. Although our offices are in Manhattan and Long Island, we help residents of the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island, Nassau, Suffolk, and anywhere in the greater New York City area. We offer legal help for those who have been injured in car, truck or motorcycle accidents, as well as those who have been injured due to the negligence of others. If you or a loved one has been injured in an accident in the New York area due to no fault of your own, contact Rappaport, Glass, Greene and Levine for a free legal consultation today.

It can be said with great certainty that George Will is a thoughtful columnist. He leans conservative, but he is a conservative of even temperament who bases his opinions on reason and logic instead of insults, jingoism or ridicule. In other words, Mr. Will is certainly no Ann Coulter. Even if you don’t agree with the premise of one or more of his columns, one can at least walk away from a reading with a crystal clear understanding of where that premise comes from. He does not resort to cheap theatrics, nor does he peddle outrage.

But on January 11, Mr. Will wrote a column that we wholeheartedly disagreed with.

The column, called “Litigation Nation,” is essentially a litany of overblown lawsuits, with the underlying premise being that we are a nation so paralyzed by the fear of liability and lawsuits that we can barely do anything anymore.

Mr. Will chose his lawsuits with care, selecting the ones that were the most overblown and were almost guaranteed to stir outrage in any reasonable person. This has long been a tactic of tort reform groups everywhere. These groups are thrilled when a mentally unbalanced judge files a multi-million dollar lawsuit against a dry cleaner, or when the greedy parents of a six year old file a multi-million dollar lawsuit against a school district when they are forced to take physical action against a child who will not behave. They present lawsuits like these as the rule rather than the exception, and do this so that reasonable people will agree to have their rights signed away in bad legislation.

Do responsible attorneys like it when a ridiculous lawsuit is filed? Of course not. But 999 times out of 1000, those lawsuits will be thrown out before they even see the light of day.

The fact is that plaintiff’s attorneys are needed in this country. In the wake of Bernie Madoff and Enron, do we really want to live in a society where people are held even less accountable for their actions? Does it seem wise to stay on that road?

Remember that we live in a country where tens of thousands of people die every year from medical or surgical errors. We also live in a country where hundreds of thousands of people are injured in car wrecks every year due to drunk driving, distracted driving and other negligent behavior. Pharmaceutical companies continue to market pills that don’t work or have crippling side effects. Manufacturers and retailers continue to make, market and sell products that are faulty and dangerous. And insurance companies continue to do everything they can to avoid their financial responsibilities to their policy holders even as they bring in year after year of record profits.

If George Will, the Heritage Foundation and the American Tort Reform Association have the magic wand that will make all of these problems go away for good, plaintiff’s attorneys everywhere will be the first in line to support any tort reform legislation offered. We will drive to the rallies on our one lane, drunk driver proof personal highways. We will sign petitions with pens that don’t have lead-based paint in them. We will tell our scrupulously honest financial advisers to divert some of our completely safe retirement money towards supporting the cause. We will celebrate the victory and take 100% effective and side-effect free medicine the next morning.

But until we live in a society where people will not be harmed or injured due to the negligent, incompetent or malicious acts of others, we are incredibly suspect of the motives of those who would limit the access of the average citizen to the courtrooms.

If you or a loved one has been injured in an accident in the New York area, contact Rappaport, Glass, Green and Levine for a free legal consultation today.