Consumer Law

The President and Medical Malpractice ? A Knife in the Stomach

Posted on January 26, 2011
You may have heard last night that the President decided to throw victims of medical negligence under the bus. This was a very sad move not only for the people who will be hurt by this, but also for his...

Hot Coffee (the Movie) Premieres Today At Sundance

Posted on January 24, 2011
One of the truisms of the extreme right and its corporate backers is that, while they may own networks and demagogue on talk radio, they are incapable of making films that anyone wants to watch. After Fahrenheit 9/11 broke all...

First Hearing of the New Congress on the Single Most Important Issue Facing our Nation- Medical Malpractice Liability!

Posted on January 21, 2011
We took a little break over the last couple days to attend the U.S. House Judiciary Committee hearing on medical malpractice, at which Joanne Doroshow, Executive Director of the Center for Justice & Democracy, was the only witness for the...

Damn the Regulations, Full Speed Ahead!

Posted on January 18, 2011
It?s official. We are officially back to the Bush era! One of our favorite PopTort themes is that consumers are kept safe from the havoc inflicted by corporate miscreants by both tough regulations and the deterrent effect of legal liability....

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Palin's Not The Only "Tort Reform" Hypocrite - Welcome Mark Levin!

Posted on January 14, 2011
We?ve tried to point out the ?tort reform? hypocrisy of Sarah Palin quite a bit on this blog and elsewhere. Not that there?s anything wrong with that. It?s just that beating up on Palin has become the past-time of so...

Towers Watson?s Recycled ?Tort Cost? Garbage

Posted on January 13, 2011
Funny story. Years ago, an insurance consulting firm found itself a little niche ?making up numbers about ?tort system? costs, exaggerating them beyond all reason, and hyping them to create fear among public officials so everyone?s legal rights were cut...

New York?s Medicaid Trouble

Posted on January 12, 2011
On July 30, 1965, when President Johnson signed the Social Security Act establishing Medicare and Medicaid, he spoke about ?planting the seeds of compassion and duty which have today flowered into care for the sick and serenity for the fearful.?...

ALEC Hides Out

Posted on January 11, 2011
Who doesn?t know that corporate ?pay-to-play? politics permeates our political system these days. Some of this is obvious. Take the uber-rich U.S. Chamber of Commerce and its ?Institute for Legal Reform,? which issues easy-to-follow instructions for states seeking to wipe...

Judge John M. Roll - Violent Threats for Doing His Job

Posted on January 09, 2011
We at ThePopTort, like you, are terrible shaken up by the horrible events in Tucson. As many already know, fatally wounded federal judge John M. Roll, sadly, had lived with violent threats against his life in the past. This was...

Huff Post Repost: It's Time to Call Their Bluff; "Defensive Medicine" is a Fraud

Posted on January 06, 2011
This week, our brand new U.S. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) announced that he'll be convening hearings soon "to examine the constitutional concerns surrounding ObamaCare and the role medical malpractice reform can play in reducing health care costs...

Note to Congress: It's The Seventh Amendment, Stupid!

Posted on January 06, 2011
Memo: To Speaker John Boehner and the new Congress From: ThePopTort Date: January 6, 2011 Re: A Constitutional History We are thrilled about your Constitution readings (?minus the icky slavery parts?). Hopefully the next one won?t be interrupted by insane...

Wisconsin?s New Fantasy Governor

Posted on January 06, 2011
This week, Wisconsin?s new Governor Scott Walker laid out the details of his first bills to get the economy moving in Wisconsin and bring jobs back to the state. Number one on the list? Take away the legal rights of...

Ken Feinberg?s Stunning Ethical Lapse

Posted on January 04, 2011
Back to the topic of the ethically-challenged Gulf Coast Claims Facility, administered by Ken Feinberg. Mr. Feinberg?s firm, Feinberg Rozen, is being paid $850,000 a month by BP to run it, settle claims against BP and then release from liability...

60 Minutes And GlaxoSmithKline's Whistleblower

Posted on January 03, 2011
We were tickled pink last night to see 60 Minutes start the year off with the sensational story of Cheryl Eckard, the GlaxoSmithKline whistleblower whose courage and persistence led to one of the largest ?qui tam? cases ever against a...

Thank you, PopTort Fans and the ABA Journal!

Posted on January 03, 2011
Well, the voting has ended at the ABA Journal and we are so happy that ThePopTort ranked #4 in the ?torts? category, among the top 100 blawgs! Also a special shout out to our friends who shared the honor of...

December ? A Very Messy Massey Month

Posted on December 28, 2010
We thought we?d take this opportunity to update you on the goings on at Massey Energy, the nation?s most unsafe mining company. (Recall that an April explosion at Massey's Upper Big Branch mine killed 29 miners). We?ve covered Massey a...

Ken Feinberg in the ABA Journal

Posted on December 27, 2010
Interesting new article in the ABA Journal this month about Ken Feinberg, administrator of the Gulf Coast Claims Facility. (By way of full disclosure, the ABA Journal has a special place in our little heart, having declared this humble blog...

Gay Rights: One Big Step Forward but Another Step Back

Posted on December 23, 2010
You may know that President Obama signed the bill repealing "don't ask, don't tell" yesterday! Yay! The crowd to witness this historic bill signing ceremony was so large it was moved to an auditorium at the Department of the Interior....

Sen. Tom Coburn to 9/11 First Responders: Drop Dead

Posted on December 21, 2010
After all the progress made following last week?s powerfully embarrassing Daily Show coverage (clips here and here), culminating in outrage by media figures both left and right, and compromises by New York Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand and Chuck Schumer to satisfy...

Drink to Your Health But Watch Out for Water

Posted on December 20, 2010
News broke over the weekend about the new Environmental Working Group (EWG) study, released today, showing that, ?Tap water from 31 of 35 U.S. cities tested contains hexavalent chromium (or chromium-6), the carcinogenic ?Erin Brockovich chemical,? with the 'highest levels...

The Official White House Holiday Card

Posted on December 17, 2010
We were waiting and waiting for the White House holiday card this year and it finally came today! And let me tell you, it was full of surprises. First was the realization that Bo?s paw is really really small. I...

Huff Post Repost: Doctors Don't Need Tort "Reform" - They Need A Shrink

Posted on December 16, 2010
About a year and a half ago, the New Yorker magazine published a widely-circulated article by Dr. Atul Gawande, called "The Cost Conundrum; What a Texas town can teach us about health care," which explored why the town of McAllen,...

Those Crazy Kids ? Jury Hits Lorillard For Hooking Them Early

Posted on December 15, 2010
Remember how appalled we all were watching that two-year-old Indonesian boy chain smoking when his YouTube video went viral this year? I mean, there was outrage! So tell me, is there so much difference between that tragic situation, and one...

They're Baaack! ATRA's "Hellhole" Report, Funny as Ever

Posted on December 14, 2010
Who says we don't love the American Tort Reform Association, that cute little corporate front group that's been around since 1986? ATRA's mission is to protect its members, all those mom and pop Forturne 500 oil, chemical, pharmaceutical, tobacco companies...

Huff Post Repost: Why I Care About BP's Legal Accountability

Posted on December 13, 2010
Twelve years ago, I got together with some consumer advocates from around the country and formed the Center for Justice & Democracy. Our mission has always been to protect access to the civil courts for everyday people and fight attempts...

Medical Malpractice ? Is Anyone Listening?

Posted on December 13, 2010
Here is my first OMG moment of the week, courtesy of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. See if you agree with me: A 5-year-old girl needed surgery to fix a muscle in her left eye. But Dr. David E. Braverman mistakenly...

The Land of Milk And Mess Ups

Posted on December 10, 2010
Dallas-based national dairy processor Dean Foods was forcing farmers in Vermont and other northeastern states to work with them. Now they are going to pay - $30 million, that is - to settle a class-action suit for this violation of...

Resolving Injustices - Pigford and Cobell

Posted on December 09, 2010
There is a bit of good news coming out of Washington. Yesterday afternoon, President Obama signed a good law that appropriates money to resolve two huge past governmental injustices ? and somehow both the House and Senate passed this with...

Senator Mike Enzi vs. the Heros of 9/11

Posted on December 08, 2010
Back in February, U.S. Senator and former shoe-man Michael Bradley "Mike" Enzi from Wyoming delivered a speech on the Senate floor about disgraced former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich. At least he tried. He couldn?t pronounce ?Blagojevich.? Recall that by 2010,...

Creepy Drug Company Experiments, Which Kill People and/or Medicare Gets Charged

Posted on December 06, 2010
Today I would like to begin by reprinting the lead in two incredible stories: one in the current edition of Vanity Fair (January 2011) and the other in the New York Times. First, Vanity Fair, in a piece called ?Deadly...

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