Illinois Deserves the Truth

Med Mal Caps Law in IL Supreme Court Tomorrow

It’s been a long time coming.  Almost a year ago exactly, a Cook County Circuit Court Judge declared Illinois' cruel 2005 caps law unconstitutional.  The case went to the state Supreme Court, with oral arguments slated for tomorrow morning.  We don't need to repeat why this law must be struck down (see here, here, and all over our blog).  It is unlawful, cruel and harmful to the most vulnerable patients, and does not alleviate malpractice insurance costs.  Hopefully, the High Court follows the lead of previous decisions and puts patients' rights over Big Insurance.

Scaffolding Deconstructs

Pedestrians walking Chicago’s River North neighborhood witnessed a harrowing scene today.  The Tribune reports that construction site scaffolding collapsed seven stories up and left two workers in need of rescue.  Firefighters saved the men, both of whom are in critical condition. 

Regardless of what caused this particular collapse, scaffolding is dangerous for workers and pedestrians alike.  As the fire department chief of Special Operations told the Tribune, “We do this quite often…There’s a lot of scaffolding in this city”.  A simple statement, but it tells the story.  Clearly, workers need all of the safeguards they can get.  Let’s hope the General Assembly redeems itself in the future after missing a chance to strengthen safety standards in this dangerous industry. 

Learn more about construction safety in Illinois in the CJ&D-IL report Deadly Trade.

It’s not all Doom and Gloom in Washington

The economy may be tanking, but not everything is so bleak in the capital.  Two important consumer bills recently passed out of their respective Senate committees.  Each would go a long way in protecting the health and rights of seniors:

• The Fairness in Nursing Home Arbitration Act (S.2838), which we’ve written about before, would end the unfair, mandatory binding arbitration agreements that many nursing home corporations use to escape accountability for negligent care.  It passed through the Senate Judiciary Committee.

• The other bill, which moved through the Senate Finance Committee, is the Herb Kohl sponsored (and Hillary Clinton cosponsored) Patient Safety and Abuse Prevention Act (S.1577).  This bill would establish a nationwide system of criminal background checks for people who want to work in nursing homes.

Product Safety Law Already Making a Difference

Last year was dubbed the year of the recall, but 2008 has had its share of product disasters.  This week, the CPSC issued a safety warning after two babies died inside a popular bassinet.  Not surprisingly, there’s now a question of whether the product has a fatal design flaw.

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, which regulates most children's products, knew about the first baby's death within days after it happened last September in Missouri but did not recall the product. Then last Thursday, a Kansas baby died in a similar bassinet.

The deaths once again raise questions about the safety commission's response to deadly hazards, the subject of a Pulitzer Prize-winning Tribune investigation last year.

The CPSC, following inquires from the Tribune and internet reports of the baby's death last week, has issued a safety alert for Simplicity 3-in-1 and 4-in-1 convertible "close-sleeper" bassinets, "due to the serious threat these bassinets pose to babies. Parents, the agency said, should stop using the bassinets immediately. Such an alert sidesteps a voluntary recall to more quickly alert the public of a potentially deadly product.

It’s important to note that the only reason this safety warning was possible was because of the landmark Consumer Product Safety legislation passed earlier this summer.  The product safety law increased the CPSC's funding, expanded their oversight powers, and established higher safety standards in children's toys.  If the CPSC had had the ability to respond in this way after the initial accident in Missouri, the baby in Kansas may not have had to die.  And, who knows if any of us would have heard about this dangerous product if the legislation never had been passed?

Arbitration's Thin Line

A successful arbitration program in Madison County has some folks calling for more arbitration in place of courts.  This is one of those things that isn’t a problem until it becomes a problem.

Basically, the program in Madison forces individuals with complaints between $10,000 and $50,000 to bring their case to an arbitration panel.  After the panel makes a decision, the individual can either accept it or take the case to court.  Apparently, it has sped up the process for some, so it’s understandable why there'd be talk of expanding it.  However, there is a fine line between helpful arbitration programs like this, and "binding" arbitration that only deprives consumers of their rights.

As we’ve blogged about before, businesses increasingly insert binding arbitration clauses into consumer contracts.  These agreements force consumers to bring legal disputes before specified arbitration courts.  While the arbiters of these panels are often untrained or hand-selected by the businesses themselves, their judgments are final, meaning consumers have no way to access their fundamental right to a trial by jury.  Most of us have already agreed to some type of binding arbitration clause, perhaps unknowingly.  You can find them hidden in the fine print of credit card, automobile, and real estate agreements, employment contracts, insurance policies, and pretty much everywhere else (read this CJ&D white paper for more on binding arbitration).

The trouble is, Big Business refuses to acknowledge that binding arbitration is more hostile to consumers than Madison County-style programs.  That’s what makes the talk down there unsettling.

Federal lawmakers have the opportunity to combat the national trend of arbitration agreements by passing important bills such as the Arbitration Fairness Act (S. 1782 and H.R. 3010) and the Fairness in Nursing Home Arbitration Act (S. 2838 and H.R. 6126).  In the meantime, Illinois consumers and public officials need to be wary of this assault on our right to access the civil justice system.

U.S. Chamber: Is Awarded a Blackbelt in CRAZY

Okay, so I know I cross posted from The Pop Tort about Chamber Brain, but I cannot resist writing a post of my very own, especially  when I was alerted to a poll they are conducting for Illinois.

You may be thinking what is this poll about?

Is it about protecting children from dangerous products?  Umm, no, they oppose a bill in Congress that will do that, a bill that would make companies meet minimal safety standards and strengthen the Consumer Product Safety Commission.  To them, this important legislation is just about "trial lawyers", not protecting children and the public from dangerous products.  Seriously?!

Maybe it is about holding nursing homes accountable for wrongdoing in court?  Umm, yeah no, not that either.  In fact they believe that nursing homes should be allowed to REQUIRE an elderly patient - as a requirement of admission into a facility - to sign away their rights to jury trial should they be abused or neglected.  That's right, so if your loved one gets injured they can't go to court to protect their rights, but must endure forced arbitration.  They get to go to an arbitrator, who is usually paid for by the facility and then has no recourse if they are denied justice.

So have you guessed yet what their poll is all about?  Well if you guessed it is about protecting corporate wrongdoers, hurting me and you by trying to limit our rights and blaming trial lawyers for problems with the economy, environment and everything else you would be CORRECT.

I would like to take this opportunity to "translate" their five question poll for you:

Illinois Big Corporate Citizens: We want OUR Opinion... Please take the time to fill out this ridiculous poll about how to screw over the little guy.

1) We conducted a recent poll with Harris Interactive, where we surveyed our membership and their corporate defense attorneys, we ranked Illinois 46 out of 50.  Illinois courts continue to hold US accountable for our misdeeds.  Do you think we need laws that will keep money in OUR pockets and out of the reach of innocent victims?

2) We have spent millions of dollars trying to convince the public that laws that take away our rights ONLY hurt attorneys who represent us when we've been hurt.  As a result we are going to do it here one more time.  Do you agree we should?

3) We believe that all lawsuits are frivolous (except for the ones our corporate members bring, of course).  And our polling shows that the more times we mention the words "frivolous lawsuits" the better we do.  So we will keep on saying "frivolous" hoping to convince average people that their lawsuits are always "frivolous."   We may start using the terms frivolous children, frivolous environment, frivolous seniors, frivolous, frivolous, frivolous.  Is it working?

4)Frivolous, Frivolous, Frivolous.  Working yet?

5)Can you tell us a story about when an Illinois court held you responsible for a wrongdoing, even though you thought you should have gotten away with it.

   

Can you give it up already?  The public isn't concerned with this stuff, because they are dealing with real problems.  Stop trying to make them care about keeping money in the pockets of FAT CATS.

For this ridiculous poll and the recent other stunts the Chamber is pulling, I award them with the esteemed black belt in CRAZY.

Fairness for Grandpa

Cross-posted from The Pop Tort by Amanda

On Thursday the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee will be meeting in Washington to discuss the Fairness in Nursing Home Arbitration Act.

Arbitration is a great way for corporations – in this case nursing homes – to get away with wrongdoing and never be held accountable in a court of law.  Listen to this NPR story that focuses on arbitration in credit card contracts, and makes the same point.

Thursday's bill, S.2838 was written to eliminate the growing practice by nursing homes requiring patients to give up their right to trial by jury as a condition for their admittance to a facility.

Legislative Compromise Will Make Toys Safer For Children

Yesterday, U.S. Senate and House lawmakers found a compromise on federal legislation that includes broad new toy safety regulations.  This is apparently the biggest overhaul of the consumer product safety system in decades and--I think everyone can agree--is much needed.  Here’s an excerpt from the Tribune story describing the details,

The deal would require manufacturers and importers to subject toys and other nursery products to strict safety tests before they hit store shelves. Some companies with sophisticated labs could conduct the tests themselves, a provision consumer groups opposed.

The legislation would phase in a near-ban on lead in products designed for children 12 and younger and create an easily searchable database of consumer complaints about a product's safety. The law would set an allowable lead standard of 600 parts per million within 180 days, 300 ppm after one year, and 100 ppm after three years. The precise amount of lead that can cause harm in a child remains a matter of debate. The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission would review the limit and could lower it still further.

It would increase the size and budget of the agency, expand government oversight of imported goods, impose new safety standards on all-terrain vehicles and ban six controversial compounds used in plastics. It would also protect whistle-blowers exposing faulty products, allow state attorneys general to pull dangerous products from store shelves and increase fines for safety violations to as high as $15 million.

Learn more about this issue from the Kids In Danger website.

Putting Some "Sunshine" on Litigation Records

This week, the U.S. House version of the "Sunshine in Litigation" Act, H.R. 5884, will be heard in the House Committee on the Judiciary. (Its Senate companion is scheduled for a committee vote sometime soon.)

If passed, these bills will provide desperately-needed restrictions on secrecy in civil cases, and, given the proven determination of big business and industry to go to extreme lengths to withhold information on hazardous products, will save lives. This legislation has been a long time coming. 

Businesses and manufacturers often claim "trade secret" to get courts to seal records and enforce nondisclosure and confidentiality agreements for victims. The legacy of this secrecy in civil cases is horrific:

• Confidentiality agreements pushed upon the families of victims of those killed by accidents caused by faulty Firestone tires in the late 1990s suppressed awareness of the danger, leading to more lives lost.
• Pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly's faulty Zyprexa drug remained available, its dangers largely unknown to the public, long after the first patients had settled after experiencing severe and dangerous side effects - including adult-onset diabetes! Eli Lilly had settled the first lawsuits with strict confidentiality agreements requiring return of discovery documents and public silence. It took two more YEARS before leaked documents finally brought the dangers of Zyprexa to the public light.
• Lawsuits settled secretly kept a Playskool "travel lite" crib on the market, leading to the strangulation of infant Danny Keysar when one collapsed in 1998 - even though several other children had been killed by the same flaw. Keysar's parents had to fight for a settlement that did not include a confidentiality agreement, so that other children might be spared their son's fate.

Unfortunately, big businesses desperate to protect their profits from the fallout of faulty products will use the threat of long court battles and lower settlements to force victims into signing confidentiality agreements.  These agreements tie the hands of victims and their attorneys by making them choose between hiding potentially dangerous information and failing to receive just damages for their own loss. 

The legislation will allow courts to strike down confidentially agreements if the danger posed to people is greater than the need to keep the information a secret, benefiting consumers in a number of ways:

• Saving lives by increasing public awareness of potential hazards
• Providing information and precedent for consumers injured by the same faulty product - reducing the costs of litigation and allowing victims to receive their just damages without confidentiality clauses
• Creating a basis for government regulation or attention to dangerous products and short-cutting businesses 

The Act is a much-needed, vital step towards protecting victims and the public safety.

Congressman Robert Wexler (D-FL), the bill's sponsor, has more on the Sunshine in Litigation Act of 2008 on his website.

Care To Rethink That Stance, Representative?

We've read about several crane accidents in Illinois recently, including one in Normal and another in Champaign.  In light of these accidents, and others across the country, the International Union of Operating Engineers says we need more regulation over crane safety.

A spokesman for the International Union of Operating Engineers said state lawmakers should approve new rules to make cranes safer.

"Now, all of the sudden, we've had two in Illinois in the last week," said Todd Vandermyde, a spokesman for the union, whose members typically operate cranes.

Vandermyde said lawmakers should approve legislation calling for better inspection of cranes, as well as licensing for all crane operators. He said more frequent inspections could catch trends in crane problems and stop tragic malfunctions before they happen.

Of course, our elected officials had that chance earlier this year, but really blew it when they failed to pass the Construction Safety Act of 2008 (HB 2094).  This bill would have protected Illinois construction workers and pedestrians in numerous ways.

• It included critical safety standards for cranes, scaffolds, ladders
• Required that architects and draftsmen follow these standards in their designs
• Granted Department of Labor officials more authority to inspect dangerous sites
• Gave injured workers and their families the ability to hold negligent people accountable for their actions
• Held all worksite decision-makers responsible for preventable accidents, giving these people the incentive to make sites accident-proof

Our lawmakers had the opportunity to make construction workers and pedestrians safer, but they stumbled.  Knowing what we know now, do you think they would like a second chance?