Trial Lawyers Seek to Overturn the Supreme Court

Trial lawyers have lost a lot of money thanks to decisions rendered by the Supreme Court under John Roberts. They are now actively working with Democrats to overturn some of those decisions with new legislation:

A ruptured catheter. A fraudster beaten in jail. A shady cable deal. A powerful phone company. An tire-maker who might have discriminated. Between the five, there is only one thing in common: Each was recently the subject of a Supreme Court case that trial lawyers are now working to overturn.

This might be the first time anyone has tried to overturn five Supreme Court cases in a single Congress. It is a testament to just how much money the Roberts court is costing plaintiff's lawyers, and how powerful the industry believes itself to be in Democrat-controlled Washington.

For the trial lawyers, ably represented by the American Association for Justice (AAJ), now is the time to act on legislation that will expand the number of possible lawsuits and the amount of money available to sue for, settle for, and split with their clients. They collected their first scalp in late January with the passage of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. That bill essentially abolished the statute of limitations for one particular kind of employment discrimination claim. It was named after Lilly Ledbetter, who lost her claim against Goodyear Tires in the Supreme Court after she failed to bring her case in a timely manner. President Obama considered the bill such a priority that he signed it without posting it online and waiting for five days, as he had promised to do with non-emergency legislation.

AAJ, far from resting on its laurels, has other scalps to gather. For the next 16 months, at least, they have a friendly Democratic Congress and president who owes them a lot. In just the first half of this year -- an election off-year -- employees of the top 15 plaintiffs' law firms contributed $636,000, 99 percent of it to Democrats. AAJ's PAC gave Democrats 96 percent of its additional $627,000 in contributions. As a result, the trial lawyers' lobbyists -- both their in-house staff and the guns they've hired from Washington's top firms -- command a lot of respect in the White House and on Capitol Hill. AAJ spent $2.3 million lobbying Congress in the first half of this year.

It's no wonder that Obamacare includes little or no mention of tort reform. That's the one thing that would probably have the biggest impact on health care pricing, but the Democrats don't want any part of plans that would deprive the trial lawyers of their outrageous fees.

Obama made a mention of some sort of test areas where tort reform might be tried, but I'm quite confident that will never make it in the final bill. The trial lawyers have too much invested in Democrats to allow that to happen.

Without tort reform there is no meaningful reform possible when it comes to health care costs.