I never knew I was a Tea Party kind-a-guy, but in at least one respect, I am. I found this post, titled “A Hollow Liberty“, on the website for “Tea Party Nation“. I agree 100% with it!
The article warns that Mitt Romney and other Republicans are planning an assault on our sacrosanct Seventh Amendment constitutional rights. The Seventh Amendment is the one that guaranties us the right to a civil jury trial.
To the Tea Party’s chagrin, Mitt Romney wants to impose Federal Tort Reform throughout the nation. Tort Reform of any kind has only one true purpose; to sap the life out of our constitutional right to a civil jury trial for personal injury claims brought against careless corporations, drunk drivers, dangerous doctors, and a host of other wrongdoers.
The article also points out that Texas’ much touted tort reform has been a huge failure — seriously injured people with very strong cases against undeniable tortfeasors can’t get lawyers to take their cases to a jury because the “damages cap” (a $250,000 ceiling on how much a jury can give for pain and suffering compensation) makes it economically impossible for them to do so. A third of $250,000 won’t compensate the hundreds of legal hours necessary to bring to trial a complex personal injury or medical malpractice lawsuit. The most seriously injured victims are thus deprived of their constitutional right to a civil jury trial. The article also points out that Texas tort reform was supposed to make healthcare and insurance cheaper, but nothing even close to that has happened.
So now Mitt Romney wants to make the failed Texas law, or something like it, the law of the land. The Tea Party will have none of it! (But will they vote for his opponent? Now hold on, they don’t love their right to a jury trial that much!).
I love this quote from the Tea Party Nation article: “The right to a jury trial is arguably the right our founding fathers thought was the most important [since] the 7th Amendment, the right to a civil jury trial, was the only amendment to the Constitution that was approved unanimously by our founding fathers at the Constitutional Convention in 1787”.
Godda love those Tea-Partiers. At least sometimes.
Keep safe!
Mike Bersani
Email me at: bersani@mbk-law.com I’d love to hear from you!
Michael G. Bersani, Esq.
mbk-law.com
Central NY Personal Injury Lawyers
Michaels Bersani Kalabanka
1-315-253-3293