The top personal injury blogger in New York State, Eric Turewitz, had an interesting blog post today. He wrote about how, according to an ABC News article, the US Chamber of Commerce, one of the biggest corporate lobby group in the USA, plans to throw $10 Million at pro-“tort-reform” candidates this November. “Tort reformers”, by the way, are people, usually insurance or corporate types, who don’t think regular people should be able to seek justice in court against, among others, corporations whose defective products injured them. They want to put personal injury lawyers like me out of business.
But as Eric points out, there is hypocrisy in the Chamber claiming, on the one hand, that there are too many lawsuits (of the personal injury variety, or course), and on the other hand, the Chamber’s threatening to sue the Obama administration’s government to block any rules that hamper business. The Chamber’s head honcho is quoted as saying, “litigation is one of our most powerful tools for making sure that federal agencies follow the law and are held accountable”.
There sure is some irony in that position. And that reminds me of another Chamber of Commerce irony. Last year the Geneva NY Chamber of Commerce awarded me its “Citizen of the Year” award (you can read about it here). My partners in law, all terrific Central New York personal injury lawyers, found it hard to believe that the Chamber, which lobbies so hard against personal injury lawyers like us, was honoring one of us with its highest award. Go figure!