Well, this is a shockeroo....I had no idea the burn case had been so severe!

PLEASE READ, AND PASS IT ALONG TO EVERYBODY YOU KNOW!

Class Warfare III: Losing Your Right to Fight Back

Everyone has heard of the woman who spilled coffee on herself and won $3 million from McDonald's. Perhaps you recall an editorial similar to this one, which ran in the San Diego Union Tribune: "A winning lottery ticket... absurd... a stunning illustration of what's wrong with America's civil justice system."

I saw the injuries. One look was all it took. An 82-year-old woman with such severe burns on the insides of her upper thighs, inches from her vagina, that they required skin grafts. You can see it too, in the documentary Hot Coffee, when it's released. Hot Coffee is the most exciting movie ever made about tort reform.

The jury found out that McDonald's served their coffee at temperatures between 195 and 205 degrees, "high enough to peel skin off bone in seven seconds or less." They found out from McDonald's own files that there had been 700 previous burn incidents serious enough that people had made formal complaints. The woman in the case only wanted her medical bills paid for. The jury thought money might get McDonald's to change its behavior, because burning at least 700 people hadn't seemed to bother the company.

That's what the courts and civil suits are for. To make whoever broke it pay for the damage that's been done. The courts are also the only place where we -- as ordinary, individual citizens -- can force other individuals and corporations -- tobacco, automobile, chemical, pharmaceutical, insurance, and banking -- to open their books and divulge at least the recorded truth, often a history of previous offenses and cover-ups.

The courts are a way to make bad behavior -- injurious, even murderous, acts -- cost enough to make a corporation stop.

Without lawsuits we wouldn't know that tobacco companies knew that cigarettes caused cancer even while they advertised them as healthy; that Firestone tires, combined with Ford SUVs, made them roll over; that the Catholic Church harbored and protected hundreds of pedophile priests; that Vioxx damaged people's hearts and killed them.

Big business hates lawsuits. They hate being made accountable. They hate having to pay. So what can they do about it?

They hire PR companies to spread stories -- frequently less than complete, often completely false -- about frivolous lawsuits. They spend hundreds of millions of dollars promoting those tales. At the same time, almost every settlement contains a non-disclosure agreement. The offenders are free to trumpet their tales far and wide. The victims must stay silent.

The poster child for the victims of frivolous lawsuits is the noble physician. No less a person than ex-president George Bush has told us that it's the trial lawyers who are driving good OB/GYNs out of their practices and depriving communities of decent medical care. It's malpractice insurance (due to the frivolous lawsuits) that is making health care unaffordable. Almost everyone believes this story.

Then there are the facts.

TO READ THE FACTS, GO TO THE LINK...IT WILL MAKE YOU WONDER, AS I DO, WHEN WILL AMERICA EVER WAKE UP???????

SEEN AT THE LINK:

Here in Indiana we have medical malpractice reform, we’ve had it since 1976.

To get a medical malpractice claim into the Court Room the case has to be reviewed by a board of three doctors and two of them have to rule that the case has merit. More than 75% of the claims of medical malpractice do not get past this stage.

The law caps damage awards at $1.25 million dollars, even if actual damages are far higher than $1.25 million dollars.

The law has a statute of limitations of two years even if the patient does not discover the malpractice during that time period.

While this law is hugely favorable to the providers of health services I’m told malpractice insurance rates in Indiana are not substantially lower than other states.

There is circumstantial evidence that incompetent doctors are the real beneficiaries of this law. (Aside from the Insurance Companies.)

A northern Indiana eye surgeon was charged with 13 felonies resulting from medical malpractice and fraud against Medicare, Medicaid and Insurance companies a few years back. From the day his offices were raided until the indictment was handed down he continued to practice for over two years.

Among his crimes was a case of preforming eye surgery on a child that had 20/20 vision. The surgery was botched and the child now faces a lifetime of bad vision from the botched surgery.

How many cases of medical malpractice did this serial felon face? Not a single case ever made it beyond the three doctor panel.

The day the surgeon was to report to court to post bail to remain free while waiting to go to trial the doctor and his wife both wrote suicide notes; she took a large dose of downers but was still alive when police approached their office to see why they failed to report to court.

The Dr. shot his wife several times then blew his own brains out. He was charged with the murder of his wife even though they were both dead and she had written a suicide note.

(They had run out of money spending a fortune on lawyers in an attempt to not be indicted. They would have not been able to continue their lifestyle after the indictments.)