Cost of Tort Cases

Economist Adela de la Torre (Commentary, June 8) is concerned about the effect of litigation on the delivery of public services and she would have us solve the problem by providing sovereign immunity to local government.

While recognizing the result of Mayor Richard Riordan’s study, which concludes that litigation costs can and should be reduced by forcing responsibility upon the agency involved, thereby encouraging corrective actions, she goes on to recommend that we stick our heads in the sand by denying that a problem exists and prohibit anyone from complaining.

De la Torre struggles for credibility by attempting to justify her position by economic arguments, i.e. that the “tort system” is replacing the market system in allocating resources. This is unforgivable nonsense from an economist. The market system requires that “allocation of resources” be by free and voluntary transactions, without fraud or violence. When one is injured by another, that is not a free and voluntary transaction. The whole purpose of the tort system is to correct those non-market transactions. The tort system complements the market system and makes it workable in the real world; economic freedom and justice are intertwined.

Finally, De la Torre suggests that we do away with the jury system and resolve these claims by dispute-screening and arbitration. Our jury system is under attack by many individuals and groups, and the defense of this bulwark of justice and freedom is not a popular cause. This is so perhaps because so many of us take the fruits of the jury system for granted and forget the horrors of justice administered by the elite. Economist De la Torre should know better.

EMILE M. MULLICK

San Bernardino

* I endorse the position of De la Torre in calling for a stop to the “litigation lottery.” However, she restricts her argument to the effects of this lottery on public services and the results to all of us of increased taxes and decreased services.

The concerns she cites about excessive tort cases against public agencies could be stated with the same truth about such cases against insurance companies, doctors and other professionals, large businesses, and any entity that can be seen by the ambulance chasers as having deep pockets. The huge, resultant awards from these cases also increase the costs of our auto insurance, medical fees, drug prescriptions, as well as such basic needs as food, housing and shelter.

It is not just public services that are impacted by this giant transfer of wealth to a comparative few individuals and attorneys. We should also keep in mind that an individual claimant wins only once. The attorneys who specialize in this field win again and again.

The courts have to recognize the damages an individual provably sustains, and an attorney is entitled to be paid. It is the punitive damages side of all this that causes the grossly excessive awards in these cases. How do you measure mental anguish or resentment against injustice, incompetence or the lapses of others that have resulted in severe damage to an individual.

Such causes as these, particularly when they are egregious, demand punishment. I submit that it is the function of the courts through criminal cases to administer such punishment. Punishment by the individual is nothing more than personal vengeance, and the attorneys who profit from this are parasites on those of us who must pick up the tab.

JACK EIDEN

Pico Rivera