Here’s an Idea: Let’s Bean All the Lawyers

On a recent Saturday night, Andruw Jones, a player for the Atlanta Braves, caught the third out of the inning and did something nice that many baseball players now do: He tossed the baseball into the stands as a souvenir for some lucky fan.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports that he and the Braves organization are being sued by a woman who claims that the tossed ball injured her face.

Now some players are wondering whether they should continue the practice.

“We’re trying to give people souvenirs and some lady wants to sue,” fellow Brave Brian Jordan protested.

Here is one man’s advice to the Braves: Announce that no Braves players will throw fans the much coveted souvenir until the lawsuit is dropped. Furthermore, announce the name of the lawyer who has so irresponsibly taken this case. Let the fans who will suffer because of this lawsuit tell the attorney what they think.

Let there be no misunderstanding. The purpose of this lawsuit is simply to extract money from the Braves. Every fan knows the dangers from hit baseballs and is reminded of the dangers orally at the park and in writing on the ticket. Such a lawsuit is illegitimate.

But in America, it is unnecessary, especially if all you want is to extort money, to bring a legitimate lawsuit. The monetary and psychological costs of defense, coupled with the fact that few judges throw out such illegitimate lawsuits, conspire to force the sued party to “settle”--that is, to pay the extortion money.

Of course, if the United States had the common-sense rule that the “loser pays” the court costs of defendants, as in Britain, it is unlikely that Jones and the Braves would face such a suit. But alas, the trial lawyers’ clout in the Democratic Party makes such a reform impossible.

Yet Americans would do well to ponder the human and social costs of so much litigation. The legal profession and the party that protects it have helped destroy a lot of goodness. The practice of players throwing the last-out-of-the-inning ball to fans is a kind little gesture. But why would any player now do it, and why should any team allow it?

The legal war against goodness is ubiquitous. Friendly lawyers have warned my wife and me not to allow children who visit our home to jump on our large trampoline. Given the number of children injured each year falling off trampolines, we are setting ourselves up for financial ruin.

We long ago decided to allow children who visit us to use the trampoline. But we know that many parents with trampolines have gone the other way.

The number of acts of joy and kindness the legal profession quashes is growing.

The cost to society from trial lawyers, judges and Americans who look to courts as better bets than lotteries is profound. But the cost to the souls of lawyers may be greater.

Many people who graduate from law school are worse human beings than they were prior to enrolling. Why? Because law school teaches students to stop thinking in moral terms and to start thinking in legal terms--to ask, “Is it legal?” rather than, “Is it right?”

If you have ever debated a trial lawyer who has figured out a legal way to get a violent criminal acquitted, you know what I mean. Generally speaking, these lawyers do not even understand the moral problem with what they have done. It was their legal job to get their man off, and they did. End of issue.

Until the legal profession implodes or Americans revolt and pass tort reform such as loser pays, there is only one way to make a dent on the uniquely American form of terrorism known as lawsuits: Fight back, if you have the resources. And if anyone has the resources, the Atlanta Braves do.

One day, the United States will reclaim the freedoms and kindnesses that have been diminished by legal terror. It would be fitting if the first shot of this new American revolution were heard in the land of the free and the home of the Braves.