Tort Reform

Yesterday's Wall Street Journal had an interesting article on the outsourcing of legal work by Attorneys General that is interesting in light of Julia Rietz's interesting relationship with Joe Phebus.  Phebus has been working for the County for a year and a half and has not yet submitted a bill (that's nice) but also has not told the County Board how many billable hours he's put in on the cases he is pursuing on our behalf (that's bad).  Also recall that the Phebus contract has a big loophole in it that leaves open the final cost to the County of his legal work.

You can view the complaint here.

(And it's part of the public record once it's filed, so please don't think that I'm revealing something here that would otherwise be secret.)

I'd be interested in everyone's thoughts.

UPDATE:  The damages sought don't seem too excessive, at least not to me.

Seven years ago, the City of Chicago proudly and loudly filed suit against gun dealers, seeking to establish a new liability standard:

The suit is unique in that, rather than filing a product liability suit and claiming that the guns are defective, we're filing a public nuisance suit - the first in the nation.

We're charging these 34 defendants with creating a public nuisance by knowingly marketing and distributing guns to street gangs and criminals in the City of Chicago -- where all hand guns are banned.

Now, however, the City has a slightly different view of the extent to which liability should be extended:

Attorneys told a judge Tuesday that if a wrongful death lawsuit filed against the city of Chicago after a fatal porch collapse is allowed to proceed, the precedent would make municipalities across the state vulnerable to all kinds of legal action.

The city  wants to be dropped as a defendant from a consolidated lawsuit filed by relatives of the 13 dead and others who were injured in the June 2003 collapse. The city was named as a defendant along with the building’s owners and the contractor who built the porch, which gave way when dozens of partygoers were on it. At least 57 people were injured.

John Ehrlich, the city’s chief assistant corporation counsel, told Cook County Judge Jeffrey Lawrence that if he didn’t drop the city from the lawsuit, it could lead to suits against other cities for everything from bad restaurant food to house fires.

“That makes the city of Chicago an insurer for every single bad incident that occurs on private property. And it makes every city — every municipality in the state — an insurer for every bad incident,” that happens, Ehrlich said. “If you allow that to happen you will have (the) bankruptcy of every single municipality and local government in the state. That is simply untenable.”

Never underestimate the creativity of plaintiff's attorneys seeking someone - anyone - with deep pockets and a possible liability.  And who has deeper pockets than a government body, who in theory can actually reach into the pockets of every resident and business in their jurisdictions?  It was only a matter of time before they, too, became a regular target for lawsuits.

Heh.