Citizens Against Lawsuit Abuse of Central Texas

By Fred.Heldenfels IV
February 1, 2007

The old adage “you can put lipstick on a pig, but it’s still a pig” immediately popped into mind when I saw that the Association of Trial Lawyers of America recently changed its name to the American Association of Justice.

The name change is a transparent, laughable attempt to shed the negative image that has become associated with the term “trial lawyer” in recent years as headline-grabbing, frivolous lawsuits filed by a small but greedy minority of the trial bar have given the Goddess of Justice a black eye under her blindfold.

Many of these lawsuits have little to do with justice and lead only to higher costs for consumers.

Consider the crazy labels on everyday consumer products as listed in a recent USA Today editorial: A washing machine label that warns users not to put fellow humans in the spin cycle; the cell phone label that cautions consumers not to dry the device in the microwave. We all know that many of these wacky warnings are the result of lawsuit abuse.

Lawsuit abuse drives up the prices of goods and services, limits access to healthcare, drives doctors out of business, hurts employers and threatens jobs. Some personal injury lawyers have fattened their wallets to the tune of millions of dollars at our expense.

Tactics such as this name change are a weak effort to shed the negative image that personal injury lawyers have earned for themselves, but the public cannot be tricked with feel-good rhetoric when the lawsuits continue to hurt employers – especially small businesses – and rack up costs for consumers.

For example, in California, businesses have spent an estimated $88 billion in settlements and attorneys fees because of “shakedown lawsuits” that involve sending a letter to a small business threatening a lawsuit for an alleged violation if the business doesn’t pay the attorney a settlement fee. No injury must be proven; no injured party must be supplied. A small auto repair shop was accused of unfair business practices for leaving the date off of an invoice. To avoid a lawsuit, the shop paid out a $2,000 settlement.

Even with significant civil justice reforms on the books in Texas, some personal injury lawyers are relentless in looking for new and innovative ways to get rich through lawsuit abuse – and some court jurisdictions in our state make it easier for them than in other courts.

Texas is home to several infamous judicial hellholes, including the Rio Grande Valley, where lawyers brag about how easy it is to score big jury jackpots. Most recently, some personal injury lawyers in the Valley have exploited a legal loophole that allows them to bring workplace injury lawsuits against companies based on where workers live instead of where the injury took place.

Meanwhile, some personal injury lawyers are complaining about our state’s civil justice reforms and trying to convince Texans to roll back progress. These are the same trial lawyers whose greedy tactics threaten our jobs and raise our cost of living, but fatten their wallets.

To the handful of trial lawyers bemoaning our reforms while finding new and creative ways to sue, we say, “Greedy personal injury lawyers by any other name still look the same, even with lipstick.”

If they really wanted to improve their image and start afresh, they should change their actions, not their name.

Fred Heldenfels IV is chairman of the board of directors of Citizens Against Lawsuit Abuse of Central Texas (www.tala.com), a nonprofit, nonpartisan grassroots watchdog organization dedicated to educating the public about the costs and consequences of lawsuit abuse.