Reform?

On November 7, 2010, Senator-elect Ron Johnson was a guest on “Up Front with Mike Gousha.” He made a comment that hit the heart of an issue I have often pondered. This past summer, I had the opportunity to clerk for a law firm that handles primarily medical malpractice actions. So, this conversation sparked my interest.

Mr. Johnson referred to “Tort Reform” and the frivolous lawsuits against medical professionals.  He said that an estimated $2-3 billion dollars was spent on frivolous suits that have forced doctors to practice “defensive medicine” in Wisconsin.  Whether accurate or not that number has raised eyebrows.

The healthcare crisis facing our nation seems to be the driving forces behind the particular interest in frivolous (or at the least possibly frivolous) medical malpractice actions.

 What is tort reform? Generally, tort reform seeks to limit the costs associated with medical malpractice claims by adopting statutory or other regulatory law to limit civil liability.

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Best of the Blogs Part II: Drugs, Immigration, and the Hotel “Death Ray”

If that title doesn’t increase readership of my posts, I don’t know what will.

My contribution this week to our “best of the blogs” feature (which I have taken license to interpret as “best of the blogs and other news read online…”) is even more random than usual.

First, the drug-related story that caught my eye in the relatively recent past.  The Daily Beast Cheat Sheet reported on September 27th about a Cato Institute study showing that since Portugal decriminalized drug possession in 2001, drug use among adolescents has fallen, HIV infection rates fell, and addicts have increasingly sought help to overcome their addictions.  The full story was in Time, here. An excerpt:

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Best of the Blogs: Trivial Pursuits Edition

This week’s review of blog postings and news stories of note focuses on subjects that might seem trivial, but that interest me nonetheless.

1. Comic Books

My brother and I had an extensive collection of comic books when we were growing up.  We even owned two (two!) mint editions of Conan the Barbarian number 1.  If I still owned that collection today, it would easily pay for the first year of my daughter’s college tuition.

After reaching the age of puberty, I consigned my childhood love of comic books to the “trivial” category of youthful pursuits.  Perhaps that is why I was so delighted to read about the current exhibit at the Lillian Goldman Law Library at Yale University, entitled Superheroes in Court! Lawyers, Law and Comic Books.  As described by John Schwartz in the New York Times, this exhibit includes comic books with a legal setting, contracts and correspondence relating to legal disputes over the ownership of comic book characters, and reports submitted to Congress during the 1950s seeking federal legislation to address the alleged connection between comic books and juvenile delinquency.

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