WVCala

Now for testimony from the targeted

by admin on 20/02/09 at 1:45 pm

Charleston Daily Mail
Feb 20, 2009

Elizabeth Thornburg – once a visiting professor at the law school at West Virginia Univer-sity, now of the Southern Methodist University Dedman School of Law – warned members of the state Senate’s Judiciary Committee this week to distrust those who say West Virginia is “a tort hell.”"These reports are misleading,” she said. “I think you have the ability to get and use better information.”

It turns out that the West Virginia Association for Justice – the group formerly known as the West Virginia Trial Lawyers Association – want the governor and legislators to support the development of a new lawsuit data collection mechanism.

That is not necessary.

The definitions of “misleading” and “Hell” are in the eye of the beholder.

Many in the medical community and the wealth-producing sector came to believe that West Virginia politicos, who make West Virginia law, had put their thumbs on the scales of justice so as to enrich the plaintiffs’ bar. It is careful to fund political campaigns.

Suing fat cats with deep pockets – manufacturers, insurers, doctors, hospitals, government entities – and taking 30 percent of the awards had become such a lucrative industry in West Virginia that other essential societal services were endangered.

Hence medical malpractice reform. Hence changes in insurance law, and big drops in premiums.

But corporations still say that West Virginia presents legal risks they don’t face in other jurisdictions.

Members of the Senate Judiciary Committee are indeed capable of sorting the wheat from the chaff.

They have heard the plaintiffs’ case. Now they will hear the testimony of the target groups, surely.

After all, West Virginians have nothing to lose.

Not investment or employment, certainly.