“Loophole Louie:” Another day, another liberal activist judge; Update: Sen. Judiciary Cmte approves 12-7 on party line vote
Update 5:37pm Eastern: Butler approved by SJC on 12-7 party line vote.
Here we go again. President Obama has nominated Louis B. Butler Jr. to a federal judgeship in the Western District of Wisconsin. The vote is scheduled for today. Butler is a former Wisconsin Supreme Court judge who embraces the Obama “empathy standard” of adjudication — going beyond the application and interpretation of the rule of law to incorporate identity politics and policy judgements.
The WSJ points out that Butler was “twice rejected by Wisconsin voters for a place on the state Supreme Court:”
As consolation prizes go, Louis Butler can’t complain. After being twice rejected by Wisconsin voters for a place on the state Supreme Court, the former judge has instead been nominated by President Obama to a lifetime seat on the federal district court. If he is confirmed, Wisconsin voters will have years to contend with the decisions of a judge they made clear they would rather live without.
Judge Butler served on the state Supreme Court for four years, enough time to have his judicial temperament grow in infamy. Having first run unsuccessfully in 2000, he was appointed by Democratic Governor Jim Doyle to the seat vacated by Justice Diane Sykes in 2004. But after serving four years, voters had seen enough of his brand of judicial philosophy, making him the first sitting justice on the Wisconsin Supreme Court in four decades to lose a retention election last year.
In Ferdon v. Wisconsin Partners, he drew the rage of doctors and others when he dismantled the state’s limit on noneconomic damages in medical malpractices cases—the kind of tort reform that had been serving the state well. Business groups were likewise floored by his decision in Thomas v. Mallet, which allowed “collective liability” in lead paint cases—making any company a potential target, regardless of whether they made the paint in question. His nickname as a public defender was “Loophole Louis,” a name that stuck when, as a judge, he was considered to be soft on crime.
At his confirmation hearing this month, Mr. Butler was quick to make light of his double rejection by Wisconsin voters, telling the Senate Judiciary Committee that “After 16 years on the bench, I may be a better judge than a politician.”
Ahem. That’s a coded nod to liberal groups like the George Soros-funded Justice at Stake that are trying to eliminate judicial elections. Rather than letting voters choose judges, they prefer so-called “merit selection” plans whereby judges are selected by committees of lawyers…
…Mr. Butler’s nomination also shows the return to prominence of judicial ratings by the American Bar Association, which traditionally gives extra weight to “judicial experience.” The ABA, which was ousted by the Bush Administration in part because of the ABA’s notorious liberal bias, is now back in favor in the Obama White House. Mr. Butler served on the ABA’s Standing Committee on Judicial Independence, a group that like Justice at Stake critiques how that independence is supposedly compromised by the need to raise money for judicial elections.
Mr. Butler’s nomination shows the dominance of liberal ideology in Mr. Obama’s judicial selections, and especially a contempt for Wisconsin voters.
The Wisconsin Supreme Court has a record the liberal 9th Circuit of Appeals would love. Jack Park reviews Butler’s “law development court” theory. John Fund spotlighted the voters’ rejection of its activist bent last year:
The Wisconsin Supreme Court certainly bent the rule of law over the past four years, as a 4-3 liberal majority became the nation’s premier trailblazer in overturning its own precedents and abandoning deference to the legislature’s policy choices. Thus the defeat of Justice Louis Butler at the hands of Burnett County Judge Michael Gableman has national implications. A recent study in the University of California-Davis Law Review found that Wisconsin is the eighth most-cited state supreme court by other judicial bodies. Its rulings play a larger role in shaping court decisions elsewhere than those of courts in states such as New York, Florida or Texas. In addition, 38 states elect all or part of their appellate-level judges by popular vote. Judge Butler’s defeat sends a signal that a judge who dramatically oversteps traditional boundaries can be brought to account.
When John Roberts was confirmed as Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court in 2005, he noted “judges are like umpires. Umpires don’t make the rules, they apply them.” Most Americans agree, but the liberal majority on Wisconsin’s Supreme Court made so many suspect calls it seemed intent on rewriting the rules….Wisconsin is in many ways a liberal state – it hasn’t voted Republican at the presidential level in decades – but its electorate showed this week that it favors judicial restraint over activism. This fall, voters in other states ranging from Louisiana to Michigan will face pivotal elections over what direction their own state supreme courts will go. Inevitably, a chorus will complain about the amount of money spent on those races by outside groups. No doubt the campaigns will be messy. But that’s a small price to pay to ensure that voters remain a check on the judiciary. If judges are umpires, the best way to ensure that they make the right calls is to bounce those who abuse their power from the game.
Now, Obama is recruiting the rejects for lifetime appointments to the federal judiciary.
Elections, indeed, have consequences.
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How will the GOP Senators on the Judiciary Committee vote? Stay tuned.
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And another controversial liberal judge pick: Edwin Chen.
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Freedom, thy name is loophole.
Ah, but it made “no difference” whether we elected Obama or McCain. They were “just the same.”
Thank you, all of you guys out there who passed on your final chance to stop Obama.
This lunatic judge is just the tip of the iceberg. We will have to live the rest of our lives with the crackpots Obama is putting into lifetime positions. We will have to live the rest of our lives with treaties Obama will “negotiate” “for us.”
Thank you very much. And let us pray for the good health of five of our Supreme Court Justices. Pray hard.
The Empty Suit has nominated a person the people of that state rejected twice.
Now let me riddle this – They rejected a person twice because they do not want him any where a Judicial Bench. Empty Suit nominates a person that the people of that state rejected,IE do not want so, it does not matter one wit what the
the people feel is good for them, only what the Clown Act in Hucksters shoes wants for them. Sound familiar?
Wisconsin did not just vote for Obama, they gave him a landslide 13.9% margin of victory.
So they will get what they deserve. Elections have consequences.
However, this guy is going to be a federal judge.
Thank you, Wisconsin voters, you clueless fools.
With respect to “collective liability”, the defendants should not have been “floored.” It is a very common judicial doctrine in these types of cases.
The jist is that it is impossible to tell who was the manufacturer of the particular lead paint that cause the injury. So, the plaintiff sues all of the companies that were making that type of lead paint at the time and, if the plaintiff wins, the liability is spread out among the paint manufacturers according to market share. Please note that you can’t just sue all paint manufacturers. Only ones that were making lead based paint. Also, if any particular company is able to prove they did not make the particular paint in question, they are removed from the case.
The thinking behind the theory is that all of the companies are responsible for some percentage of the total damage from their product out there. They should not escape liability, nor should the plaintiff be denied compensation, merely because the defendants made a product that is indistinguishable from another. The theory is also that, because liability is divided per market share, that it more or less works out in the end that each company pays what it is responsible for.
This is not a radical theory. And frankly, I think it makes perfect sense.
Since I voted for Sarah, I’d love to be able to say that McCain would make better choices in selection of judges, but I see zero evidence to support that wish.
I wouldn’t let that poinyoin unmpire a T-Ball game for five year-olds!
Is there any presumption or facts that acknowledge that when the paint was used, it might not have been known to be dangerous?
Enjoy Badger fans. Better you than me.
So let me carry this logic a bit further. Some percentage of auto accidents are determined to be negligent homicide. A conviction of negligent homicide results in prison sentences. Since chappy might drive a car, chappy should go to jail now.
Oh, and with respect to the Ferndon case…It is Ferndon v. Wisconsin PATIENTS and Butler did not ever write the decision, which was joined by three other judges. Let’s not overstate the case by saying “HE” did anything.
Ya beat me to it Rus. If my car is damaged by a hit and run driver, I should sue all people driving at the time.
Whatever happened to presumption of innocense? The State can’t prove it’s case, but hey, you must be guilty! This reeks!
Don’t you get the main point? ALL the manufacturers are making lead based paint that is making people sick. It is IMPOSSIBLE in many cases to tell who made which paint. This theory assures that all who are actually responsible for actual damage (though impossible to tell who in any one particular case) are held responsible in roughly the correct proportion to the overall damage they caused throughout the public.
So your example makes no sense in this context.
That is what happens, in effect. Your insurance pays you. Auto insurance rates rise. All drivers pay for that.
Again, all of these companies produced lead based paint. There is no innocence. It is just impossible to tell who caused what damage.
A better analogy would be should you be able to sue all drivers whose cars bear damage that exactly fits with the damage done to your car, which could have only been caused by a hit and run, which happened to be driving in the exact area and time of your accident.
False presumtion. There may be a lead paint manufacturer out there who has made no one sick. Can’t be proved or disproved.
Name me a safe lead based paint, please. And in any case, if the manufacturer could somehow prove that their particular lead based paint could not have caused the injury, they are free to go.
Chap, I repeat:
Is there any presumption or facts that acknowledge that when the paint was used, it might not have been known to be dangerous?
There is no innocence.
I rest my case.
That is not really a relevant query with product liability case. Product liability is strict liability, meaning intent or knowledge of harm is not required. If you are putting a dangerous product out there and making a profit off it, you are responsible for the harm.
On December 3rd, 2009 at 11:14 am, chapoutier said:
Again, all of these companies produced lead based paint. There is no innocence. It is just impossible to tell who caused what damage.
But that is my point. If the paint is produced when the danger is known, then liability is established, but if not, then why? Likewise asbestos: it was used for 3000 years in a multitude of products, but only discovered to be dangerous in the 1980′s.
I can see a company being sued for remedy, but not maliciousness.
And you are wrong. Paint companies were not saying their product was not responsible for injuring and killing people. They were just resting on the– dare I say loophole– that their products were so similar it can’t be determined exactly which particular child any one particular company killed. That is not justice, that is contemptible.
This is another reason, if another is needed, why you don’t want a Dem President. These are not mild disagreements on the basis of “liberal” versus “conservative”. These people are dangerous activists, not jurists. The trolls Obama appoints over the next three years will have a dramatic degrading effect on our country. Just another tactic in the Marxist grand strategy for taking down America.
December 3rd, 2009 at 10:54 am, chapoutier said: I think it makes perfect sense.
Yes for a leftwing guy it would.
Chappy is presuming that all lead based paint formulations all fail in the same way. I’m sure a this is a false presumption.
Setting aside for the moment that Chappy has carved out the most defensible thing against Loophole Louie in Michelle’s article, I suspect most of you are not aware how far the civil law goes in holding businesses liable for harm to consumers.
There is nothing ‘fair’ about the way businesses are treated. It is basic creeping socialism in the law. I think it’s called strict liability. It doesn’t matter how reckless the shopper is, if they slip and fall in your store, you pay.
Paint manufacturers. Yes, of course, they are contemptable and irresponsible. The goal of all paint makers is to kill people to encourage them to buy more of their paint. Devilishly ingenious. Holdren should give them an award for an elegant solution to population reduction.
Because you are strictly responsible for the damage you cause, whether you knew about it or not.
Who said anything about maliciousness? I am not talking about punitive damages. I am pretty sure those would only arise in a situation where there was actual knowledge (or reasonably should have known) by the company of the damage that could be caused. Otherwise, do you think it is malicious for a company to be responsible for the consequences of a product that they put out on market and profited from?
So if someone gets a paper cut which gets infected and they die, obviously paper is dangerous. Since we don’t know what brand of paper it was, all paper manufacturers should be guilty?
Ummm…you are missing the point that in these cases it is exactly BECAUSE all the lead paints are indistinguishable from one another that they are thrown into the same group.
Don’t be stupid. Even if one could not distinguish the manufacturer in question (dubious), cutting yourself on paper is NOT a products liability case.
That is not a strict liability situation at all. it may only seem that way because businesses would rather settle than fight. But, having worked at a tort defense firm in college, I saw many slip and fall type cases where the plaintiff was so egregiously at fault that they lost at trial.
I am surprised. Learn something new every day. Could it be different in different states?
Yep, I have a 2 cycle weed wacker and because of all the exhaust causing global warming I am going to sue every single weed wacker manufacturer on the Planet for causing Global Warming.
It could, but I would be surprised if it was. Public places DO have a higher standard of care to make sure their grounds are safe than say your average homeowner does. But it does not rise to strict liability.
But again, the vast majority settle, so for all intents and purposes it is pretty close.
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HI CHAPOUTIER–Lawyers (you) and engineers (me) think way different on the “collective liability” issue. I see this as more like “collective punishment”–the scientific thought is that YOU CAN NOT PROVE A NEGATIVE. And we believe in a criminal justice system that states that the state must prove the crime–the accused person does not have to prove he / she is innocent.
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I do understand that the rules for criminal and civil cases are different. But this seems inconsistent to a scientific thinker–we expect the same principles to operate in similar situations. That’s how it works in science–when it doesn’t work that way we start looking for the wrong theories or data.
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I have been called to jury duty many times in my 68 years of life–and selected only once. It’s no accident–one of my Dad’s friends was a Nevada State Supreme Court judge–he helped prosecute our own military in WW2 France and Germany for crimes against civilians. We hung some of them for criminal acts.
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The lawyer friend explained how he always threw out anyone with legal, police, military, medical, or scientific backgrounds from potential juries. He wanted school teachers, truck drivers, etc. on his juries–he thought that he could convince them to “buy in” to questionable theories more easily than “hard science” people would.
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On my one jury panel we looked like a typical cross-section of America–some Hispanic, two women, one soldier, me–the engineer, one Black Woman, a teacher, etc. Both attorneys–defense and prosecution–tried to confuse us with some questionable “facts” and some thinly veiled appeals to racism and anti-police bias.
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We found the defendant not guilty–no real physical or eyewitness testimony. And I thought that the “average people” did a good fair job. The judge congratulated us on the verdict after the case was over–he said the case looked pretty weak to him from day 1.
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John Bibb
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What if a legal case which you successfully win is later learned to have caused great harm to people. Should you be liable? At the time you didn’t know.
I am curious…two bank robbers, not working together… they just happened to have the same idea at the same time, go into a bank and kill every customer and employee there. They were both wearing gloves, and both ditched their weapons, such that it is impossible to tell exactly who killed who. But between the two of them it is undeniable that they both killed some, in fact they ADMIT that both of them killed some. They go to trial for the murder of Mr. A. Well, can’t prove Defendant X killed him. Can’t prove Defendant Y killed him either. Same thing for Mrs. B, Ms. C and little toddler D. Right on down the line.
Are you telling me both defendants should walk?
A lawyer is not responsible for “winning” or “losing” a case. A judge or jury is. And in any case, I am pretty sure you would have a real tough time establishing that winning the case was a direct and proximate cause of whatever great harm you are imagining.
The liberal agenda is almost never supported by voters. Rather it is furthered in moves exactly like this one, completely disregarding the will of the people. Without appointments of liberal judges, who pass liberal “legislation” from the Bench through activist rulings, liberalism would be dead in America.
Bullcrap. They all get sued because they have deeper pockets as a group and it’s easier for a lawyer to make the case against a product, no matter what kind of tripe it is, than against a specific manufacturer. It isn’t any surprise to see one ambulance chaser trying to defend the greed of other ambulance chasers, though.
As I said, it is merely a slight twist on “proving the crime”
If a lead based paint manufacturer has a 10% market share, and 1000 children die from that type of paint, simple math and logic tells us that they are responsible for 100 of those deaths. Could it actually be 80 rather than 100? Sure. It could also be 120. But the only alternative is holding zero percent of the companies liable for 100% of the damage. You think that is a better solution?
This is yet one more reason to support and defend the Constitutional requirement that:
Obama’s birth location was originally claimed to be the Queen’s Hospital. That information was later changed and scrubbed. It appears that the Queen’s Hospital is located on Hawaiian Crown Lands, which, like a Native American Reservation, is sovereign land, not U.S. soil.
Neither Obama nor the State of Hawaii has ever proven exactly where Obama was born, to prove conclusively that it was on U.S. soil.
The Hawaiian Director of Health did not even claim “Obama was born in Hawaii” until hours AFTER the U.S. House of Representatives voted in favor of a resolution which claimed “Obama was born in Hawaii”!
Does that not seem “fishy” to you?
And while her public statement was reviewed by the Hawaiian Attorney General (which, by Hawaiian law means that the AG’s opinion must be made public since its conclusion was used to make a public statement), the AG’s opinion letter is being illegally kept secret.
Why???
Support and defend the Constitution.
Require that the President shall have qualified.
Definitively address two issues:
(For anyone who does not already know this, Obama’s campaign website admitted that he was born a British subject because his father was a British subject and not a U.S. citizen.)
To support and defend the Constitution requires that the following be definitively established:
Until that time, Obama has “failed to qualify”, and is a usurper with no authority to appoint anyone to any office.
Tell me, exactly, how were Obama and Biden “qualified”?
Who inspected an initial hospital birth certificate for either Obama or Biden?
Who decided that being a British subject at birth is not a disqualification for being a natural born U.S. Citizen?
If they plead guilty, how hard does the State have to prove their case?
If they plead not guilty the State has to prove beyond a reasonable doubt.
Many have walked for less.
No – not “responsible” – the lawyer is just the guy who stood there in front of the judge and/or jury and convinced them.
As rocketman says – engineers and lawyers see the world through COMPLETELY different eyes.
txvet, you don’t have a freaking clue what you are talking about. They are all sued because THEY ARE INDISTINGUISHABLE. If a paint is distinguishable, they are dismissed, regardless of how deep their pockets are.
And they are liable only to the extent of their market share, so it is not like a defendant can use the relatively deep pockets of one to insulate itself from the shallow pockets of another.
Why you support baby killers is beyond me.
Saying you killed “someone” is not the same as pleading guilty to any one specific murder.
So you don’t like the Sixth Amendment. Any others?
Until Obama is proven to have qualified to hold the office of President and Commander in Chief, he is a usurper with no authority to appoint anyone to any office, or to sign any bill passed by the legislative branch, or to give any order as Commander in Chief.
This is not “beating a dead horse”. It is a “clear and present danger”. And two things are required to put it to rest:
1) Proof of birth on U.S. soil.
2) A Supreme Court ruling on the definition of “natural born citizen”.
After those two things are done, then it is over.
ITookTheRedPill said:
My question is – he went to Indonesia to study at a Madrass so to enter Indonesia – what passport did he use?
Are you saying that Obama won because too many conservatives abstained from voting? Forgive me if you’ve posted this before, but is there evidence of this?
Well sure – we don’t care what the unwashed masses think…
So, a judge that was rejected by the people of Wisconsin is being appointed to the Federal Bench by Dear Leader all revolves around his take on paint? I wpould think this subject would be a Judge rejected by the people of Wisconsin (twice) being appointed to the Federal bench by Dear Leader would be the point.
When he went to write his book, what passport did he use? What nationality did he give on his college apps?
Yeah…I am still trying to figure that out. He won (easily) because of huge Democratic turnout and because the independents voted for him.
Republican turnout was 1.3% less than in 2004. Obama won by over 7 percent. You do the math.
stillontheroad,
He didn’t study at a Madrassa in Indonesia.
He studied at a Christian school, where he was registered as “Religion: Islam”. As a result, he attended Koran study classes instead of Bible study classes.
And he was registered at that school as an Indonesian citizen. All indications are that he was adopted by Lolo Soetoro and his name was legally changed to Barry Soetoro. When, if ever, did he change his legal name back to Barack Obama?
Did he ever travel, as an adult 18 years old or older, on a passport of another country? It is quite possible that he could have travelled under an Indonesian, British, or Kenyan passport as an adult. And don’t forget that his passport records were illegally accessed, and one of the key witnesses in the case was shot dead in his car.
“Fishy”?
Absolutely.
It is not the kind of thing that can ever be proved. We do know many people who consider themselves conservatives did not vote for McCain because he was too liberal for their delicate sensibilities to allow themselves to punch the vote for him.
And within all of the fishiness that surrounds his refusal to let us know any real depth regarding his life lies something he must really fear getting out.
Does it have to do with his citizenship? Maybe. Maybe not. But there is something, or he wouldn’t be fighting to keep us blind about him.
Oops messed up the quotes…
Aloha, I have talked till I am blue in the face on other threads about tort reform and its almost negligible effects on health care costs. I have also said many times on other threads that I don’t oppose noneconomic damages caps, because they can produce tangible benefits aside from lowering health care costs.
But in any case, the article made as much of a point about the supposedly shocking decision to apply a very sound and established judicial principle like collective liability as it did about the tort reform case, so I am not sure why that should be off limits.
Huge Democrat turnout for Obama, but the turnout on the other side actually fell significantly.
I’d say you do the math and tell us we have absolute certainty the result wouldn’t have been different if conservatives had properly feared Obama as much as the clueless young Democrats loved him, but you’re not an engineer.
One you’re not eating.
I know, that’s why I’m tweaking you here…
oops sorry. Got a bit defensive.
Two words for Obama on that strategy:
Tiger Woods
Errah, so chappy if a manufacturer of lead based paint for radio and water towers, ship hulls and space satellites is also responsible if they produced a lead based paint at the same time that some baby ate off the side of their crib? Sounds like lawyer scum just casting a broader net that companies have to settle for since it costs more to defend against an unwarranted accusation. By this logic anyone with a second hand smoke suit could sue any cigarette/cigar company or any other polluter since they can’t attribute their disease to one specific manufacturer; so they and their attorney can get more cash.
On December 3rd, 2009 at 12:20 pm, AlohaGuy said:
An American Expat in Southeast Asia says:
Keep in mind that Indonesia is the world’s most populous Muslim nation.
And keep in mind that even if someone tries to say that the publishing company, not Obama, came up with the title, there can be no doubt that Obama understands what the title means, and didn’t change it back to the straightforward translation.
How do Obama’s actions in office differ in any significant way from the agenda of the “57 state” Organisation of the Islamic Conference?
How do Obama’s actions in office differ in any significant way from the Program of the Communist Party USA?
In my opinion, it appears that we have an unqualified enemy combatant usurping the office of President and Commander in Chief of our entire Armed Forces.
But leading Conservative commentators aren’t willing to ask for Obama to release his records and for the Supreme Court to define the Constitutional meaning of “natural born Citizen”.
Why not???
Our very nation is at stake.
I mean malicious as in continuing to use a product proven to be harmful.
ITookTheRedPill said:
Did not know that aspect but – registered as an Indonesian Citizen would tell me that he was not a US Citizen at the time he went to school. So if he was a dual citizen at the time he went to school where are the records where he decided to become a US citizen? All in all, being a dual citizen would tell me he was not a Natural born citizen – but like you said, fishy does not begin to describe this.
So skipping the lead paint, he seems to be out of touch with the Supreme Court, which is not surprising.
And back to the lead paint…
What you claim is that conservatives didn’t vote because they didn’t like McCain. And the numbers back you up to an extent. Republicans (I know…not the same but best I got) represented 1.3% less of the voting population. But even if every single one of those Republicans had voted, you would still need to find another 5.5% of the total voting population to either vote at all or switch from 3rd party to McCain. Barr, who led all 3rd party candidates got a whopping .4%. Okay down to 4.1%. Say you can add another (generous) .5% from various other 3rd party candidates (like Keyes who got .04%). 3.7%? You think that you could realistically raise your voting percentage by 3.7% from 2004? The democrats, who had one of the most fired up bases in recent history, only managed to increase their total by 3.1%. I mean, I guess I am not going to say that conservatives staying at home or voting 3rd party absolutely didn’t cause Obama to win. I am just saying that you are looking for a zebra when there is a horse standing right in front of you.
I haven’t seen a discussion the likes of that between Chapoutier and his opponents on product liability since my first year of law school. Although I’m not usually inclined to agree with him on most things, in this instance I have to say that Chapoutier has it right — at least as far as how the relevant law works.
The overall issue that Michelle raises in her post, however, remains valid: one of the negative consequences of uncontested donkey rule at the Federal level is that we’re getting stuck with a boatload of lefty judges appointed to life-long terms on the bench. And there’s not a damn thing we can do about it until 2011, assuming that the donks get their @sses kicked (pun intended) next November.
No, I am not. Which you would understand if you knew what the legal principle was, instead of jumping to absurd hyperbole.
Obamas’ speech on Afghanistan.
Obama to the Taliban:
Hey, hang out, lay low until after July 2011.
I personally have never believed that Afghanistan is in any way shape or form similar to Vietnam…but it seems curious that Obama has chosen the exact strategy that lost the war in Vietnam.
Vietnamization: Dump the fight on the locals who are not willing to fight, declare victory and leave. And lose.
Really? I missed this somehow – who was it?
Were you looking in the mirror when you asked that?
Personally, I blame the greedy paint companies for making paint with inferior components just so they could make a buck. It’s wrong that poor people should have to choose between using an inferior brand or not painting. Don’t they deserve a freshly painted home as much as rich people? I think fresh paint is a fundamental right and I can’t believe how cruel and heartless this administration is not to take action.
Just to clarify. This is a separate, and no doubt just as controversial, legal doctrine.
What to do when you can’t prove, but it is in all likelihood, the product that caused the injury.
For example, the vast majority of people that get mesothelioma get it from asbestos exposure. However, a small percentage of people will develop it anyway…say 2%. That means that if you have 100 plaintiffs, all of them can prove on an individual basis that their likelihood of getting it from asbestos is over 50% (which is good enough to win) but on a collective basis, 2 of those people are going to sue and win against the manufacturer for something that wasn’t its fault (Note: here we know exactly who the manufacturer is). Some jurisdictions have taken the view that all plaintiff’s awards should be reduced by the percent chance that their injury wasn’t caused by the defendant’s product, i.e., if the damages were $100,000, they would only get $98,000. Thus, the defendant is only paying the amount of damage overall that it is truly responsible for. Of course, that does nothing for the actual victims who see a small percent of their award go to people who were, for lack of a better term “lucky”. Again, the key factor here is balancing lack of ability to specifically identify with the need to compensate victims and hold manufacturers liable for their product.
Don’t forget about the greedy slum lords, who used the inferior paint to save a buck and refused to remove it when the dangers were known and the paint is chipping.
I agree the odds are high starry eyed young Obamabots put Obama in the WH by voting for him much more than petulant conservatives did by not voting for McCain.
Nevertheless, there is no telling how it might have gone if so many conservatives had not stood down. Psychology matters.
Just curious…… How many of these voters were in fact alive on the day of the election?
That’s only because previous administrations were too afraid to take on the powerful paint lobby and impose safer standards on the industry. Those slum lords bear no responsibility. They were just doing what slum lords do because they don’t know any better.
I expected as much from a landlordophobe such as yourself.
Actually, I mostly blame the Christians. Not sure why yet, but I will figure it out.
Dear Leader has heard your cry. The proletariat have a merciful king/painter!
Even I will say…it is obvious he is totally clueless about what to do with that roller.
Key witness in passport fraud case fatally shot
I’d like equal treatment under the law. The “arguer” in court, argued in good faith with the knowledge he had then. “Arguer” makes money for said argument. People later get hurt. “Arguer” is off the hook. The manufacturer made the product in good faith. People later get hurt. Manufacturer pays.
Phase 1: Collect underpants.
Phase 2: ???
Phase 3: Profit
Get what I am saying? You must establish a direct and proximate cause between the action and the harm. And then you must also navigate a number of other legal doctrines, like “last clear chance” and “intervening tortfeaso” among others, to establish legal liability.
Oh, right…he was the guy who was implicated in an identity fraud scheme and turning state’s evidence on his co-conspirators, right?
Surely no one else would have motive to kill him.
Are you kidding me? You can’t prove it, but you just know?! You sound just like Dan Rather!
The defendant walks, that’s what supposed to happen!
Ummm. No. That is not the case here, there or anywhere. The burden of proof is generall “preponderance of the evidence” for tort cases. Basically, that is 51% sure. Not even “beyond a reasonable doubt” is absolute 100% proof.
To clairfy, no proof is not the same as no evidence. People use those terms interchangeably, but they are different.
On December 3rd, 2009 at 1:21 pm, chapoutier said:
He appears to have been a peddler on the street with the passport information and credit cards.
Everyone else involved in/with the State Department break-in seems to be in government, or a contractor, and can be leveraged if they want to keep their careers, and/or family, safe.
Harris was willing to talk, and was murdered.
Do I know who killed him? No.
It’s just one more thing that “smells fishy”.
Breaking News: “chapgate”
I know a guy who’s brother has a friend who hacked into the email server at chap’s firm. Some samples:
Ok – how about those who argued to ban DDT – there is a direct link between that ban and millions dying. Of course the attorneys who argued this aren’t liable – but the maker of paint which killed far fewer is not only liable, but guilty by association.