So sue me!

A week ago, the House Judiciary Committee reported out a bill providing for fines for lawyers who file "frivolous" lawsuits. The supposed purpose is to "crack down on lawsuit excesses."

Republicans of course claimed it was all about protecting small businesses from predatory legal eagles; Democrats of course claimed it was an election stunt to put lawyers and thus John Edwards in a bad light.

The GOPpers are lying, which is not news, and the Dums have it wrong, which is also not news.

The question is, who really benefits from such a law? And just how many truly "frivolous" lawsuits are there?

Consider that over half of the lawsuits filed in the US each year are by corporations suing other corporations. Are those what the supporters of this bill think of when they think of "frivolous" suits? A fair part of the rest are businesses suing individuals, often for repayment of some debt or another. Do you imagine for an instant that any of those are "frivolous" in the minds of those wanting to "crack down?"

No, the kind of suit they're thinking of, the kind they want to limit if not block entirely, is individuals suing businesses. And that's the kind of suit most likely to be affected by this law. The fine for a "frivolous" suit would generally be the cost of defending that suit. If you're an individual or a group of individuals (class action suits, revealingly, have been another target of this same crowd) trying to hold some corporation responsible for its actions, their costs of defense, tapping huge resources and using tax-deductible spending (it's considered a "business expense"), can easily dwarf yours. The cost of having your suit declared "frivolous," piled atop your own legal expenses, would be devastating. How many people - how many attorneys - would proceed under such conditions if there was even the slightest chance of such an outcome?

I ask again: Who benefits?

So no, GOPpers, this is not about protecting small businesses and no, Dums, this is not about John Edwards. It's about what so much of what goes on in Washington is about: protecting the interests of corporate America and the elites that benefit from it.

Footnote: Although I doubt anyone will, just in case someone wants to leave a rant about the McDonald's coffee case - where a woman supposedly drove off from a pickup window with a cup of coffee held between her knees, spilled it, and successfully sued - don't bother. The facts are that the woman was not the driver, she was the passenger; the car was not moving when she tried to open the cup of coffee; the coffee was not just hot, it was scalding, 180 degrees F., and she suffered 3rd degree burns on her thighs and groin; and it developed that McDonald's had previously settled over 700 such claims on condition that the plaintiffs kept silent about it.

On the other hand, McDonald's was the plaintiff in the infamous "McLibel" trial, suing two UK activists for libel for the content of leaflets they were handing out. Rather than back down as others had, Helen Steel and Dave Morris fought the Ronaldists in what became the longest civil trial in UK history.

(It's worth noting here that the same leaflets were handed out in the US, but Big Mac brought no suit here. That's probably because in the US, to successfully sue for libel they'd have to prove the statements false and damaging. In the UK, the burden was on the defendants to prove every single thing they said was true.)

Ultimately, the court found that while the pair had proved much of what the leaflet contended, they hadn't proved all of it and awarded damages of 60,000 pounds to the Clown Corp. The case isn't over yet, though: Steel and Morris have gone to the European Court of Human Rights, charging that the UK's ridiculous libel laws make a fair trial impossible.