Lawsuit Abuse and "60 Minutes"

In My Humble Opinion
1

We begin with some background information:

Recently, “60 Minutes” did a profile on the locale of Jefferson County, Mississippi.

Why? Because this may be the best place in the world to file lawsuits against drug companies. They almost always find for the plaintiff, and the awards are outtasite, and while the companies can appeal, it’s generally easier and cheaper simply to settle out of court.

In the “60 Minutes” article, several local doctors explained this was why they no longer practiced in Jefferson County, and the local druggist said that she’d been sued so many times she couldn’t keep track. They always dropped any attack on the DRUGGIST, since the lawsuit was aimed primarily at the CORPORATION, but the druggist admitted that constantly being subpoena’d was kind of nervewracking.

The general impression I got from this show was that Jefferson County was full of poor backwoodsy types who got a kick out of sticking it to large corporations.

Now… two people who sat on those juries… and appeared in the “60 Minutes” segment… are suing “60 Minutes.”

They feel they’ve been defamed, because they feel that the show implied that they were getting kickbacks in exchange for finding against the corporations. (This was not stated at any time during the show).

The suit was filed in Jefferson County, of course. They’re asking for six Billion dollars (capitalization quite intentional).

I find this scary. Admittedly, such details as “the truth” and “freedom of the press” would normally protect the righteous during a lawsuit… but Jefferson County has a track record of not being real interested in details.

If this lawsuit passes, CBS will, of course, appeal. They’ll appeal all the way to the Mississippi Supreme Court, which, unless they’re total morons, will reverse the ruling, simply because they don’t want the world thinking Mississippi is totally brainfried… but this will give the politicians plenty of ammo for things like “award caps” and laws restricting suits against large companies.

“After all,” they’ll say, “the power rests with the people. The people have abused that power. Time to limit the people’s power.”

This creeps me RIGHT the hell out.

Opinions?

2

I want Homer to start with “Drunken hicks of the jury…”

3

Referring to the first part of the story, I am always slightly suspicious of any “lawsuit abuse” story that focuses on one industry, because occasionally, a bit of research reveals that the parent-company/owner of the network is heavily invested in said industry. I’m not saying that this is the case with “60 Minutes” but the news media is pretty reliant on corporate sponsors, and sometimes stories can be, uhm, * flavored * by this investment.

That being said, lawsuits, or the threat of a suit often kills a story before it even reaches the air. If this was the case, I’d applaud CBS for sticking to its guns and going with it. Too many times have I read about stories being killed because of these threats, or because a coporate sponsor threatened to pull out.

Some people do abuse the court system. Other times, people adressing legitimate problems are accused of lawsuit abuse in a PR smear campaign.

Politicians, who themselves are a lot of the time, heavily invested in coprorate interests, often trumpet the idea of award caps, but thus far have been unsuccessful. It makes for a good sound bite, and keeps their corporate pals happy. Yap all you want, I say, just keep on doing nothing.

4

I dunno LISSA. The people who were on 60 minutes had to agree to be on the show. If they didn’t ask what it was about before signing the agreement, that’s their fault.

Also, I agree with the OP: the first amendment rights need to protect the medias a bit more. If they use inacurate information, that’s one thing, but they should be allowed to say any true things they wish - IMHO of course. :slight_smile:

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In case you’re interested, other Dopers posted their thoughts in

MPSIMS Thread #1

and in

MPSIMS Thread #2

Frankly I think these former jurors are off their rocker for thinking their “reputations” were worth as much as they are seeking in damages. Oh, and there’s a CNN article about these guys, too.