With all the trucking activity around Texas and the Fort Worth/Dallas area, the last thing we need is to let the trucks drive heavier, faster and longer.  Truck wrecks and deadly accidents happen all too frequently as is and too many carriers are cutting costs by scaling back on safety and maintenance.  What we do need is smarter and more-effective regulation and increased law enforcement to adequately police for violators.

Some media are reporting that the jury found Osteen “not guilty.”  Although that probably conveys an accurate description of the result in the minds of many, this wasn’t a criminal matter.  Rather, the plaintiff sued the defendant for assault (and money damages) and the jury was likely asked a yes/no question on whether the assault occurred.  Civil juries decide liability, criminal juries decide guilt/innocence.  Law Dork will be quiet now.

It is sad and ironic that one of the darlings of conservatives – tort reform and reduced access to the courthouse – is shifting this burden onto taxpayers, a burden which was once shared with the insurance industry.

“Tort reform may not affect all segments of society equally. Studies have shown that many tort reforms disproportionately reduce compensation to women, children, the elderly, disadvantaged minorities, and less affluent people. This study goes beyond tort reform’s disproportionate effect on compensation, to explore whether tort reform also has a disproportionate effect on accidental death rates. We explain that, theoretically, tort reform’s care-level effects and activity-level effects may disproportionately impact the accident rates of different groups. Using the most accurate, comprehensive data on medical malpractice tort reforms and state-level data from 1980-2000, we examine empirically whether tort reforms indeed have such a disproportionate effect. The results from our empirical analysis are consistent with our theoretical predictions. We find that the impact of tort reform varies substantially among demographic groups. When we consider the net effect of all the reforms in our study together, our results suggest that women, children, and the elderly do not enjoy tort reform’s benefits as much as men and middle-aged people. In fact, they might even be harmed by reform.”

Quote: “Proposition 12, and the far-reaching changes in Texas civil law that it dragged behind it, was built on a foundation of mistruths and sketchy assumptions. The number of doctors in the state was not falling, it was steadily rising, according to Texas Medical Board data. There was little statistical evidence showing that frivolous lawsuits were a significant force driving increases in malpractice premiums. Perhaps the most insidious sleight of hand employed by Proposition 12 backers was their repeated insistence that medical malpractice insurance rates were somehow responsible for doctor shortages in rural Texas…The campaign’s promise, that tort reform would cause doctors to begin returning to the state’s sparsely populated regions, has now been tested for four years. It has not proven to be true.”