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Responsibility #46
(written prior to July 1992)
To the People of the United States of America:
Litigation, the threat of litigation, and settlements out of court, are a horrendous drag on our general welfare. Lucrative awards and settlements, accompanied by contingency fees, are irresistible for plaintiffs and attorneys alike. Whether just or unjust, these huge costs are passed to the public in the way of: higher costs of products and services, the performance of unnecessary tests as a hedge against suits, higher insurance premiums, higher taxes to maintain courts, diversion of legal talent from criminal cases, and the loss of the services of professionals who find their practices not sufficiently rewarding because of these costs.
There is a degree of risk to which each of us must be exposed, in anything we do, or have done for us. Compassion for the pained or aggrieved should not result in damages from the sued, beyond their culpable share of the risk for the treatment, product, or service. Arbiters and judges should insure that data and information concerning risk sharing is presented in arbitrations, or to the juries. Greater impetus for arbitration, versus trials, should be effectuated by the imposition of all court costs on the parties, and their attorneys, whose insistence on trials prove to have little or no merit.
Punitive damages should be separated from the rightful compensation to the pained or aggrieved. These should be considered a "fine" for culpable mal-performance against the public. The proceeds should go to offset costs of jurisprudence to the taxpayers, rather than additional awards to the plaintiff.
Boons to attorneys should cease. The military services learned many decades ago that cost plus fixed, or percent of cost, profits were inappropriate contracting methods. If the government were to achieve the best performance, in the shortest time, at the lowest cost to the taxpayer, the contractor had to have incentives and punishments set forward in the contract. Since consumers and taxpayers absorb most if not all of the costs and adverse consequences of proper and frivolous, drawn out, and costly trials, they should be considered a third party in the contract between the plaintiff and his lawyer.
Hence a way must be found to pay a law practice based on its performance, not only for its client, but also for the ultimate absorber of the costs of awards and trial expenses--the American public. A jury will not usually have the expertise to determine earned compensation, for the two opposing law practices. This would best be left to the judge, upon advice from a permanent panel having auditing and legal qualifications.
Each law firm, at the completion of the trial, would submit a list of its incurred expenses, with reasons therefor, an explanation of trial delays, with their opinion of responsibilities thereof, and a claim for a fee (profit), with a justification of how it was earned. There would need to be an appeal process for the law practices to take exception to the analysis of the panel, and the resultant decision of the judge.
Now let us shift to the topic deserving of the most responsible actions by We the People--Poverty. The Bible says that the poor will always be with us; but our nation need not take that as gospel. Nature's God will be pleased when we take exception to His holy word, by a sincere pledge to end poverty.
So long as we tolerate poverty in our land, our "union" will be far from "perfect"; "justice" will not be "establish"ed; "domestic tranquility" will be un"insure"able; the "general welfare" will be restrained; and those who are poor will not "secure the blessings of liberty to [themselves] and [their] posterity".
Putting on only Caesar's glasses, we can readily see the benefits to America of a steady commitment to converting the "have-nots" to "haves": (1) unity in what had been the slums and hovels, as well as the rest of the USA; (2) the end to crime that had originated due to deprivation; (3) the end to diseases that accompanied mal-nutrition and hunger; (4) no more riots in the inner cities due to frustration and despair; (5) millions more capable workers to build our thriving businesses; (6) the same millions then having disposable income to spend on the products of our thriving businesses; and (7) pride in the USA and respect from abroad, greater than we have ever had.
We have already set the stage for extensive relief from poverty, by all of the reforms proposed in these papers. The poor have the furthest to go, and will therefore benefit the most, when all Americans and their institutions are required to live up to their RESPONSIBILITIES.
They will have much greater regard for being Americans, when they witness government elected and functioning for the general welfare, rather than bought by money and power. Along with the "haves", the "have-nots" will experience better lives when the nation's "resources and finances [are] discreetly managed, our credit [is] re-established, our people [become more] free, contented, and united".
The poor will be freer, more contented, and more closely bound with the rest of society, when their lives are effected only positively by our judicial system. This will occur as our Supreme Court regains public esteem, by sticking to judgment and justice within the Constitution, rather than straying into the legislative and executive arenas. The treks out of poverty will be greatly accelerated, as the past judicial mistakes are rectified.
We can expect a much greater regard for human life, in the inner cities and other poor areas, when society as a whole returns to a respect for the Right to Life. The greatest block to eliminating poverty are the impediments to family life for the poor. That block will be removed, when the nation takes all actions to restore the integrity of the family throughout the land, with special emphasis on recognizing the copulative act as a privilege between husbands and wives only.
The poor are in the most need of the school reforms proposed in previous papers. They again will benefit the most as health hazards (tobacco, drugs, alcohol, guns, cars, gangs, and crime) are alleviated or eliminated. The JUST health care system will bring just health care to the poor, as well as all other citizens and residents of these United States.
In the next two essays additional actions to relieve our nation of poverty will be proposed.
Publius IV
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