Greedy Trial Lawyer
Overlawyered Does Deep Thinking On Public Safety And Tort Reform
Category: Ho Hum
"I oppose any tort reform measure that places corporate efficiency ahead of the public safety." Seems like a good policy for any reform of our civil justice system.
Does that statement mean "safety always trumps efficiency?" Nope. It only says that a "reform" of our civil justice system should not be for the purpose of corporate efficiency at the expense of public safety.
But, Ted Frank, at Overlawyered, decides he has to rescue Justinian Lane from shallow thinking for daring to state "I oppose any tort reform measure that places corporate efficiency ahead of the public safety." What technique does he use? He creates a straw man by noting that a nationwide speed limit of 10 mph would be very safe, but terribly inefficient. Based upon this analogy he concludes it is "simply not the case that safety always trumps efficiency, nor should it be." Well, that settles that! Now, we can certainly understand why the deep thinkers place corporate efficiency ahead of public safety in tort reform.
Justinian Lane writes in the comments: "I oppose any tort reform measure that places corporate efficiency ahead of the public safety."I don't believe him. I mean, perhaps Lane honestly believes that one can always put safety ahead of efficiency, but if so, it's because he hasn't thought about it very deeply.
There's a very simple efficiency versus safety measure that could be implemented now that would save more than 35,000 lives and hundreds of thousands of injuries a year in the United States, and I would be stunned if Lane supports it: a nationwide speed limit for automobiles of 10 mph.
Automobile manufacturers design cars that can go faster than 10 mph even though they know, as a matter of statistical certainty, that thousands of people will die every year because they were traveling faster than 10 mph. For the most part, the liability system doesn't hold these manufacturers liable for these tens of thousands of deaths and hundreds of thousands of injuries, even though it's certain that the motivation for designing cars to go faster than 10 mph is profit (after all, very few would buy an expensive car that couldn't go faster than 10 mph). It's simply not the case that safety always trumps efficiency, nor should it be.
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.greedytriallawyer.com/admin/mt-tb.cgi/344
Comments
Care to actually, you know, RESPOND TO HIS ARGUMENT? Oh, wait... you can't, because he is absolutly correct.
The "strawman" argument is completely and utterly correct - allowing any speed over 10 MPH (indeed, even 5) is putting efficiency above safety.
That's not to say (and Ted Frank DOES NOT SAY) that efficiency always trumps safety, either. (You're putting words in his mouth.)
Every case must be looked at and dcided upon individually. Neither safety NOR efficiency always trumps the other.
Posted by: Deoxy at November 16, 2006 05:12 PM