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Remember when four neighbor families won a $10 million verdict because of air pollution from Ashland Oil's refinery on the Kentucky border? If the verdict hadn't been overturned, the four would have gotten $2.5 million each (minus huge lawyer fees) - while their next-door neighbors, breathing the same air, got nothing. (Of course, the neighbors undoubtedly would have jumped on the lawsuit bandwagon, once the rewards were evident.) Frankly, I don't know any way to make lawsuits produce equal justice.But until one is found, the inconsistent verdicts violate everyone's sense of fairness.
The peril of lawsuits hangs over every American firm, threatening possible bankruptcy. For example, so many women workers have won giant verdicts for sexual harassment in the workplace that companies are gun-shy - and the over-caution backfired on Miller Brewing Co. this month.
So the company is shafted, no matter what it does. It risks losing $26.6 million if a woman employee sues over an office joke, or it risks losing $26.6 million if it fires the joke-teller. In either case, the company didn't commit the affront - but the company is forced to pay, because it has the "deep pockets" that draw lawyers.
Some Charleston firms are putting expensive electronic locks on their doors, forcing all employees to carry "swipe cards" for entry. I figure it isn't really because there's much danger of armed intruders (and a psycho with a pistol probably could get in, anyway). I assume that a main reason for the expense is to provide companies with a legal defense, just in case the unthinkable happens, and employee victims file ruinous suits.
Clearly, limits need to be placed on the litigation crapshoot that gives $10 million to some molestation victims or $26 million to some fired managers, but zero to others in the same boat.
But I'm unsure how it can be done without hindering the inherent right of all Americans to seek redress. And it's clear that the threat of lawsuits is almost the only policing power that forces businesses, agencies, churches, etc., to protect people's safety and health.
So it's a dilemma. Sen. Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia has been trying for years to find an acceptable cure, but all his attempts have been shot down. I hope he keeps trying until he finds one that works.
(Haught is editor emeritus of West Virginia's largest newspaper, The Charleston Gazette-Mail, and a senior editor of Free Inquiry magazine. He has written 12 books and 150 magazine essays. As a blogger at a dozen websites, he has 1,200 essays online. This is from his paper on July 29, 1997.)
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