GOV. RICK PERRY AND THE REPUBLICAN LEGISLATORS HAVE SCREWED US ORDINARY TEXANS

What’s good for doctors, businesses and the wealthy, is not necessarily good for the rest of us.

During a previous session, at the urging of Gov. Rick Perry, the Republican dominated Texas legislature passed a ‘tort reform’ law which capped the non-economic (punitive) damages that can be awarded in a medical malpractice lawsuit.

Granted, the multimillion dollar punitive damage awards drove the cost of medical malpractice insurance sky-high for doctors and hospitals, but they also served as an incentive for the medical industry to clean up its act.

During this year’s session, Gov. Perry wanted legislators to pass additional tort reforms to discourage the filing of frivolous lawsuits by making the losers of lawsuits pay the legal expenses of both sides. And that is exactly what the Republican dominated legislature did.

The problem of frivolous lawsuits needed to be dealt with. But instead of having the courts rule that a specific lawsuit was frivolous and then order that all legal expenses be paid by the plaintiff, the new law applies to all lawsuits, frivolous or not. Gov. Perry and the Republican legislators threw the baby out with the bathwater on this one, thereby screwing us ordinary Texans.

Now it will be hard for Texans of modest means to find a lawyer willing to take on a business or wealthy individual with the means to hire the best law firms. The tactics of those law firms, with their numerous attorneys, paralegals, investigators and expert witnesses, is to drag a case on and on, piling up those 600 to 1,000 dollars per hour expenses until the plaintiff who filed a righteous lawsuit is forced to give up. And then, to add insult to injury, the plaintiff having been forced to give up is billed for the defendant’s legal expenses.

I voted for Perry because I could not bring myself to vote for his opponent, the former mayor of Houston. Although tort reform was definitely in order, what poor Texans or those of modest means got was a royal screwing by Perry and his fellow Republicans.

Rick Perry for President? No, not unless the choice comes down to him and Obama. Then, and only then, will I vote for Perry, the lesser of two evils.