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Chicago Tribune
4 days ago
- Business
- Chicago Tribune
Letters: Why juries reward large verdicts in corporate negligence cases
'Nuclear verdicts' have become a sensationalized headline for defense lawyers, corporations and insurance companies that are trying to deprive innocent injured victims of full compensation. Robert Tyson's op-ed ('Sequel to 1994 McDonald's hot coffee case is now $47M more expensive,' May 27) speaks of 'research and data' on such verdicts, which he doesn't list. His misstatement of facts leads readers to misconceptions of the jury process itself. Tyson's comments on the 1994 McDonald's hot coffee verdict are simply wrong. The elderly plaintiff suffered burns requiring skin grafts. She received $160,000 in compensatory damages for her injuries. Punitive damages of nearly $3 million were reduced to $480,000 by the trial judge. At the time, McDonald's reportedly grossed $1.3 million daily in coffee sales alone. The jury wanted to send a message to the corporation when documents showed more than 700 previous claims by people burned by McDonald's coffee. Coffee served at home is about 135 degrees. McDonald's coffee is between 180 and 190 degrees. The $50 million verdict against Starbucks of which Tyson speaks dealt with the negligence of an employee handing a customer scalding tea that was improperly secured in its take-out container; it landed in his lap and groin. He suffered third-degree burns and permanent injuries. It was reported that Starbucks countered with a pretrial $30 million offer to settle. The substantial nature of the verdict can be seen as the jury's acknowledgment of the profound impact burn injuries have on an individual's life because it was they who heard all of the evidence and came to a fair decision. The real issue here is one of accountability. Large corporations such as Starbucks have a responsibility to ensure the safety of their products. Decisions by juries serve as a deterrent for corporations not to cut safety protocols. Rather than dismissing large verdicts as 'nuclear,' they should be embraced as reflections on corporate responsibility. Tyson's solution is to further alienate juries from the judicial process, despite the Seventh Amendment. Rather than limiting the role of juries, reforms should aim to better support and prepare them. This could include more effective jury instructions, enhanced presentation of technical evidence and improved use of experts. These reforms acknowledge the importance of jury involvement. The courtroom is not just a place for legal battles; it is a space where societal values are tested and reinforced by juries, the cornerstone of trying to tip the scales of justice against individuals in favor of wealthy and powerful businesses have long cited — and mischaracterized — the McDonald's hot coffee case to support their push to close courthouse doors to individuals hurt due to no fault of their own. Robert Tyson continues that practice in his op-ed by failing to share that the $2.9 million verdict awarded to a woman who suffered horrific injuries after scalding hot coffee spilled on her lap, was later reduced to $640,000. The myth of the McDonald's case suggests the restaurant giant was victimized by an unscrupulous plaintiff. But the truth is that the case proves the system works: The trial judge reduced the damages awarded by the jury, and the parties later settled for a confidential amount. Moreover, the jury learned that some 700 other people — including children — had reported burns by McDonald's dangerously hot coffee. That case began as a response to one person's injury but ended up highlighting a broader issue of how a company acted in a way that put numerous customers in danger. That is the proper function of our civil justice system. When businesses are careless and people get hurt, those businesses should be held accountable. It's their responsibility to ensure their products are handled safely. And if juries award large verdicts, it's because they hear evidence of atrocious misconduct or vast human injury. How do you get the attention of giant corporations, worth billions of dollars, and force them to stop making people sick, injuring or killing them? You target their bottom line. Sadly, money is often the only language they speak. Tyson also references a recent $50 million verdict against Starbucks in the case of a delivery driver severely burned by a mishandled tray of hot beverages. As with the McDonald's case, there is a judicial mechanism to review the jury's verdict and determine if it's appropriate. Indeed, as is its right, Starbucks is appealing that verdict. The term 'nuclear verdict,' used disparagingly by Tyson, is dramatic. It's intentionally over-the-top rhetoric employed by corporations and the insurance industry to mislead the public and undermine support for a legal system that protects the little guy's ability to seek justice and hold corporations accountable for harmful to the call for improving security on the 'L.' I've been a resident in Chicago for quite a long time and have watched the security on the trains deteriorate sharply from the 1980s. I've ridden the Blue Line twice in a recent week, midday, and both instances included a rider who came on board yelling at riders, the train or who knows what else. In those instances, there were riders traveling to and from O'Hare International Airport. This is an absolutely horrible way to represent the city. I've ridden the Tube in London and the Madrid transit system, and our transit presentation to the world is an absolute a recent visit to Chicago to do research for a family memoir on my father, I was the beneficiary of excellent, knowledgeable and pleasant service at the Chicago Board of Education, Harold Washington Library Center, Chicago History Museum and Newberry Library. Somebody in Chicago is doing something means graduation for eighth grade, high school and college graduates across America. Commencement ceremonies are important rituals to recognize the hard work and sacrifice that led to this moment. Most of these graduates will walk across the stage to receive their diploma wearing a cap and gown — a cheaply made, polyester garment that will be tossed in the trash soon after the ceremony is over. Graduates may save the cap and its accompanying tassel as souvenirs, mementos of their accomplishment, but the gowns, 1,600 of them from my son's college graduation alone, will go to the landfill. The waste is staggering, both in terms of the amount of landfill space they will consume but also the energy it took to create, package and ship the gowns in the first place — energy expended for a single-use item that is worn for maybe half a day. I'm not anti-gown. They bring solemnity, simple elegance and equality to the occasion, and I prefer them to the dresses and suits once required by our local high school. The convenience and low cost of the throw-away gowns is tempting, and collecting, laundering and storing used gowns are not tasks without their own financial costs and carbon footprint. I hazard to guess, however, that because of the convenience and affordability of cheap, throw-away gowns, not many institutions have done a proper review of the real costs and benefits of doing graduation garb this way versus alternatives. The world has bigger problems to tackle than this, for sure, but if we don't reconsider this sort of single-cycle consumption (and plenty of other examples of this sort of waste exist), we pile up the waste and suffocate the planet. I'm certainly open to suggestions to address this issue. I hope our educational institutions are as well.
Yahoo
24-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
US Supreme Court turns away casino mogul Wynn's bid to challenge NY Times v. Sullivan defamation rule
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court turned away on Monday a bid by casino mogul Steve Wynn to roll back defamation protections established in its landmark 1964 ruling in the case New York Times v. Sullivan - a standard that has been questioned by President Donald Trump and two of its own conservative justices. The justices declined to hear an appeal by Wynn, former CEO of Wynn Resorts, of a decision by Nevada's top court to dismiss his defamation suit against the Associated Press and one of its journalists under a state law meant to safeguard the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment protections for freedom of speech. The Supreme Court in its New York Times v. Sullivan ruling and subsequent decisions set a standard that in order to win a libel suit, a public figure must demonstrate the offending statement was made with "actual malice," meaning with knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard as to whether it was false. That standard has since been adopted in a number of state laws across the country, including in Nevada. Wynn, the former finance chair of the Republican National Committee, filed a defamation lawsuit in 2018 accusing the AP news wire and the journalist of publishing an article falsely alleging he committed sexual assault in the 1970s. Those claims first appeared in two separate complaints filed with police that an AP reporter obtained from the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department. One of the complaints, Wynn argued, was implausible on its face. A Nevada court in a separate proceeding found that complaint to have included "clearly fanciful or delusional" allegations. Wynn has denied the sexual assault allegations. Nevada's top court found that Wynn failed to show that a disputed 2018 AP report containing allegations of sexual assault had been published with "actual malice." Wynn in his appeal asked the justices to assess "whether this court should overturn Sullivan's actual-malice standard," as well as a related prior court decision. Wynn also asked the court to assess whether state laws like Nevada's that impose the standard of "actual malice" at a preliminary stage of legal proceedings violate the U.S. Constitution's Seventh Amendment right to a jury trial. The Supreme Court in recent years has turned away opportunities to revisit New York Times v. Sullivan, including a 2021 denial that drew dissents from Thomas and Gorsuch, who are members of the top U.S. judicial body's 6-3 conservative majority. Citing a rapidly changing media environment increasingly rife with disinformation, Thomas and Gorsuch wrote separately that the court should take a fresh look at its precedents that make it harder for public figures to win defamation cases. Since launching his first Republican presidential campaign in 2015, Trump has often attacked and even sued media outlets whose coverage he dislikes, and has criticized American defamation laws as too protective of the news media. Trump for years has been fiercely critical of the news media, sometimes calling reports he does not like "fake news" and referring to the press as "the enemy of the American people." Since beginning his second term as president in January, he has limited the access of some news outlets in coverage of the White House and other parts of the U.S. government such as the Pentagon. A federal judge in 2023 threw out Trump's $475 million defamation lawsuit against CNN in which he had claimed the news network's description of his false claims of 2020 election fraud as the "big lie" associated him with Adolf Hitler. Trump's lawyers, in a 2022 filing in that case, had invited the judge to reconsider the legal standard set in New York Times v. Sullivan. "The court should reconsider whether Sullivan's standard truly protects the democratic values embodied by the First Amendment, or, instead, facilitates the pollution of the 'stream of information about public officials and public affairs' with false information," Trump's lawyers wrote. (This story has been refiled to remove the extra word 'to' in the headline)
Reuters
24-03-2025
- Politics
- Reuters
US Supreme Court to turns away casino mogul Wynn's bid to challenge NY Times v. Sullivan defamation rule
WASHINGTON, March 24 (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court turned away on Monday a bid by casino mogul Steve Wynn to roll back defamation protections established in its landmark 1964 ruling in the case New York Times v. Sullivan - a standard that has been questioned by President Donald Trump and two of its own conservative justices. The justices declined to hear an appeal by Wynn, former CEO of Wynn Resorts (WYNN.O), opens new tab, of a decision by Nevada's top court to dismiss his defamation suit against the Associated Press and one of its journalists under a state law meant to safeguard the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment protections for freedom of speech. The Supreme Court in its New York Times v. Sullivan ruling and subsequent decisions set a standard that in order to win a libel suit, a public figure must demonstrate the offending statement was made with "actual malice," meaning with knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard as to whether it was false. That standard has since been adopted in a number of state laws across the country, including in Nevada. Wynn, the former finance chair of the Republican National Committee, filed a defamation lawsuit in 2018 accusing the AP news wire and the journalist of publishing an article falsely alleging he committed sexual assault in the 1970s. Those claims first appeared in two separate complaints filed with police that an AP reporter obtained from the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department. One of the complaints, Wynn argued, was implausible on its face. A Nevada court in a separate proceeding found that complaint to have included "clearly fanciful or delusional" allegations. Wynn has denied the sexual assault allegations. Nevada's top court found that Wynn failed to show that a disputed 2018 AP report containing allegations of sexual assault had been published with "actual malice." Wynn in his appeal asked the justices to assess "whether this court should overturn Sullivan's actual-malice standard," as well as a related prior court decision. Wynn also asked the court to assess whether state laws like Nevada's that impose the standard of "actual malice" at a preliminary stage of legal proceedings violate the U.S. Constitution's Seventh Amendment right to a jury trial. The Supreme Court in recent years has turned away opportunities to revisit New York Times v. Sullivan, including a 2021 denial that drew dissents from Thomas and Gorsuch, who are members of the top U.S. judicial body's 6-3 conservative majority. Citing a rapidly changing media environment increasingly rife with disinformation, Thomas and Gorsuch wrote separately that the court should take a fresh look at its precedents that make it harder for public figures to win defamation cases. Since launching his first Republican presidential campaign in 2015, Trump has often attacked and even sued media outlets whose coverage he dislikes, and has criticized American defamation laws as too protective of the news media. Trump for years has been fiercely critical of the news media, sometimes calling reports he does not like "fake news" and referring to the press as "the enemy of the American people." Since beginning his second term as president in January, he has limited the access of some news outlets in coverage of the White House and other parts of the U.S. government such as the Pentagon. A federal judge in 2023 threw out Trump's $475 million defamation lawsuit against CNN in which he had claimed the news network's description of his false claims of 2020 election fraud as the "big lie" associated him with Adolf Hitler. Trump's lawyers, in a 2022 filing in that case, opens new tab, had invited the judge to reconsider the legal standard set in New York Times v. Sullivan. "The court should reconsider whether Sullivan's standard truly protects the democratic values embodied by the First Amendment, or, instead, facilitates the pollution of the 'stream of information about public officials and public affairs' with false information," Trump's lawyers wrote.
Yahoo
25-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Political attacks stiffen opposition to Missouri bill protecting pesticide makers
State Sen. Brad Hudson of Cape Fair speaks at a news conference Tuesday about flyers sent to his constituents attacking his opposition to a bill limiting lawsuits against Bayer over its herbicide Roundup. Joining Hudson, from left, are Sens. Nick Schroer of Defiance, Ben Brown of Washington, Joe Nicola of Independence, Mike Moon of Ash Grove, Rick Brattin of Harrisonville, Adam Schnelting of St. Charles, Jill Carter of Joplin and David Gregory of Chesterfield. (Rudi Keller/Missouri Independent) A direct-mail campaign targeting opponents of a bill intended to shelter Bayer from lawsuits alleging its herbicide Roundup causes cancer appears to be backfiring. Nine state senators targeted by flyers sent to their constituents held a news conference Tuesday to denounce the effort and say their opposition is growing stronger because of the attacks. 'What is at play right here, right now, is whether or not our farmers should have rights to due process and their Seventh Amendment right to go up against a giant when their health is being compromised without truth in labeling,' said state Sen. Jill Carter, a Republican from Granby. Missouri House debate shows GOP split over bill to protect pesticide makers Last week, the Missouri House voted 85-72 to pass a bill filed by state Rep. Dane Diehl, a Republican from Butler, that would make the label required by federal pesticide regulators 'sufficient to satisfy any requirement for a warning label regarding cancer under any other provision of current law.' The narrow vote — only three more than the minimum needed for passage — and the 24 Republicans who voted against it shows the depth of the split over the legislation within the GOP supermajority. The direct mail pieces aren't helping heal those divisions, Diehl said in an interview with The Independent. 'The timing of these pieces, or these mailers, have surely made this process even more convoluted,' Diehl said. The sponsor of identical legislation in the upper chamber, state Sen. Justin Brown, a Republican from Rolla, agreed. 'They're not helping us,' he said. 'They're hurting us. I knew they would, and I'm sure that's why they were sent. I think the motivation behind those flyers was to try to kill this bill.' The direct mail pieces have been arriving in mailboxes for about a week, senators said at the news conference. The nine participating senators suspect Bayer is paying for the flyers but have no solid evidence. 'We are going to talk to the Missouri Ethics Commission and see what we can do legally right now about this failure to disclose,' said state Sen. Nick Schroer, a Republican from Defiance. 'It's dark money, through and through.' Along with Schroer and Carter, the members targeted for the direct mail who took part in the news conference are state Sens. Rick Brattin of Harrisonville, Ben Brown of Washington, David Gregory of Chesterfield, Brad Hudson of Cape Fair, Mike Moon of Granby, Joe Nicola of Independence and Adam Schnelting of St. Charles. The flyers, essentially identical except for substituting each lawmaker's name, office telephone number and photo, declare that 'President Trump is cracking down on China and needs your help.' They accuse the targeted lawmakers of sitting 'on the fence in the fight to protect American agricultural manufacturers and prevent outsourcing of our food supply.' The back side of the flyer calls for urgent action because 'We need to keep Chinese Communist Party chemicals out of our food supply.' The mailers state they are paid for by the Protecting America Initiative and give a return address in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. The Federal Election Commission lists it as an 'electioneering communication' organization. It does not disclose its donors. The treasurer listed is the same person who was treasurer of The Stand for US PAC, which last year spent more than $2 million in an unsuccessful effort to boost then-Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft in the Republican primary for governor. The Protecting America Initiative has also spent about $121,000 on television ads in the central Missouri market since the start of the legislative session, FCC records show. The legislation filed by Brown and Diehl is intended to protect Bayer from more than 25,000 lawsuits pending in Cole County that allege the manufacturer did not put a label on Roundup warning that it had the potential to cause cancer. Bayer, a German company, purchased Monsanto, a St. Louis-based company, in 2018. Bayer kept its U.S. headquarters in St. Louis. The stakes are enormous for Bayer. In 2023 Cole County, three plaintiffs were awarded $1.56 billion, though a judge later reduced that to $622 million. There are tens of thousands of additional lawsuits pending across the country and Bayer has paid out at least $10 billion for jury awards and settlements. Bayer did not respond to an email seeking comment on the flyers and whether it helped finance them. Brown said he doesn't believe Bayer is funding the flyers. 'Members that are quick to want to kill this bill because they're getting attacked should follow that money and see who's actually funding this,' Brown said. In a news release sent Monday, members of the Missouri Freedom Caucus said they have little doubt that Bayer is behind the messages. 'In a bombastic attempt to silence these principled conservatives, the company has flooded hundreds of thousands of households across their nine Senate districts, with misleading attack mailers, distorting their records and undermining their commitment to protecting Missourians,' the release stated. In response to the allegation that the nine lawmakers want China to dominate agricultural markets, Hudson filed a bill to ban the sale in Missouri of herbicides, pesticides and fertilizers made in China. 'If we've got a situation where we are depending on products from those who would be our enemies in order to be caretakers of our food supply, we've got a problem that we need to address,' Hudson said. While the flyers are sparking opposition now, Brown said he's committed to passing the bill. He will give tempers time to cool before bringing it up for Senate debate, he said. Bayer 'employs 5,000 people just in one town in Missouri,' Brown said, 'and I could see them going somewhere else or just closing that altogether, if we don't try to do something.' SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Yahoo
24-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Few prisoners claiming abuses have access to a jury trial. The Supreme Court could soon change that.
The Supreme Court is set to hear a case Tuesday that could expand prisoner access to jury trials. The case relates to the PLRA, a 1996 law requiring prisoners to pursue a prison grievance before filing suit. The petitioner says expanding access to juries would leave courts "inundated" with meritless suits. When US lawmakers introduced legislation nearly 30 years ago to curb the "frivolous" prisoner lawsuits they said were inundating the courts, they insisted it wouldn't affect prisoners with legitimate claims. That law, the 1996 Prison Litigation Reform Act, created something of a catch-22. Under the PLRA, any lawsuit, however serious the claim, can be dismissed if the prisoner didn't first exhaust their prison's internal grievance process. Yet prisoners say grievances can be stymied by the very guards they've accused of wrongdoing. In these cases, a prisoner's claim of abuse or retaliation can be intertwined with their failure to properly file grievances. The Supreme Court is expected to hear arguments Tuesday about whether prisoners have a right to argue these complex cases before a jury. The case the justices will hear centers on a Michigan prisoner named Kyle Brandon Richards, who said in a legal complaint he filed in April 2020 that Thomas Perttu, a resident unit manager at the Baraga Correctional Facility, had "engaged in a pattern of prolific and repetitive sexual abuse." Richards said that when he tried to file written grievances reporting the abuse, Perttu retaliated against him by destroying them and threatening to kill him. The Michigan Department of Corrections declined to comment on the claims against Perttu and did not confirm whether he still worked at the prison, citing the pending litigation. Michigan's attorney general's office, which represents Perttu, did not respond to queries. A judge dismissed Richards' lawsuit over his failure to exhaust Baraga's grievance process under the PLRA. An appeals court reversed course. A panel of 6th Circuit judges found that because Richards' First Amendment retaliation claims against Perttu were intertwined with a factual dispute over whether he'd properly exhausted the grievance process, those contested facts should be decided by a jury, not a judge, under the Seventh Amendment right to a jury trial. Perttu appealed, and the question of whether prisoners in these situations have a right to a jury trial will now be heard by the Supreme Court. "Holding that the Seventh Amendment requires a jury decision on this question would be significant," said Michael Mushlin, an emeritus professor at Pace University's law school, who wrote an amicus brief with law professors in support of Richards' claims. "It's not earth-shattering, but it's significant in trying to soften the horrible blow of the PLRA." Though the PLRA was pitched as a common-sense reform to curb trivial lawsuits, Business Insider found, in a six-part series published in December, that the law has largely stymied prisoner lawsuits claiming serious harm — including retaliatory beatings, stabbings, sexual assaults, and egregious forms of medical neglect. Exhausting an internal grievance system before filing suit, as the PLRA requires, is often a convoluted ordeal. In one case BI uncovered that was dismissed by a judge over the failure to exhaust, a New Jersey prisoner said he'd been beaten by prison guards while he was in restraints and then missed a grievance deadline while in solitary confinement. In another, a Virginia prisoner who said he was sexually abused by a prison psychologist filed a grievance that was not considered specific enough. In Indiana, a prisoner who said he attempted suicide after a guard told him to "go for it" lost in court because his grievance didn't contain the guard's full name. In Richards' case, he argued that he was unable to meet the PLRA's exhaustion requirement because Perttu had destroyed his grievance forms — the same set of circumstances at the heart of his retaliation claim. "The disputed facts," said Lori Alvino McGill, a lecturer at the University of Virginia's law school who is representing Richards before the Supreme Court, "will be critical to both the retaliation claim and to whether administrative remedies were available." The PLRA has faced intense criticism since it was first enacted. Members of Congress have tried to reform the law and failed. And the Richards case is not the first time the Supreme Court has been asked to review aspects of the law. Margo Schlanger, a law professor at the University of Michigan who is a leading researcher on the PLRA's effects and who helped guide BI on its research methodology, said that if the justices decide in favor of Richards, it would mean, at the very least, "a few more cases" filed by prisoners would make it before juries. BI found that such outcomes are unusual. Of nearly 1,500 Eighth Amendment prisoner cases BI analyzed for its series — including every appeals court case that reached a decision over a five-year period — only 2% were decided by a jury. Plaintiffs who got a jury trial fared far better than those who did not: Less than 1% won their cases before a judge, while 18% of plaintiffs whose cases reached a jury prevailed. Richards' case has attracted support from the ACLU and the Cato Institute, the libertarian think tank, which both filed amicus briefs on Richards' behalf. Groups including the National Sheriffs' Association and the International Municipal Lawyers Association filed briefs supporting Perttu. The Cato Institute argued in its brief that the constitutional right to a civil jury trial is "fundamental to American liberty." "For Richards, and those similarly situated to him," Cato's Clark Neily III wrote, "a jury trial at the exhaustion stage is essential to ensure that their claims are fairly heard." According to Jennifer Wedekind, a senior staff attorney at the ACLU's National Prison Project who was an author of the ACLU's brief, credibility determinations often come down to an officer's word against a prisoner's. "Those are precisely the type of determinations that juries are supposed to be making," she told BI. The Supreme Court could decide broadly that every incarcerated plaintiff is entitled to a jury trial when there are disputes over exhaustion. Or the justices could rule more narrowly, as Mushlin expects — granting access to a jury trial only to plaintiffs in cases in which the factual discrepancies over exhaustion are inseparable from the substantive issues of the case. Perttu's lawyers argued that if the justices uphold the circuit court's decision, federal courts will be "inundated" with "meritless lawsuits that they must allow to go to a jury" and effectively "erase nearly 30 years of progress in reducing frivolous lawsuits." A brief filed by the International Municipal Lawyers Association and the National Association of Counties echoed those points, arguing that the 6th Circuit ruling "undermines the PLRA's goal of saving costs by reducing the volume of frivolous inmate suits." BI found that claims of a tide of frivolous lawsuits were largely a myth. While a few dozen of the claims in BI's sample appeared to center on minor matters, the vast majority clearly involved claims of substantive harm. The effects of the law have been dramatic: Of the roughly 1,400 federal prisoner cases that BI examined filed by people who were imprisoned — rather than by former prisoners or their families — 27% failed because of the PLRA's requirements. Among cases decided in district courts, 35% failed because of the law. Research by Schlanger found that within five years of the PLRA's passage prisoner suits dropped by 43% even as the prison population grew. The filing rate, she later found, never rebounded. In BI's sample of prisoner suits, plaintiffs prevailed less than 1% of the time — indicating a near evisceration of protections for this country's 1.2 million prisoners, thanks to the combined impact of the PLRA and a set of legal standards established by the Supreme Court at the height of the war on drugs. "Recent reports from Business Insider show that many prisoners have been denied their basic legal rights," Rep. Jan Schakowsky of Illinois said in response to BI's series. "Any abuse that happens inside our prisons must be allowed to reach the light of day." Read the original article on Business Insider
