Tort Reform Debate Elicits Lively Discussion
The economic costs and savings of tort jury trials constituted the focus of a debate on tort reform at the Boyd School of Law November 10 between Ted Frank, the founder of the Center for Class Action Fairness, and Nevada Justice Association's treasurer and local personal injury attorney Cliff Marcek.
Moderated by Boyd Professor of Law Robert Correales, the debate was sponsored jointly by The Federalist Society and the Nevada Justice Association, and was made possible by a generous grant from the John Templeton Foundation.
Marcek said in his opening statement that calls for tort reform are in reality a thinly disguised indirect attack on trial lawyers who are wrongly blamed for incorrectly perceived astronomical damages awarded by mythical runaway juries. He cited a study showing the current tort trial system costs only one-half of one percent of all medical spending. Although a widely publicized 2004 movement for tort reform in Nevada was defeated, he said the predicted exodus of physicians did not occur, and he presented a table showing that the number of physicians in the state has increased since then for all specialties.
Frank, in contrast, cited a study showing that litigation expenses in the U.S. total $900 billion a year. He favors caps on damage awards and shorter statutes of limitation for bringing suit. These two reforms, he said, support the rule of law because they bring certainty and predictability to litigation. One problem with the current system, he said, is that some class action suits are initiated primarily to benefit the trial lawyers, not the injured. Another problem he described is the costs of defensive medicine practiced by physicians who order an excessive number of diagnostic tests because they are worried about being sued for malpractice.
Described by the Wall Street Journal as "a leading tort-reform advocate," Frank has published articles in several law reviews, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, The American Spectator, and National Review Online. He also has appeared on NPR, BBC, C-SPAN, and Fox News. A member of the American Law Institute, Frank has testified before Congress multiple times on legal issues, and he writes for the award-winning legal blogs PointOfLaw.com and Overlawyered.
A member of the one of the most the prestigious U.S. trial lawyer groups, the Million Dollar Advocates Forum, Marcek has successfully litigated hundreds of personal injury and products liability cases. He is an elected member of the Board of Governors for the Nevada Justice Association (NJA) and a part time staff member at the Boyd School of Law, where he has served since 1999 as the Coordinator of Community Service. The NJA is an organization of independent lawyers working to improve the civil justice system. Representing consumers, the group seeks to educate the public about their individual rights and responsibilities as citizens.
Founded in 1982 by a group of law students, the Federalist Society comprises 40,000 lawyers, law students, and scholars supporting conversations about limited government. Its main purpose is to sponsor debate about the values of individual freedoms and the role of the courts in protecting these freedoms.
The stated mission of the John Templeton Foundation is "to serve as a philanthropic catalyst for discovery in areas engaging life’s biggest questions." It has $1.5 billion in assets and distributes approximately $70 million in annual grant awards. Sir John Marks Templeton was a pioneer global investor who founded the Templeton Mutual Funds, some of the world’s largest and most successful international investment funds. Money Magazine called Templeton “arguably the greatest global stock picker of the century” (January 1999).