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CNN Calls Legal Reform ‘Silly’
House overwhelmingly passes
‘cheeseburger bill’ to prevent obesity-related lawsuits, but anchor
says everyone involved acted ‘foolishly.’
By R. Warren Anderson
Free Market Project
Oct. 20, 2005
   Â
While the House of Representatives was getting serious about
legal reform, CNN was calling it “silly” and other news outlets
ignored it.
    The House passed the “cheeseburger bill” October 19 – a
bill that makes people, not the food industry, responsible for
consequences of their eating habits. The bill passed 307 to 119
and will go to the Senate. |
CNN
Oct. 20, 2005
Audio |
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    Andy Serwer on CNN’s “American Morning” October 20
stated that “the only thing sillier than suing McDonald's for being
fat is passing a law preventing people from suing McDonalds from
being fat.” But Serwer didn’t explain the drain that lawsuits create
on the American economy.
    Litigation cost businesses 2 percent of U.S. Gross
Domestic Product in 2004. Lawsuits against tobacco and asbestos have
cost businesses billions and billions of dollars. In today’s suing
state of mind, the food industry is a potential target for lawyers.
In 2002,
a lawsuit was filed against four fast food companies by Caesar
Barber, who alleged that it was the companies’ fault that he was
obese. Barber’s lawyer, John Banzhaf, then tried to organize a
suit against fast food for children, saying the fact that the
children’s parents took them to the restaurant was “legally
irrelevant.”
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Serwer’s failure to mention the state of the legal system and the
necessity for reform was not surprising. The Free Market Project
study "Media
Malpractice" showed that the media routinely omit or give
incomplete coverage of tort reform.
    Serwer stated that “class action lawyers, fast food
executives, litigious obese people, and Congress” were acting
“foolishly.” Yet he ignored the benefits of personal responsibility
in society and the cost of offloading that responsibility. The Free
Market Project has reported on the John S. Tilley Ladder Co., which
was driven out of business in early 2004 by fear of litigation even
though the company was still profitable and says it never lost a
lawsuit. According to company President Robert Howland, “When you
buy a ladder, a quarter or more of the cost you pay is just for the
insurance.” Allowing companies to protect themselves from going out
of business and preventing people losing their jobs from lawsuits is
hardly foolish.
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