A common thread heard in the media and repeated by
politicians seeking reelection is to characterize the tort system as a
dishonest wealth shifting system that takes from the hard working
classes, and gives to shiftless lawyers and their clients. Hopefully,
Americans are smart enough and conscious enough of marketing to
understand defendants with interests in the outcome of litigation
author these themes. It costs insurance companies and defendants money
to defend claims. On a system wide scale, defendants stand to save
billions if they can whittle down claims and awards without regard to
the individual case.

According to a CNN investigation of
insurers, defendants and their insurers are adopting litigation
strategies of delaying and denying claims. The purpose of the
institutionalized strategy is increase profits or save money at the
expense of persons who have personal injuries or who have claims that
their real property has been injured.

But after a review of more
than 6,000 company documents and court records, interviews with a dozen
people nationwide, including former company insiders, and conversations
with accident victims, the picture is clear: If you challenge the offer
by some insurance companies you will be left with no option but to go
to court, where you will be dragged through the wringer.

The
article goes on to detail how interviews with former employees of
insurance companies and the investigation proved defendants employ
every artifice and device they can to demoralize plaintiffs and their
lawyers to escape responsibility in cases where they are clearly
responsible. There are other reports in the media of this conduct,
however, they are often lost in the studied and concentrated repetition
of the claim that our tort system has somehow run amok. However, anyone
that has had to deal with a difficult insurance company should see
through the sophistry.

Here is the truth, at least in the State
of Georgia: There are few false or frivolous claims in our tort system.
There are few lawyers that will spend hundreds of hours concocting weak
cases to make money on false claims. There are few areas where the
system will permit arbitrary assessment of liability. Persons should
think about this the next time they hear some story of a person
intentionally cutting off their finger, or damaging their own property
to fake a claim. These same themes were repeated by tobacco companies
for years, and billions of dollars were spent until tort lawyers - not
regulators and not smokers enlightened by their doctors - finally ended
the fraud. At least now if you want to smoke, you know you may be
buying a cigarette with a chemical brew designed to increase the
addictive effect.

What happened to the American ideal that people
and companies are responsible for their acts? These anti-litigation
themes are successful because people in our society are prone to search
for any reason to excuse their own individual responsibility for their
bad financial and life decisions, their greed, and their negligence. It
seems we live in a system where expectations of entitlement and greed
have replaced the idea that we are all responsible for the consequence
of our own actions, even if the acceptance of responsibility costs us
money.

reference: http://cnn.com/2007/US/02/09/insurance.hardball/index.html