This is a man-bites-dog story (pun intended). A Texas woman has filed a $1 million tort claim against a neighbor whose dog was killed by her pit bulls for injuries she claims to have suffered while trying to restrain her dogs.
Her dogs got through a hole in a fence into the neighbor’s yard and attacked his 10-year-old beagle. He had already decided not to sue her for the loss of his dog, but because of this incident, the cops declared her dogs “dangerous,” which means she has to register them with the city, build a fence to confine them, put up warning signs, and carry liability insurance.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/texas-woman-sues-owner-of-dog-killed-by-her-pit-bulls/
Now here’s a lawsuit that will leave conservatives in a quandary. On one hand, they may have finally hit the jackpot in their never-ending quest for a bullshit lawsuit they can use as Exhibit A in their endless campaign against victims’ right to sue. On the other hand, they love their pit bulls, feel a strong affinity with other pit bull owners, and cherish their “freedom” to own pit bulls, so their natural instinct will be to side with the owner of the pit bulls, and if the neighbor can go to hell if doesn’t like her dogs. So this is really a lawsuit that should give conservatives an orgasm.
So-called “tort reform” is, of course, pure baloney. For years, “tort reform” advocates have blamed rising health care costs on trial lawyers (who are big Democratic donors). This is nonsense; legal claims account for less than 1% of total health care spending in the U.S., medical malpractice cases are hard to win, and the doctors who lose these cases are bad doctors who need to find some other line of work. (But unfortunately, state medical license regulation is so lax and ineffective that trial lawyers are effectively the only protection the public has against quack doctors.)
Needless to say, the tort “reformers,” having won legislative victories for bad doctors in numerous states, have no intention of stopping there. Their ultimate aim is to do away with tort lawsuits altogether. This is consistent with their libertarian philosophy that anyone ought to be free to do anything he pleases to his neighbors or anyone else and not have to pay for the injury and damage his exercise of “freedom” causes to others.
Pit bulls have become a political flashpoint because in a non-libertarian world — that is, in a civilized world — these dangerous dogs subject their owners to two things libertarians hate, government regulate and legal liability. Thus, owning a pit bull is a form of rebellion against both, and their pit bulls serve as a rallying point for expressing their disdain for laws and lawyers. But actually it’s the owner, not the dog. You might hear this a lot but it’s true. It is the person’s conscious decision to invest in a dog and therefore they are responsible for their actions. If this becomes a worry, then dog owners need to research their dog breeds to know what they should prepare for or even better, some top tips in how to properly care for that specific breed; for both physiological and psychological issues that could arise.
Now, even though this Texas woman is an idiot and a jerk, I don’t wish for her pit bulls to rip her stupid face off, although her legal claim against her neighbor suggests that’s a live possibility — remember, she got her injuries from her own damn dogs. (If they attack in her kitchen, who’s she gonna sue, the builder of her house? Nope, sorry, Texas has adopted “tort reform” for homebuilders, too, so that’s off the table.)
Being a lawyer with experience in personal injuries, I think our legal system (at least in this state) does a pretty good job of protecting the public from bullshit lawsuits. I’m not saying legal abuses never occur. One problem area has been anti-government crazies filing phony liens against the property of public employees; our legislature dealt with that pestilence by passing a law making this behavior a felony. And I don’t deny that deep-pocketed litigants (think corporations) get a tactical advantage from being able to afford top legal talent, investigators and expert witnesses, burdensome discovery, etc. But we don’t need phony “tort reform” in our state, because if someone files a frivolous lawsuit against you, the court can order them to reimburse your legal expenses including attorney fees under Civil Rule 11. That’s true of federal courts, too.
Our legal system doesn’t need “tort reform.” What we need is for people who insist on owning dangerous animals, and then fail to adequately confine them, to go to prison and lose everything they own if their animals get loose and rip some innocent person’s head off. Generally speaking, these are the same people who are currently agitating to send U.S. combat troops to Iraq and Syria to chase down and kill the ISIS terrorists who are cutting innocent people’s heads off over there, so they should have no difficult understanding the general principle behind my thinking on this subject.