I see the House passed, 276-139, the “cheeseburger bill” to protect fast food manufacturers for frivolous law suits. I’m not sure that’s a good idea.
Why not? You think those sorts of law suits are stupid, right?
Well, yeah. They’re a perversion of the justice system, and only discourage personal responsibility.
So why not this bill?
I worry when I see particular industries getting a bye on liability. Seems like a recipe for disaster.
You think tobacco companies should be sued?
Tobacco companies sell a demonstrably and manipulatively addictive product. They also, for decades, stonewalled any scientific effort to show that the product is harmful to you. The only thing addictive about french fries is that they taste good, and not even Ronald McDonald says they’re harmless for you.
So why not this bill?
If the suits are truly frivolous, they’ll get tossed out. That’s what’s happened before.
Though it costs these companies money to defend themselves. And money for insurance against the off chance that some yahoo judge will actually let something like this go by.
Yeah, but it’s … inelegant. I’ve disagreed with taking court action “off the table” in other contexts, too.
But that’s money that could go toward jobs — not just flipping burgers, but restaurant management, suppliers, constuction workers, folks at the home office …
I know. Though it’s a bit disengenuous to claim that the 12 million jobs in the restaurant industry are at stake with these sort of suits.
So what’s your beef (so to speak)?
It just seems like, even if it’s a good idea to forestall such suits here, it sets a further precedent for blocking them in far less defendable areas.
So you’d rather let unelected judges …
Well, judges in a lot fo jurisdictions are elected. But even where not, they tend to be more immune to either populist grandstanding …
… a funny thing for someone who believes in representational democracy to say …
… or campaign-coffer stuffing, at least compared to legislators.
Well, what does the bill actually block?
The House bill, sponsored by Rep. Ric Keller, R-Fla., would:
– Prohibit many obesity or weight-related claims against the food industry.
– Still allow claims to go forward if state or federal laws had been broken and as a result a person gained weight.
Given that there’s been increased emphasis on these sorts of suits — both by lawyers hungering for some big crap-shoot wins, and by Nosey Nelly “food activists” who want to legislate nutritional morality, don’t you think it’s appropriate to draw those sorts of boundaries?
Maaaaaybe. I just don’t know. It rubs me the wrong way. I mean, if it’s true in principle, maybe what we need is a general “personal responsibility” clause in the legal system, rather than one that cherry-picks just one industry at a time. If the law is broken, then they’re liable. If not, then they’re not.
Except that would get back to the tobacco industry.
Except they’re rat bastards.
Right. Well, there you go.
(Yes, I have these sorts of conversations with myself in the car.)
I’m with you on this one Dave, though I honestly think the tobacco suits rub me the wrong way as well.
At least in the case of tobacco it is clear that they intentionally went out of their way to make their product as addictive as possible and tried to cover up the research showing how bad their products were for your health. So I can sorta justify those lawsuits to myself though it still smacks to me of absolving people of the personal responsibility of their actions. Addictive or not, you have to make a concerted effort to get hooked on smoking. I know, I smoked for all of two-weeks in my youth before deciding if it took that much work to “get used to it” that that should be telling me something about the illogic in trying.
Another example similar to the fast food industry is the gun industry. I have a problem with the lawsuits filed against gun makers for the same reasons I would the fast food lawsuits. Personally, I think your suggestion of a “personal responsibility” rule or clause in the justice system would be a very reasonable route to take. At the very least I would hope that Judges would be encouraged to consider personal responsibility in these cases as they come up.
A bit more detailed article in the NYT.
The main problem the opponents of the bill have here is that they can’t decide if the bill is frivolous, or is an monstrous outrage in the face of the growing (so to speak) obesity problem. And for everyone who says, “well, it’s not a huge legal issue, so why are we wasting time on a bill like this,” we get quotes such as:
But Dr. Neal Barnard, president of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, called the measure unwise because obesity was gaining new recognition as a significant health problem. “Given that we are just now beginning to discover the industry’s involvement, granting them sweeping immunity is, at best, dangerously short-sighted,” Dr. Barnard said.
… which sure makes it seem like some folks think those sorts of law suits are worthwhile.
Despite significant bipartisan support for the bill, it was painted as a Republican industry-pandering thang.
The measure was the latest Republican-led effort to provide legal immunity for a specific industry after efforts to impose broader limits have been blocked. Last week, a measure to provide immunity to gun manufacturers and dealers was defeated. Last year, a broad energy measure stalled over resistance to granting immunity to producers of a gasoline additive blamed for water pollution. In the past, Republicans pressed for immunity for the tobacco industry and producers of vaccines.
The gun dealers one was defeated more by tacking unwanted (by the sponsor) side amendments. Still, that list (as presented) does reinforce the idea that once you start conceptually tinkering with liability restrictions, it becomes really easy to spread them around.
I can think of arguments in favor of each of those liability limitation bills, of course (gun manufacturers cannot be held responsible for the use of the guns by buyers; vaccines serve such a societal good that scaring companies away from manufacturing them due to a few outlying cases of bad side effects is undesirable; fast food is legal, and letting folks sue because they didn’t bother to read or understand the calorie counts is silly; tobacco is legal, too).
I have different reactions to each of them, though, and continue to be torn (as above) by an impulse to require folks to be responsible for their lives, and worry about poltically-motivated inappropriate immuinities being granted to uncaring corporations and industries.
The rhetoric in the BoingBoing reference to the NYT article bugs me, too:
Republican lawmakers are trying to enact the “Cheeseburger Bill,” which will shield restaurant chains from lawsuits for inducing super-sized obesity in their customers.
See? Fast food restaurant chains are “inducing” obesity in their customers (no doubt with nuclear-powered remote obesity induction rays). Poor, poor customers …