Examiner feature: are the courts under attack from big business and insurers?

Stephen D. Phillips: In an interview with a contributor to The Examiner, he gives his view on tort reform campaigns, frivolous-lawsuit claims and why access to the civil justice system matters. The statistics are his own statements in the interview.

Attorney Stephen D. Phillips · Personal Injury FAQs · 7-minute 18-second answer

Transcript

Automatically transcribed from the video’s audio and lightly edited.

Hi, I’m John Moyer, contributing to The Examiner, and you’ve probably seen commercials talking about if you’ve been injured in an accident, call ex-attorney. And oftentimes, those kind of commercials come across as cliché, or they wind up becoming fodder for a comedy sketch show, but it’s a very serious business if you’re the person that’s been injured. And unfortunately, there’s a lot of people that think those particular kind of lawsuits should not happen. And joining with me today to talk about that is Stephen D. Phillips. He is the managing partner of Phillips Law Offices in Chicago. Stephen, thanks for being here. Hi, thanks for having me. Hope everybody’s doing well today. We are. Now, let me ask you a question. Why do you feel that the courts are under attack by big businesses and big insurance companies against these kinds of lawsuits that are out to try to help the proverbial little guy? And what’s going on with those particular type of situations? Why is that happening? I’m sorry. Why is that happening? Well, about 10 years ago, the big business, mega-corporations, decided that they wanted to take the little guy out of the courtroom completely and cut out injury cases, and in their eyes, cut down on litigation. And what they did was they hired the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Washington to have a whole group entitled Legal Reform. And their sole mission is to close the courthouse doors, and they’re not badful about it, to little people, to the common man on the street, to make sure that the person who is injured or hurt through asbestos or through a dangerous product or through an automobile accident is not allowed to get full fair compensation. And the Chamber is spending tons and tons and tons of money. Better yet, the Chamber is spending millions and millions of dollars supporting candidates across the United States that feel as though tort reform, which is really just a fancy phrase that sounds like Mom’s apple pie and Chevrolet, because they use the word reform, but all it means is change, and the change is negative towards injured people. And that’s their mission, and they spend a lot of money publicizing false statistics, junk science, loaded data to try and inflame the passions of the public. So with that being the case, it’s basically a PR spin, is what you’re saying. And so why should the media or why should the people not believe what they’re hearing in the media and from these politicians relative to that subject? Well, that’s an excellent question. And myself being a fact guy, I’m a firm believer that facts settle cases and facts win arguments. And the facts are, which you’ll never hear, is that across the United States, in the last 10 years, civil justice lawsuits, the filings are down by about 25%. Wow. That’s huge. Yeah. No one would ever believe that based on the rhetoric and the advertisements and the inflammatory language used by big business and insurance industry. And people also don’t understand that if you take 100% of the civil filings in the civil justice system, 70% of those filings are these big businesses suing other businesses and people for money and only about 6% of all lawsuits filed across the country are for injured people or people whose families members were killed as a result of negligence. And it’s huge. Yeah. So how is the court system set up to be able to provide the public protection against people or businesses that hurt them? Well, as I often say, if a jury was made up of 12 CEOs of a big corporation or 12 injured people, we know what the result would be. What our forefathers set up with the right to trial by jury in the Seventh Amendment is a jury of your peers, which brings together a conglomerate of all people from all walks of life to judge their fellow human being. And that allows everybody to have a say in the democratic system of the court system. We have to make sure that the courts provide access to justice for everybody, not just big business trying to collect money. People who are injured, and I always say to everybody, you know, you look at the court system as a potential issue or a negative until you need it. Right. And that’s why people are injured. They need the court system because it’s the only place where they can level the playing field against big business and the insurance industry who have billions and billions in profits every year to fund their defense. And that’s why it’s obviously really important that when somebody does get injured, unfortunately, though they make sure that they really kind of do their due diligence to be able to talk to somebody like yourself that really knows what they’re talking about and also has the best interests of the client in mind, because that’s really key. Absolutely. And, you know, another point that people bring up is frivolous lawsuits, frivolous lawsuits. Well, as a personal injury lawyer, a lawyer who represents injured people for over 30 years, the last thing I want to do and the last thing my peers want to do is file a frivolous lawsuit where we’re not going to be able to recover. We’re business people, too. Right. And if we’re going to carry a case for three or five years, our payroll keeps going. Our expenses keep going. Our rent, our own insurance bills keep coming at us. Why the heck would we file a case that we don’t think is meritorious? Exactly. That’s what people don’t understand. And what people don’t hear is about the frivolous defenses filed by the insurance companies to wear injured people down, to put up roadblocks to a speedy and efficient recovery with the hope that injured people will finally throw in the towel and say, enough, just settle my case for whatever you can get. And I can tell you story after story about frivolous defenses to meritorious lawsuits that you’ll never hear about because the insurance companies don’t want you to hear about it. Right. Yeah. Well, certainly a lot to think about, and you’ve definitely provided some really interesting insights, some interesting information, and hopefully, well, hopefully somebody doesn’t get hurt, but if they do, hopefully now that they can be a little bit more informed and talk to somebody like yourself. Stephen Phillips from Phillips Law Offices in Chicago, thank you so much for talking to me today. Thank you, John. Have a really good day, guys. You too.

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