One of the larger costs from the lack of tort reform is not so much the damages awards to undeserving plaintiffs or the fees that plaintiffs’ lawyers extract or the cost of hiring lawyers to defend, but the social costs imposed when decisions are made to avoid the risk of litigation: playgrounds shut down, bans on cold weather swimming (“Don’t be so wet”, The Economist, Oct. 2 (subscription required)).
The repercussions have been particularly severe in Colorado, where a fear of secondhand smoking suits caused the prison system there, where the vast majority of the 18,000 prisoners incarcerated are smokers, to ban tobacco. The result? An immediate creation of a black market with markups for tobacco far exceeding that for cocaine, and the expected associated violence and corruption that goes along with a widespread black market in prison. Eighteen guards, teachers, and supervisors have been prosecuted in three years, and a prisoner newsletter calls the tobacco contraband law “a retirement assistance program for correctional officers.” (Kirk Mitchell, “Ban turns tobacco into prison prize”, Denver Post, Oct. 13).
Comments are closed.