An eagle-eyed reader draws our attention to the June 29, 1988 New York Times, where the then-Lieutenant Governor of Vermont writes to the editor about a Times story on large damages awards in a libel case.

To the Editor:

Randall Bezanson and Gilbert Cranberg detailed a situation that I hope will get far worse. As a physician, I have been frustrated for years by the reluctance of state legislatures and the United States Congress to deal with liability problems of all kinds.

I have long maintained that until the legal profession and the news media are also afflicted with the increasingly severe consequences of a tort system that benefits few people outside the legal profession, there will be no return to a fair and reasonable system of justice.

The trends toward lawyers suing one another for malpractice and toward outrageous-size punitive damages in libel cases give me hope that the crisis in our tort system may finally come to the attention of those who can make this a public issue and improve the situation for all of us who require liability insurance to do business.

HOWARD DEAN, M.D.
Montpelier, Vt., June 17, 1988

The events of the past fifteen years should make Dr. Dean an even more enthusiastic proponent of tort reform; his Dean for America web site is somewhat more neutral.

Filed under: governors, libel slander and defamation, politics, Vermont