Edition: U.S. / Global

TELEVISION REVIEW; Sue or Not to Sue? The Ayes and Nays

Published: March 23, 1995

On the affirmative side of "Resolved: We're Suing Ourselves to Death," tomorrow night's "Firing Line" debate, are four men with conservative affiliations who maintain that too many personal-injury suits are burdening businesses and consumers, doctors and patients and benefiting mainly the lawyers who churn up million-dollar suits for pain and suffering. Led by William F. Buckley Jr., the only nonlawyer on the premises at Fordham University Law School, they favor Congressional efforts to discourage suits and reduce settlements.

Arguing the negative are two of those big-time personal-injury lawyers; a Naderite lobbyist, and Alan Dershowitz, the all-purpose advocate known to everybody with a television set. They say restrictions on people's ability to sue will add injury to injury, bringing joy to negligent doctors and uncaring manufacturers. The threat of a suit, they contend, discourages businesses from making defective products and doctors from being careless, and so they oppose the crackdown on tort litigation in the Republican Contract With America.

It's a wandering sort of debate that never manages to resolve the basic question of whether frivolous suits (which no one defends) are flooding the courts and whether seven-figure awards by soft-hearted juries are in style. Nor is it made clear just how insurance companies play into the calculations. Still, the encounters are peppy. The lawyers whom Mr. Buckley calls ambulance chasers are described by Mr. Dershowitz as champions of injury victims in their battle against the rich, the powerful and the exploiters. Both Mr. Buckley and Mr. Dershowitz remove their jackets, but perhaps to the disappointment of the trial lawyers at hand, no battery ensues. Nevertheless, bloody shirts are waved by both sides. Steven Pegalis, a New York trial lawyer who has won scores of million-dollar jury verdicts, including two over $20 million, pleads for a patient who winds up a quadriplegic because of a hospital's negligence. Mr. Buckley takes note of the woman who won millions from McDonald's because she was burned by a cup of coffee. (Mr. Dershowitz agrees her suit "just doesn't pass the giggle test"; but his evening's ally, Pamela Gilbert, the consumer-group lobbyist, says the coffee was too hot.) A few of the exchanges become a touch personal. Michael Horowitz, of the Hudson Institute, says that the auto-injury suit (the most popular personal-injury case) has become a "hit-me-I-need-the-money system." And he asks, "If doctors are drunk, do we really need Mr. Pegalis to make $5 million out of that case?" He puts forward a somewhat vague proposal to encourage direct dealings between plaintiff and defendant that would avoid trials and heavy legal fees. Mr. Pegalis finds no appeal in that or in the suggestion by Peter W. Huber, of the Manhattan Institute, that lawyers be made to pay court costs when they lose. Thomas Moore (47 jury verdicts of $1 million or more) says depriving Jane Doe of her ability to sue would put her at the mercy of the fat cats. He laments that punitive damages are not easily obtained, referring perhaps to his recent performance on behalf of Sidney Zion against New York Hospital, which made for quite a show on Court Television but did not prove all that persuasive to the jury. Mr. Buckley brings the evening to a close with a wisecrack: if the parents of the Menendez brothers had lived, they would have been sued for child neglect. A FIRING LINE DEBATE Resolved: We Are Suing Ourselves to Death PBS, tomorrow at 9. (Channel 13 in New York) Produced and directed by Warren Steibel. Michael Kinsley, moderator. WITH: (For the resolution) William F. Buckley Jr., Peter Huber, Michael Horowitz and Edwin Weisl; (against the resolution) Alan Dershowitz, Steven Pegalis, Thomas Moore and Pamela Gilbert.