Next They'll Sue Fork Manufacturers
Trial lawyers are going after Big Food. An IBD editorial:
"Lawyers," Politico reported Wednesday, "are pitching state attorneys general in 16 states with a radical idea: Make the food industry pay for soaring obesity-related health care costs."The objective, says Politico, is to punish the "food and beverage companies" -- Big Food -- that have, "to some extent, contributed to the nation's obesity crisis" and force them to "pay for the costs of that portion."
This hustle is being led by Paul McDonald, a partner at Valorem Law Group in Chicago. His firm has sent the pitchmen out across the country to recruit for the scheme.
McDonald wants the food industry to pay for the "cost of what they're doing," which he says "the taxpayers are paying for."
We're all for taxpayer relief anytime and always.
But let's not get carried away by the promises of healthier food and lower taxes. If the state attorneys general take on this crusade, it will become a shakedown that merely lines trial lawyers' pockets in the mold of the $246 billion tobacco settlement.
Of course, nobody's mentioning that it was the government and the AMA that pushed the notion -- based in scientific hearsay, not scientific evidence -- that Americans should eat a low-fat, high-carb diet: precisely the diet that makes us fat and diabetic.
I eat low-carb and high fat, and it keeps me from getting hungry and helps me remain effortlessly thin.
And let's be effortlessly honest -- this is about who trial lawyers can wring money from. Ted Frank at the Center for Class Action Fairness has shown that big settlements mostly go to the lawyers and, often, little or nothing goes to the class they're supposedly suing on behalf of.
via @reasonpolicy
Hey, let's be effortlessly honest about something else, too: the tobacco settlement did not pay smokers.
It is so easy to fool a public that simply will not pay attention.
Radwaste at February 15, 2014 5:56 AM
Citing Ted Frank and Center for Class Action Fairness (hah!) is a bit one sided. Perhaps you should look at info from National Consumer Law Center or Public Justice on benefits of class actions and the need for consumer protection. Mr. Frank has an agenda.
The other point you are missing is that as with tobacco, product design preys on biochemical frailties and cognitive processes to fuel sales. Lines get crossed when products cause harm. Manufacturers and sellers who profit should bear those costs.
While you are correct that USDA food policy plays a part, it's much more than the food pyramid. Look, also, at farm subsidies at HFCS.
But spare me he cheap shot re-run FOX news/Rove-Bush attack on trial lawyers.
You want trial lawyers out? Put us outmost business via comprehensive regulation. Oh wait, you don't like over regulation? Cool. So you will simply trust that transnational corps will self-police and do the right thing? That seems a bit naive to me.
David Sugerman at February 15, 2014 8:33 AM
"The other point you are missing is that as with tobacco, product design preys on biochemical frailties and cognitive processes to fuel sales. Lines get crossed when products cause harm. Manufacturers and sellers who profit should bear those costs."
This isn't a point. It is psycho-lawyer-babble
Yes, manufacturers and advertisers are going to make their legal products as attractive as possible in order to entice you to buy them.
Ever single product out there is dangerous in some form or sufficient quantity to someone. There is no such thing as a complete safe product or safe packaging.
The day that marketing qualifies as a tort liability offense, is the day that the free market, and civilization comes to a screeching halt.
Just because some attorney sounded smart saying this, does not mean that it is not completely idiotic (which it is)
Isab at February 15, 2014 10:47 AM
on benefits of class actions
There is no benefit to class actions unless you happen to be a lawyer litigating such action.
It's a license to print money.
I R A Darth Aggie at February 15, 2014 11:14 AM
I wonder, which foods cannot be fattening? Even water contributes to the problem - fat cells cannot exist without it.
Alas, it will garner support because it is a "feel good" action easily spun as being "for the children®." As was alcohol prohibition, what politician (or even regular citizen) would stand up for drunkenness? Who will fight for being fat? Heck, I have been fat for almost seventy years but would not call it a "right" (OTOH, I do argue with some of the truly unthinking people I encounter).
And unlike the perils of alcohol and tobacco (note: I still smoke and used to drink heavily), no one really knows what causes obesity in general except in some rare extreme cases. The evidence is all over the place, even genetic makeup.
John A at February 15, 2014 11:33 AM
"Manufacturers and sellers who profit should bear those costs."
I don't suppose you noticed this - I rarely find anyone who has...
State governments, who regulated, permitted and profited from the sale of tobacco, were allowed to escape harmless from Big Tobacco lawsuits, even as their own health departments told them from the beginning that tobacco was killing their citizens.
There's justice for you.
Radwaste at February 16, 2014 12:57 PM
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