Massive Oinquebama gift to trial lawyers

The dem party of course claims to be the party of the common man while its two main pillars of financial support are govt. unions and trial lawyers....

Why should I have a problem with this? The medical costs go to the party causing the accident; the victim gets medical costs paid regardless of who gets the final bill. Less motivation, and less need for the injured party to initiate a lawsuit. Anything on the order of pain, suffering, injury to lifestyle, and punititive damages would go to the victim, not Medicare.

If I'm missing something here, bring me up to date.

You're not missing anything, Roger. Private insurance companies routinely place liens on a potential judgment to collect what they've spent for medical treatment on behalf of the insured.

Why SHOULDN'T you or anybody else have a problem with that? That's basically just Borque Oinquebama issuing a new kind of hunting license to his lawyer paymasters and anybody who drives a car is a potential prey animal.

I missed that part, but otherwise, it still sounds entirely reasonable.

If you were to remove enough parts, Mein Kampf might sound reasonable....

"Borque Oinquebama?" Cripes, that's even worse than "DemoKKKerats." Why spell it "oinquebama?" Are you suggesting that Obama is French? Or did someone on Free Republic already take "oinkbama?" And what kind of nickname is "borque?" Is that supposed to be an insult? Or are you just comparing Obama to Ray Bourque, award-winning blueliner for the Boston Bruins?

Y'know, gunga, it's time you realized that you're just not very good at this nicknaming business. The ones that you come up with aren't clever or insulting or trenchant, they're just confusing. You really need to take up a new hobby.

It's not exactly a new theory. Civil rights claims under 42 U.S.C. sec. 1983 are brought by private attorneys on behalf of their clients under the idea that the clients (and their attorneys) act as private attorneys general who are enforcing the civil rights laws.

As far as that's nothing new, either. The civil rights statutes have attorneys fees provisions in them: the person who violated the statute pays the plaintiff's attorney's fees. Moreover, lawyers routinely enter into contingency agreements with their clients for a portion of the amount they recover on behalf of the client.

If those who were discriminated against had to wait until they could afford to pay the lawyer up front, many of them would never have access to the courthouse and to justice.

What you described is similar to a statutory fee provision or a contingency agreement. The lawyer files a lien on behalf of the government program that paid the injured person's medical benefits as a result of the tortfeasor's negligence.

If the tortfeasor is ordered to pay the injured person damages for medical costs, the government program (medicare/medicaid/health insurance) is reimbursed out of the medical costs portion of the damages award. Injured person does not collect twice, and the person who injured the benefits recipient in effect pays the injured person's medical costs.

In states where automobile personal injury liability insurance is required, the tortfeasor's insurance company pays the judgment up to its policy limits. If the tortfeasor does not have personal injury liability insurance, only then is he or she responsible for the judgment. And in cases where that person is indigent, most lawyers recognize that it's useless to go after someone who can't pay a judgment. (Okay, I'll admit that there are some who will do it nonetheless on the theory that the person could someday win the lottery . . . .)

What you described, gunga, sounds like a way for government to get reimbursed for payments it would not have had to make but for someone else's negligence. Sounds pretty fair to me.

Well, not exactly. This isn't a straightforward subrogation action brought by the government against the tortfeasor, it's a qui tam proceeding brought by a stranger to the proceedings who is suing to enforce the government's rights. Granted, in the end it amounts to the same thing, but the difference is that it's not the government's lawyers who are doing the suing.

And that's why the government won't have to hire more personnel to do the recoupment. So the government saves money, the dems promote private entrepreneurship (gee, that ought to make the republicans happy), and the economy gets another boost.