R-67 .. making it legal to sue the Mafia.

HorsesAss.Org» Blog Archive » Approve R-67: "SeattleJew says: A pox on every one’s houses. The insurance companies suck and the lawyers too. The idea that one needs to hire a $300/hr goon to shake up the Mafia to pay its protection money is sick! Hell, as I remember my days in Boston, the Mafia DID honor its commitments. Of course who in hell could afford a goon to go after Joe Tecci (Boston’s Mafia Boss then)? Anybody ever nhere of a Mafia sponsored book that did NOT pay off? Who would you trust .. a bookie or an insurance agent? If we had a god damn functional legal system, the friggin state would sue the assess of off abusive companies until the self satisfied managerial classniks figgered out that it was in their interest to play fair. Legislating by referring everything to the civil courts is EXPENSIVE. Ever talk to a shyster lawyer about this? You get a whole lot of sanctimonious cow turd soup (much less impressive than bull shit consome?) about how THEY make the system work! Yeh?? I make a reasonable middle class income.

More than once, faced with a legal issue involving someone bigger than me, my attny has counseled to back off because they will outspend me in court. BTW, one of those making this threat was the State of Washington, under AG Gregoire. As some may know, I have a distaste for our governor and this is a (past) reason. BTW, the State backed of when, with the help of a friend at the Seattle Times, I managed to leak a version of the story to UW administrators. The number of dollars I was threatened with, in a situation where I would ultimately have won, was in the 100s of thousands of dollars. This sort of behavior, whether by the State or any $$ rich party, makes Tony Soprano’s knee capping sum buddy look benign.

My opinion on this matter also poisons my feelings toward John Edwards. I know he made a lot of $$ by helping a lot of poor people. As much as I like the sentiments of Mr. Edwards, this way of making $$ does bother me. If Edwards is sincere about supporting Jane and John Everyperson, then I would like to see him propose meaningful reform to equalize the playing field. BTW, I really get ticked when a lawyer used baseball or football terms as if the legal system were a damn game … you know like baseball? How much is A Rod asking for his services?

I will defer to others who know loads more than SJ about the law, but some thoughts about ways to make things at least somewhat better:

a. expand the scope of small claims court.
b. guarantee legal representation to the challenged side in any law suit. If BillyG sues, he ought not to be able to bankrupt me just cuz he controls Bogle and Gates.
c. For insurance companies, create review boards that have teeth. Hell, if a cop roughs up some poor soul, we review that. If a friggin insurance company does the same thing? Good luck if you ain’t rich.
d. tax the civil court attorney’s fees and use the tax to equalize the playing field. You wanna hire Clarence Darrow for 2 grand/hr? Fine. And we will collect $500 of that to subsidize the legal costs of your victim target poor shumck opponent.

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