It’s quite possible, and indeed, I think quite progressive, to criticise the American political system for resolving too many divisive issues through the courts. That’s another story, I guess, but it certainly is the case that many political shifts have been aided and abetted by litigation in the US; one only has to name Brown v. Board of Education or Roe v. Wade. On a slightly different plane, much environmental legislation in the US and regulation had its origins in class action lawsuits pursued in the 60s and 70s, often under the auspices of public interest groups. That’s how Ralph Nader became famous.
So it’s really quite intriguing to consider the possible implications of a Fifth Circuit court decision giving Hurricane Katrina victims standing to sue corporations for damages. Such a development might well concentrate legislative and corporate minds.
So your position on the US legal system is that it is over-litigous and divisive, except when you think it might advance one of your causes when it becomes appropriate and necessary?
The comments thread in the piece you link to, largely a mixture of hilarity and scorn, gets the implications pretty well. I particularly liked “Since everyone is or will be effected by the “Climate Change” then everyone should be a member of the class and get some of the lawsuit money. Also, everyone except the Unibomber uses energy produced through burning of fossil fuels so we should all be defendants in the lawsuit. Therefore everyone should pay everyone.”
One would presume the Almighty to be co-defendant, after all, Hurrican Katrina WAS largely his work.
No, that is not my position. I didn’t express approval of the litigation, just noted that it may be significant.
And those aren’t necessarily the criticisms I would make of the US legal system. If I chose to discuss that, I’d argue it at more length. It’s an observation in passing, as is clear from what I actually wrote.
I’d suggest you read the actual post next time before you read stuff into it.
Such a development may well concentrate legislative and corporate minds… but probably not as much as when individual legislators or directors become liable. Perhaps we’d get a decent CPRS out there if the possibility existed for Rudd and Wong to be sued for environmental damages caused by over-subsidised carbon polluters.
Yes, it sounds like fantasy even to myself. But that’s what crossed my mind when I read the title of this post.
Stevo, are you referring to God Inc. and its shareholders?
I don’t think the Americans are particularly alone in have the courts manifest political realities that the politicians have been slow to under stand.
After all, there’s this, and this and this. And that’s just off the top of my head.
Just finished reading last month Matt Peacock’s book ‘Killer Company’ – the story of the James Hardie asbestos. JH had bribed and corrupted Australia’s political system after the first successful litigation in 1939 such that it was pretty much untouchable. But all this started to unravel when litigations from the US where Americans where dying from JH products and suing in US courts from the 1960s. A couple of nice payouts saw QBE trying to extract itself as insurer and the ball began to gain momentum.
Only by making killing people unprofitable were companies and mines forced to modify behaviour, and the US courts helped in making people sick not profitable – if that’s litigious and bad then I like litigious and bad.
I hope the courts could be used to help making the destruction of the environment unprofitable – downsides are the difficulty in providing proof and the slow processes.
I’m a bit rusty on the detail, but memory tells me that the relevant authorities knew the levies in New Orleans would be overwhelmed under foreseeable circumstances and that there were proposals to fix them which were not funded. On the face of it you could make a good case without invoking AGW.
Nevertheless IMHO planning in places like New York, Singapore and even The Netherlands, to name three where I’ve read specifics, are underestimating the risk by a fair margin and could get caught seriously short.
Successfully fingering the coal lobby, however, would seem a bit more difficult.
In August, I went to the Philippines courtesy of DFAT to talk about adaptation to climate change. One of the people I met was an environmental lawyer, Antonio Oposa, an extraordinary man who has taken the Philippines government to court for polluting Manila Bay and for climate change (the latter where he represented the children likely to be affected).
Becuse governance is so limited, he had managed to get legislation through that preserves the right of third party citizens to sue for environmental damage those rights have recently largely been removed in Australia in planning arenas). He then used that legislation to cause trouble.
He is now after the G8.
Richard Green @6: yes, indeed. And therein lies the huge problem with this sort of thing. It is not the job of the courts to “manifest political realities”, however slow the politicians are to understand (and if they are, it suggests in fact that such are not political realities at all). The only job of the courts is to manifest legal realities.
Mark (I assume) @3: Yes, I concede that I “read stuff into it”. Thank you for the clarification. I have lurked around here long enough, though, to know that I am far from the only commenter who extrapolates from actual texts – and it would make for a pretty literal-minded, not to say boring, conversation if we didn’t – and that it is only those of us with a certain viewpoint who get slapped down in those sorts of terms for it. The answer if you don’t want people to pick up on throwaway linse is not to make them in the first place.
Excellent news and I sincerely trust the tort will proceed. As in Australia, the US Environmental Protection Act was legislated during the 70s for:
“the prevention, control and abatement of pollution and environmental harm, for the conservation, preservation, protection, enhancement and management of the environment……”
The Act has been manipulated and corrupted to protect the interests of multi-national mining corporations and continues to do so. Class actions and mass protests by victims around the planet, against the multi-national mining companies, extend to human rights abuses, loss of livelihoods, deaths and the desecration of ecosystems:
“(A) lawsuit, filed Friday in the Allegheny County Common Pleas Court (US) but not made public until Monday, accuses the aluminum producer of negligence, recklessness and deceit. It seeks an unspecified amount in monetary damages for 10 plaintiffs, nine of whom live near Alcoa’s Wagerup plant about 80 miles south of Perth.
“Plaintiffs claim Alcoa, which has its headquarters in New York and operations center in Pittsburgh, is responsible for their bouts with various forms of cancer and heart complications as well as sinus and skin problems. One victim is said to have died from contaminants released by the refinery.
“Court documents were filed for 240 additional Australian plaintiffs who claim to have experienced similar injuries:”
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/s_628669.html
Australian citizens have now resorted to seeking the assistance of Erin Brockovich. One must ask why taxpayers in this “first” world country are propping up departments of environment and health when senior bureaucrats remain the rent boys of pollutant industries?:
“US health crusader Erin Brockovich is going in to battle for two more WA towns whose residents say industrial pollution has put their lives at risk.”:
http://www.news.com.au/perthnow/story/0,27574,26062913-2761,00.html
Treasury chief Ken Henry predicted today that the resource boom in WA and Queensland could run for decades and that Perth’s population could swell to four million. Expect then to see many more class actions from the citizens of these states as the grim reapers proceed to further desecrate our fragile environment with impunity.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0409/p06s01-woam.html
http://protestbarrick.net/downloads/barrick_report.pdf