Law

Federal and state lawmakers have been arguing the issues surrounding tort reform for several decades.  Tort law allows someone who feels victimized by a product, service, or neglected at the hands of a business practice to be legally compensated for damages.  Until recently, victims have been able to recover not only putative damages, but they were allowed to recover damages for pain and suffering as well.  Enter politics into the arena.  Both the Republicans and Democrats have taken opposite sides concerning the issue of tort law and the reformation thereof, but it still leaves the victim in the middle.
   
The partisan issue of tort reform leaves Democrats pushing against it full force.  Democrats argue that this reformation leaves individuals out in the cold without any possibility for civil justice to correct the wrongs done to them.  Those against tort reform suggest that the cost of tort law is minimal compared to the flawed figures being posted for public view.  Medical malpractice has been a highly focused issue with regard to this scale of civil modification.  Victims of medical malpractice would disagree wholeheartedly.  Democrats feel that the entire scope of the situation is being navigated away from in order to achieve political gain on behalf of the Republican Party.  Victims of civil injustice are being used as pawns, scapegoats, and stepping stones in order to put more censorship on a victims rights.  A patient who was sexually assaulted by a dentist while sedated in a dental chair is clearly entitled to compensation.  A patient who enters a hospital for knee surgery but comes out with a vasectomy should be entitled to compensation.  A new car owner who is involved in a wreck and is paralyzed from the neck down due to a sticking gas pedal malfunction is legally entitled to be compensated.  Arguably, members of the Republican Party are constantly at odds with other members of the house concerning issues of Medicare and Social Security.  If
tort reform is truly achieved, then the programs of Medicare and Social Security will be overrun with victims of product liabilities and medical malpractice.
   
Members of the Republican Party contend that tort reform is long overdue.  Republicans cite the rise in healthcare insurance and private insurance to be at the fault of the flawed civil justice of tort law.  In legal terms, a tort is a form of personal injury by which the victim of the incident is due an award for damages.  In the past, tort law suggested that the victim had no fault given the incident at hand, but it is now implied that all victims had at least a nominal amount of responsibility in reference to their victimization.  This is preposterous.  Attorneys who practice tort law have been stereotyped as being ambulance chasers, yet on every television there are commercials advertising different law firms who will take any case for free.  Apparently, the monetary gains received from these lawsuits are more lucrative than originally imagined.  The Democratic Party stipulates that the measures being used to reform tort law not only infringe upon an individuals personal rights, but the reform law also is in direct violation of certain constitutional rights.  The First Amendment guarantees all citizens of the United States the freedom of speech.  Within this speech is contained the right to express oneself and to speak out against incidents of wrongdoings done them.  The Ninth Amendment also contents that specific rights shall not be denied or kept from the citizens of the United States.  It would appear that the Republican Party is wishing to rewrite the Bill of Rights in order to make the laws of the land a little more fitting to their personal desires.
   
The legal issue of tort reform is a partisan issue pitting Republicans and Democrats against one another.  The Republicans support tort reform, and the Democrats are completely against it.

The effect that state authorized tort reform has had on its victims is saddening.  Some victims of torts have no way to redeem themselves financially or otherwise without the opportunity for civil
justice.  Constitutional rights are in direct violation with regard to the new reform laws being enforced.  Every citizen has the fundamental right to pursue life, be free, and be happy.  It would seem that the fundamental freedoms once so actively enjoyed in the United States are now censored.  Tort reform is a position of civil unrest that leaves one choosing the lesser of two evils.  It will produce a massive snowball effect that will severely damage the image and integrity of the civil justice legal system.