Alabama Injury Lawyers Blog

Talk about "activist judges." When people talk about activist judges, they are referring to judges who make law, rather than interpret law. They think only "liberal judges" make law. However most activist judges are big business conservatives many say.

For years, the law in this country would not allow people or corporations to enter into arbitration agreements until they had a dispute that needed resolving. In other words, the courts would not enforce pre-dispute contracts to arbitrate. The courts thought the dispute should be known before constitutional rights could be waived. Once people knew there was a dispute that needed settling, they could chose to go to arbitration instead of going to court. Generally only big businesses and contractors used the arbitration process. Big corporations were much more successful in front of arbitrators they hired. Big business learned that if they could lure people to arbitration it was a win -- win for them. Traditionally, the courts would not enforce arbitration agreements unless the dispute was known and those involved knowingly chose to arbitrate, giving up their rights to a jury trial and ever going to court.

How could big business get around the law or get it changed? If they could entice people to sign an arbitration agreement before the people knew there was a dispute and somehow get the courts to enforce the arbitration scheme, they would have it made. They thought it would be even easier if they could trap people into arbitration without them knowing it. "We could keep the consumer from suing us no matter what -- buying a bad car, charging something on a credit card that shouldn't have been charged, and even taking money out of their bank account that we shouldn't have taken. We could even deny them their Constitutional right to trial by jury and fix it so they cannot appeal what our arbitrator says."

We know that cannot happen in America -- can it? The courts would never go along with Americans being denied their right to go to court and justice - would they? The Founders put the right to trial by jury in the very first 10 Amendments, along with freedom to bear arms, freedom of speech, and freedom of religion. These are fundamental rights of every American, right? They cannot trick us into signing a contract that is against the law. For a contract to be enforceable, both parties have to know what they are doing, agree to it, and exchange something of value--just like buying a candy bar, a car, or even a house.

Believe it or not, it has happened! With money, power, and influence the special interests have managed to avoid being sued in court for the wrongs they do. "You can't sue us and take us to court," they say,"but if you have enough money, you can go before our arbitrators; of course, you have to pay, you are bound by what they say. No court for you, no jury of your peers, no right to appeal! You take what the arbitrator gives you, ha! If anything."

Credit card companies can now legally bury the "so called agreement" in a long document of fine print; send it in the mail, and if you use your credit card again, the courts will say you agreed to arbitration. Even though you had no idea or knowledge that would be the result. Your bank can bury the "so called agreement" in a long deposit agreement of fine print and the Supreme Court will say you entered a contract to arbitrate if you use your bank account again in any way. Big Business is rewarded with a "get out of jail free card." "What" you say, "that can't be true!" Well it is true! It is time to wake up and stop supporting those who are stripping our constitutional rights. Talk about courts and big business and big government controlling you, manipulating you, and leaving you with what the bird left on the pump handle (to use a phrase of the south), -- it has happened!

Even when Congress passes a law clearly requiring credit repair organizations to inform you of your "right to sue" for violations of the law, the U.S. Supreme court held 8-1 that Congress did not rule out arbitration for settling CROA (Credit Repair Organizations Act) violations despite the Act's provision, that said, the company must tell customers they had a right to sue. Guess Congress was just kidding.

In the U.S. Supreme Court's recent decision in CompuCredit Corp. v. Greenwood, the Court held that victims of predatory credit repair organizations who unwittingly and unknowingly sign credit card agreements containing pre dispute mandatory arbitration clauses cannot go to court, but must go to binding arbitration. (CompuCredit Corp. v. Greenwood, No. 10-948 (Jan. 10, 2012).)

It is hard to believe that when Congress says, "right to sue," the Court would say that means, "right to arbitrate," not "right to sue." Justice Antonin Scalia wrote for the majority, concluding even though the Act says "right to sue" the law "is silent" on where you could sue, (don't you sue in court?), so since the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) requires the enforcement of arbitration agreements, you must go to binding arbitration. So there!

"The Federal Arbitration Act does not work for consumers and employees," said Gary Paul, president of American Association for Justice. "It is time for Congress to pass the Arbitration Fairness Act to protect consumers and employees from these abusive practices."
Gregory S. Cusimano

We don't need big government -- only a government big enough to to keep mega financial corporations from destroying our pensions, 401Ks and savings.

We don't need big government -- only a government big enough to regulate and keep massive oil companies from wrecking our commercial fisheries, decimating our sea food industries, destroying our coastlines, beaches, and demolishing our environment.

We don't need big government -- only a government big enough to keep us safe from pharmaceutical corporations grabbing billions in profits rather than properly testing medicines that are supposed to help us. We just need a government big enough to keep them from lying to our good doctors about medicines they spend millions to advertise that could and do kill us.

We don't need big government -- only a government big enough to prevent fraudsters and crooks from manipulating the stock market and scamming good honest Americans, robbing them of their future.

We don't need big government -- only a government big enough to regulate and develop clean water systems and keep uncaring corporations from polluting the air we breath and the water we drink without us even knowing about it.

We don't need big government -- only a government big enough to protect us from foods that can poison us from products sold and imported from foreign countries that injure and kill our children and families.

We don't need big government -- only a government big enough to insure we have available funds from our payments to Social Security to help take care of us in our senior years and medicare to help with our medical cost.

We don't need big government -- only one that will assure we won't die on the street from a treatable medical conditions because we don't have the money or insurance to cover the cost.

We don't need big government -- only a government that will assure when we fly in planes, the tops won't rip off because of bad maintenance.

We don't need big government -- only a government that will protect us from terrorism and attack from enemies without and within.

We don't need big government -- only a government that will protect our borders.

We don't need Lawyers -- only lawyers skilled in trial to protect our essential Constitutional rights of freedom of religion, freedom of speech, the right to bare arms.

We don't need Lawyers -- only lawyers skilled in trial to protect our essential Constitutional right to a jury trial rather than an arbitration scheme we can't afford.

We don't need Lawyers -- only lawyers skilled in trial to help us get justice when we have been cheated by crooked businesses and others taking advantage of us.

We don't need Lawyers -- only lawyers skilled in trial to secure payment of our just insurance proceeds when an insurance company that took our money refuses to pay our benefits.

We don't need Lawyers -- only lawyers skilled in trial to help us get justice when we contracted and paid for a new roof, or even a new home and we are unable to get the company to honor their promises.

We don't need Lawyers -- only lawyers skilled in trial to enforce the law when we have suffered discrimination, unequal pay and denied equal opportunity.

And yet we all fall for the same propaganda, over and over again that we should weaken our government regulations and our justice system because it is inefficient and out of control. Yes, it is inefficient but should we trust corporate America and their CEOs to do the right thing? Government and the judicial system is the only chance we citizens have to keep in check big money, big power, big influence and big special interest. We have never seen out of control until we allow big money, big power, big influence and big special interest to run roughshod over our citizens rights, without reasonable regulation of government and the threat of litigation.

They spend billions of dollars marketing their snake oil, and we willingly take it!
Br Gregory S. Cusimano

"No one believes that the justice system can be either perfect or pure because judges, lawyers, jurors, witnesses and government officials are human beings. Nonetheless, justice must be, as much as possible, an impartial and unbiased application of the law to the facts, which means that those who serve the law must be the best we have."
 
What a true statement.  Human beings, be they judges, lawyers, or jurors, are instruments in the Anglo-American justice system.  This system is not a robotic machine, but instead an assembly line of people, each with an important role to play.  And if our justice system is flawed, it is flawed only because we, as human beings, are flawed. Lawyers feel the pressure of the expectations of their clients. Judges feel the pressure of getting elected or getting the appointment depending on the system. Jurors feel the pressure of attitudes and beliefs created by the media and other special interest.
 
Even the most successful players in our justice system feel these pressures.  In the 1980s, trial lawyer Richard "Dickie" Scruggs did very well for himself by collecting millions for Asbestos victims.  By the 1990s, Mr. Scruggs had made an even bigger name for himself by representing the State of Mississippi against the Tobacco industry.  Despite these tremendous accomplishments, Mr. Scruggs was not immune to the pressure of great expectations, as Ben Toledano notes in his book review of The Fall of The House of Zeus: The Rise and Ruin of America's Most Powerful Trial Lawyer.   
 
Despite our flawed nature, achieving justice requires an impartial and unbiased application of the law to the facts.  To achieve this goal, each person on the assembly line must strive to set aside personal motivations, such as greed, ambition and a "win at any cost" attitude, so that a blindfolded lady justice may weigh the facts presented upon the scales of the law. Strive is the operative word, because no one can be completely objective.  When those on the assembly line allow personal motivations to outweigh the impartial application of the law to the facts, lady justice's blindfold is removed and our system fails. It happens more than it should, but there is no perfect system. Regardless, the very best from our society must work on this assembly line.  We should continue to use our best efforts to make it as fair as humanly possible , knowing that we will never achieve perfection.
By: Greg Cusimano and Eric Wood

Some people throughout the United States have received excess radiation as a result of medical imaging. Many of the scanners were GE machines. A case has been filed by our firm and others to create a medical monitoring fund to provide annual or semi-annual testing. The testing will (1) provide earlier detection of cancerous tumors resulting from the radiation; and (2) provide early detection to allow quick and decisive treatment.

GE has asked the Court to dismiss the case and is claiming that the patients' hair loss and subcellular damage are not a "present injury."

Hearing will be held in Washington D.C. this week concerning the safety and safeguards that can or should be implemented. Patients are hopeful that the hearings scheduled to be held tomorrow by the Committee on Energy and Commerce (Subcommittee on Health) will ask substantive questions regarding the safeguards that GE, and other CT manufacturers, have failed to include in their machines which would have ensured patient safety and eliminated this unnecessary risk. We further hope that the Committee will uncover why it has taken the overexposure of hundreds of patients to garner the industry's attention to this serious public health matter.

It has now been discovered that patients in Missouri have suffered exposure as well as patients in Alabama and California. The patients exposed to dangerous levels of radiation in Springfield, Missouri are appears to be another example of the industry's disregard for patient safety.

The law firms representing patients are Cusimano, Keener, Roberts, Knowles & Raley, LLC, Gadsden, Alabama, Watson, McKinney & Artrip, LLP, Huntsville Al, and Owen, Patterson & Owen in CA. Those wishing further information about the law suit may contact lawyers in those firms.