Jewish World Review Oct. 28, 1999/ 18 Mar-Cheshvan, 5760
Marianne M. Jennings
Live by litigation, die by litigation
http://www.jewishworldreview.com --
FOR AS LONG as I can remember, my father's basketball mantra has been,
"Live by the three point, die by the three point." Basketball theories and
strategies are beyond my ken, but, my father waxes philosophical: risky
routes can pay off, but others can kill you with the same.
Live by litigation, die by litigation. Parents of Columbine students
have arisen after burying their young to point fingers via lawsuits. I don't
fault them for who can dictate protocol, propriety and precedent when a child
is lost to diabolical killers in the school cafeteria? But the chutzpah of
the parents of killer Darren Klebold, who filed notice of intent to sue the
Jefferson County Sheriff's Department for its failure to inform them about
the violent tendencies of Darren's friend and other half of the derring duo,
Eric Harris, is stunning in its calculation.
In the same fortnight, the Justice Department filed a deceptive ad suit
against tobacco companies even as they are busily raising the $200 billion
attorneys general extorted from them. One look at a Bette Davis interview in
the later years would alert even chain-puffing rubes to smoking's effect on
soothing vocal tones. Despite a disdain for troglodyte tobacco companies,
smoke and Virginia Slims ads, I route for the bad guys in their battle with
these idiot savants of law.
Litigation has become the means and ends. Apologies never suffice for
the wronged who chart new legal territory in the punitive damages lottery.
Little Johnny Prevette kissed a girl and made her cry at recess and the
school district fought a harassment liability battle all the way to the U.S.
Supreme Court. Try a Bible Week in Gilbert, Arizona and the ACLU will be
there. The Boy Scouts of America have spent $10 million defending lawsuits
from gay rights activists who fail to grasp that there are no gay troop
leaders for the same reason there are female PE teachers in the girls' locker
rooms and no men on Girl Scout overnights. Common sense has no role in
litigation.
Nor do the senses have any place in law. When I see an accident, I
think of pay dirt for the billboard contingent fee lawyers, not the parable
of the good Samaritan. In fact, Good Samaritan statutes exist because even
physicians were thinking "If I stop and help, can I be sued?" Lawyer
billboards are diversifying. On I-10, there is a new 1-800-DNA billboard
offering definitive outing of deadbeat fathers via court-ordered genetic
testing, something society's disgrace and grandfathers with a certain way
with words used to accomplish without a lawyer in sight. Teachers don't hug
anymore because parents sue. Falling short of legal standards stings the
pocketbook whereas dismissed tugs of the heart strings are cheap, once you
factor in attorney's fees and subtract out pangs of conscience.
This loss of compassion is but one consequence of the litigious society.
The purposes of law are justice, fairness and stability, not acquisition of
power or self-aggrandizement. When these underpinnings of law's morality
disappear, abuses mount and embolden inconsistent tyrants. Law, without its
moral checks and balances, causes fear and imposes submission through
threatened legal consequences. In San Francisco, one gay rights advocate
called for a revocation of the tax-exempt status of religious groups opposing
his ballot initiatives.
The Clinton administration is at once loosey goosey
with perjury and campaign finance laws, yet tolerant of injustice for their
own purposes. Their legal battles bespeak ACLU tendencies, but their demands
for investigation are sporadic on ideological grounds. Mrs. Clinton,
outraged by a satirical Pizza Hut ad on her nonsensical New York Senate bid,
has asked the Federal Elections Commission to investigate. This technicality
was invoked by the same woman who orchestrated coffee, bedroom and nuclear
secrets money for her four more years of foreign travel.
In the same week,
the Justice Department revealed that it did the paperwork for the FALN
terrorist clemency requests, yet another campaign ploy. Justice Department
graciousness waived the self-initiation requirement for these blessed little
bombers. But, let Larry Klayman's Judicial Watch file suit and demand
depositions from key players in the Clinton administration and a hue and cry
rings out from those who summoned the FBI to be rid of career employees from
the travel office. Norma Cantu, a Clinton administration undersecretary in
education, has threatened withdrawal of federal funds from those schools that
do not use unconstitutional two-track minority admissions systems.
Divorce the law from its roots of morality and self-restraint and allow
it to be used for inconsistent, political and trivial pursuits and you
create a game in which there are no longer rights and wrongs or the
compassion of human interaction. You'll find yourself a defendant on
ideological grounds and a target of those who gain power with a
semi-automatic shotgun of laws. Power gained by a weapon was once called
tyranny. Live by litigation, die by litigation --- a long, slow death for
which there is no recourse, plenty of pain and suffering, and no punitive
damages.
JWR contributor Marianne M. Jennings is a professor of legal and ethical studies at Arizona State
University. Mr. Cantoni is a former HR executive and the president of Capstone Consulting
in Scottsdale, AZ. Send your comments by clicking here.
10/22/99: Jesse, Warren, Cybill, Donald and Oprah
10/14/99: Inequality and injustice: It's the big one
10/05/99: Dan Quayle, morals and schoolyard bullies
09/30/99: The monsters of epidermal parenting
09/21/99: The Diversity Hoax
09/15/99: Waco Wackos
09/09/99: Selective censorship
09/01/99: The village, the children, judicial imperialism and abortion
08/24/99: Naughty Newt?
08/17/99: In defense of Boy Scouts and judgment
08/10/99: Ruining the finest health care system in the world
08/03/99: Nihilism and politics: ethics on the lam
07/26/99: Of women, soccer and removed jerseys
07/23/99: Not in despair, a mere mortal doing just fine
07/20/99: "Why me?" How about "Why us?"
07/13/99: Bunk, junk & juries
07/06/99: An Amish woman in a Victoria's Secret store
06/30/99: That intellectually embarrassing Second Amendment
06/24/99: Patricia Ireland eat your heart out --- but check out the recipe in 'women's mags' first
06/22/99: Dems and the Creator coup
06/17/99: True courage is more than just admitting troubles
©1999, Marianne M. Jennings
|