In recent decades, corporations and special interests have invested millions of dollars in campaign cash to elect judges who then ruled against injured plaintiffs and for those same corporations. Big business is winning the political battle over laws that limit the damages plaintiffs can get in personal injury lawsuits, which is playing out in particularly stark ways in state supreme courts. These courts are increasingly becoming an unfriendly place for injured consumers and workers to hold negligent corporations accountable.
Please join the Center for American Progress’ Legal Progress program to discuss how these trends are affecting consumers, workers, and patients. The Center is hosting a panel discussion, which will include an Ohio citizen discussing her brother’s failed attempt to hold his employer accountable for an unsafe working environment after he lost a leg in an accident. The panelists will analyze the results of Legal Progress’ new report, which illustrates how corporate campaign cash has tilted the law in favor of big business, and they will also discuss how to curb the influence of big business on state-court judges.
Welcoming remarks:
Lori Lodes, Senior Vice President, Campaigns and Strategy, Center for American Progress
Panelists:
Joanne Doroshow, Executive Director of the Center for Justice & Democracy
Dan O’Neil, Attorney at Thompson & O’Neil, P.C.
Joann Wirtz, Ohio advocate for injured workers
Bill Putnam, Texas anti-tort-reform activist
Moderator:
Billy Corriher, Associate Director of Research, Legal Progress, Center for American Progress