WASHINGTON -- If it isn't a big jury verdict for a woman's burns from spilled McDonald's coffee, it is an out-of-court settlement for a fire that started from a Pop-Tart in a kitchen toaster. On almost any day, Republicans say, they can find a new example to make their point that the time at last has come to change the nation's civil court system.
After a war of words that has lasted 20 years and yet has produced no significant action in Congress, the GOP's new congressional leadership is pressing with new vigor for an end to many lawsuits that look questionable and make lawyers rich.
Wholesale cutbacks in the system that parcels out damage verdicts for injury, death, property damage and other harms are one of the top 10 priorities that make up the Republican "Contract with America."
Plans now circulating on Capitol Hill include curbing lawyers' fees keyed to the amount of the verdict; limiting punitive damages to punish wrongdoers; requiring the losers of civil lawsuits to pay some of the winners' legal fees; imposing federal rules on civil law systems in the states; and even closing the court house to some lawsuits to encourage out-of-court settlements. Hearings are under way in the House, and action there could come next month; the Senate may act, too, but more slowly.
Politicians and lobbyists favoring change are talking confidently these days, but enactment is not a sure thing. Earlier this month, House Speaker Newt Gingrich said: "I think litigation reform is just going to be a brawl."
It has been "a brawl" since law school dean-turned-lawyer and lobbyist Victor E. Schwartz in 1974 began making a name for himself beyond the modest fame he had with generations of law students who used a textbook they called "Schwartz on Torts." Mr. Schwartz formerly was law dean at the University of Cincinnati.
He has carried on a visible role in trying to shake up the system of "tort law." (A "tort" is a wrong that can be remedied by law, through a trial or an out-of-court settlement.
It is a legal system based almost entirely on state law, but the effort in Congress is to nationalize major parts of it.)
This year, Mr. Schwartz says happily, "reform is absolutely doable -- and doable soon." Previously, he recalls, "the opponents had all the advantages."
Now, he says, "This is more in the hands of the proponents: the gatekeepers are friendly." But he says action in Congress must come early: "The more things go on, the more things are going to unravel."
Civil justice revisions have never been without determined opponents. And not only lawyers object. Since 1983, the leaders of state courts -- the Conference of Chief Justices -- have spoken out against federalizing the tort system.
Consumer groups, labor unions and victims rights activists are in opposition. They argue that the changes being discussed would deprive ordinary people of a remedy when they are injured through corporate misconduct or indifference.
Longtime consumer activist Pamela Gilbert, now a lawyer with a Washington lobbying firm, said the proposals would bring "a huge federal intrusion" into state tort law and "clog up the state courts with federal legislation."
She speculated that some newly elected Republicans, coming to Washington with an anti-government point of view, "will be especially uncomfortable with this."
Some of the resistance comes from attorneys who represent individuals or companies in 700,000 "tort" lawsuits every year, seeking damages for wrongdoing: harms done by an accident, bad medical care, a dangerous product, unsafe job practices.
One of the most successful lawyers in that area, Baltimore's Peter G. Angelos, the Orioles owner who is often mentioned by those who say the system works to the financial advantage of lawyers, gives no quarter as he fights back.
Those pushing reform, he said in an interview, are "agents and servants of insurance companies and big business who are more interested in collecting money than in paying people's legitimate claims. They say there's something wrong with the court system. I say there's something wrong with the corporate rogues who engage in this type of conduct."
Mr. Angelos' firm last year won one of the largest verdicts in the nation in a lawsuit claiming personal injury -- $20.1 million, to be paid to five factory workers for diseases traced to exposure to asbestos. It is not known how much of that verdict will go the law firm.
Asbestos lawsuits are among the most debated forms of litigation. But critics also cite what they consider excessive and sometimes bizarre verdicts in other cases, such as these within the past year:
* A New Mexico jury award of nearly $3 million for an elderly woman who suffered severe burns from a spilled cup of McDonald's coffee.
* A Las Vegas jury verdict of $6.7 million for a former Navy helicopter pilot, Paula Coughlin, against the Hilton Hotel chain for providing inadequate security against sexual assaults by drunken Navy fliers at the "Tailhook" convention.
* A verdict of $50 million by an Alabama jury to a man in a dispute over a $4,500 auto loan from a finance company.
* A Georgia jury verdict for $105 million against General Motors Corp. for the death of a teen-ager in a fiery crash of a pickup truck that had "sidesaddle" gas tanks.
Just the other day, the critics of the system had another example: an agreement by the Kellogg Co. to settle a lawsuit by paying $2,400 to an insurance company to cover damage done to an apartment when a Springfield, Ohio, man put one of Kellogg's Pop-Tarts in the toaster and it ignited.
Even anecdotes like those, however, are viewed differently by the opposing sides. Take the case of the woman burned by McDonald's coffee. Stella Liebeck, 82, of Albuquerque, N.M., spilled a cup of it on herself at a McDonald's drive-up window. She suffered third-degree burns. The jurors in her case, who said later that they wanted to send a message to fast-food restaurants to be careful of what they serve, awarded her $160,000 in actual damages and $2.7 million in punitive damages.
Critics say the incident shows that the system and the juries in it can run wild.
A U.S. Circuit Court judge, Alex Kozinski of Pasadena, Calif., who sits on many appeals in tort cases, stepped out of that neutral role in January to write a Wall Street Journal article criticizing jury behavior in such cases; he recalled Ms. Liebeck's case to make his point.
But tort-law defenders use the same case to make different points. First, they note that the trial judge later reduced Ms. Liebeck's punitive damages verdict to $480,000 -- something they say often happens after trials, showing that the system can remedy any excesses.
Second, they note that the verdict led McDonald's to warn people about how hot its coffee is. As Ms. Liebeck's lawyer, Kenneth Wagner, told the Rocky Mountain News at the time: "That was her principal objective -- to make things safe. Have you ever had McDonald's coffee? It's hot, hot, hot."
One reason it is easy for politicians and advocacy groups to keep the controversy over "torts" going is that it is a system of law that touches everyday life. As Yale law professor Peter H. Schuck once wrote, "Tort law governs the ordinary activities of ordinary people who experience ordinary (and tragically extraordinary) misfortunes. . . . Tort law is law with a human face."
Typical of hundreds of thousands of people involved in such cases is a Baltimore County woman, Beverly Lesnick, whose $25 million damage claim against the manufacturer of Kent cigarettes is awaiting trial in federal court in Baltimore.
Her husband died of lung cancer; her lawsuit claims that the filter in Kents was the cause of his illness. Her case is on hold until the Supreme Court acts on a preliminary issue.
Sometimes, the civil justice system deals with spectacular incidents. A federal jury in Alaska last year assessed Exxon Corp. $5.287 billion for the massive oil spill by the tanker Exxon Valdez into Prince William Sound five years ago. The money is to go to fishermen.
Of that total verdict, $5 billion was in "punitive damages" -- an award that juries can tack onto actual damages to punish the wrongdoer and deter others. That was the largest punitive damages verdict against a U.S. company in history.
Under a proposal with wide support, especially among Republicans, the Exxon jury could have assessed the company no more than $861 million in punitive damages (based on a formula of three times the amount of actual damages).
With Republicans sometimes advancing bold new ideas, lawyer-lobbyist Mr. Schwartz cautions that "the proposals have to be reasonable; if they are, legislation can be passed." They must be able to attract some Democratic votes, he suggests.
Ms. Gilbert, the lawyer who opposes the changes, suggested that proponents will run into trouble because "a lot of different, competing bills" are being put forward. Noting that there will be at least three different bills before the Senate, she said "there is not a consensus at all. . . ."
While the legislative debate has been making its annual reappearance in Congress, the state courts and the District of Columbia have been moving ahead with some of the same limits being pushed again this year in federal bills: limiting punitive damages, curbing damage verdicts for victims' "pain and suffering," making wrongdoers pay damages only for their share of harms when several were to blame.
Still, the pace and scope of state action have not satisfied those who want broad or deep changes.
When Sen. Mitch McConnell, the Kentucky Republican, last month introduced a tort reform bill along with Sen. Spencer Abraham, the Michigan Republican, Mr. McConnell told reporters: "This is a national problem; it cries out for a national solution."
CONTRACT WITH AMERICA
House Republicans pledged to bring these proposals up for votes within the first 100 days of the 104th Congress:
GOAL ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... STATUS
@CONGRESSIONAL REFORMS
Apply federal laws to Congress ... ... .. .. Signed into law by
... ... .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. ... .. .. President Clinton, Jan. 23.
Reduce House committees and staff ... ... .. Passed and implemented by House.
BALANCED BUDGET AND LINE-ITEM VETO
Balanced Budget Amendment ... ... ... ... .. Passed by House.
Line-Item Veto ... ... ... .. ... ... ... .. Passed by House.
REVAMPING 1994 CRIME BILL
Expands victim restitution ... .. ... ... .. passed by House.
Prison grants ... .. .. .. ... .. ... ... .. Passed by House committee.
WELFARE REFORM
Limits welfare eligibility and
requiring recipients to work ... ... ... ... No action to date.
FAMILY ISSUES
Tax deductions for child
adoption and care of the elderly,
tougher anti-pornography laws ... ... ... .. No action to date.
MIDDLE-CLASS TAX CUT
$500-per-child tax credit,
eases "marriage tax penalty,"
expands IRA accounts ... ... .. .. .. .. ... No action to date.
NATIONAL DEFENSE
Forbids putting U.S. troops in
U.N. missions under foreign
command, calls for new anti-
missile defense system ... ... ... ... .. .. Passed by House committee
SOCIAL SECURITY EARNINGS
Raises amount seniors can
earn without losing benefits,
repeals 1993 tax increase
on benefits ... ... ... .. .. .. .. .. .. .. No action to date
CAPITAL GAINS AND UNFUNDED MANDATES
Cuts capital gains tax ... .. .. .. .. .. .. No action to date
Limits unfunded mandates ... .. ... .. .. .. Passed by House and
.. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. Senate, awaiting final
.. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. congressional approval
LEGAL REFORM
Limits punitive damages and
manufacturers' liability, enacts
"loser pays" rules to reduce
litigation ... .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. No action to date
TERM LIMITS
Limits terms for House and
Senate members .. ... .. .. .. .. .. .. ... No action to date