Blog Post
Adam Liptak Watch # 1
Posted by: Spencer Pahlke
March 30, 2008
Topic: Threats to Plaintiffs' Rights
Though I enjoy reading the New York Times, I'm often troubled by the pieces written by Adam Liptak. Commonly, his articles focus on the topic of plaintiffs losing their right to recovery. Instead of looking at the tremendous downside to being blocked from the courthouse, Mr. Liptak often casts a negative shadow on those who have been injured, their lawyers, and their right to be treated justly by the courts.
In response to these articles, I write letters to the editor of the Times. Here is my most recent letter, which was in response to Mr. Liptak's article on punitive damages:
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In Adam Liptak's piece on punitive damages, he again overlooks the vast assault being conducted by business interests on the rights of injured persons to get a recovery for their loss. This time, his focus is on punitive damages, but his article defeats itself. Mr. Liptak asserts that "enormous punitive damages awards are relatively common"--but, of course, provides no statistics or data. A good source would have been Jeffrey A. Rosen's recent piece in the Times Magazine, where he points out that, contrary to Liptak's claim, "the median punitive award actually fell to $50,000 in 2001 from $63,000 in 1992." These are not "relatively common" and "enormous." Additionally, as Mr. Liptak admits, accurately, punitive awards "are often reduced or eliminated on appeal." Given that such awards neither common nor enormous and, when they do exist, they are cut down or barred on appeal, why is Liptak so concerned about them? I don't know, but I can say that Liptak continued assault of the injured person's right to recover will only embolden corporate interests and further decimate protections for citizens safety and protection.
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Here at Walkup, we focus our efforts not only on helping those dealing with a traumatic injury or death in their family, but also in drawing attention to the threats posed to the right to justice when we are injured.
