Summary: Blocking the Courthouse Door E-Book

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• Herausgeber: Political Book Summaries
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 19

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017

Beschreibung

The must-read summary of Stephanie Mencimer's book “Blocking the Courthouse Door: How the Republican Party and Its Corporate Allies are Taking Away Your Right to Sue”.

This complete summary of "Blocking the Courthouse Door" by Stephanie Mencimer analyses her examination of all aspects of the tort reform campaign. She questions the approach of Republican-led Congress towards lawsuits and empowering corporations instead of individuals.

Added-value of this summary:
• Save time
• Understand the tort reform campaign in a fraction of the time
• Expand your knowledge of the American legal system and Republican reforms

To learn more, read "Blocking the Courthouse Door" and discover how the Republican Party imposed limits on suing and the implications this has had for American society.

Leseprobe

Book Presentation: Blocking the Courthouse Door by Stephanie Mencimer

Book Abstract

Blocking the Courthouse Door examines the tort reform campaign in all its aspects. It debunks the widespread propaganda of the tort reform movement – from the McDonald’s coffee case to the millionaire class action plaintiffs – and looks at the real agenda of the movement’s backers, large corporations and the Republican Party. Mencimer argues that the charge by politicians that our country is in a legal crisis is, in short, a sham.

About the Author

Stephanie Mencimer is a contributing editor of The Washington Monthly. She has also worked as an investigative reporter for The Washington Post and a writer for Legal Times. She won the 2000 Harry Chapin Media Award for her reporting on hunger and poverty.

Summary of Blocking the Courthouse Door (Stephanie Mencimer)

Media Myths about the Civil Justice System

Nearly everything Americans think they know about the civil justice system is a caricature of the reality that takes place in the nation’s courthouses. Today, feeding litigation myths to the media has become a particularly popular industry. The American Tort Reform Association (ATRA) culls the wires for examples of frivolous lawsuits or outrageous plaintiffs, which they frequently repackage. Of course, ATRA’s funding comes from most of the nation’s largest corporations, particularly pharmaceutical, insurance, and tobacco companies.

The poster child of such stories is the Stella Liebeck story, the woman who sued McDonald’s after being scalded by a cup of hot coffee. Virtually all Americans know the myth; it set off a flurry of editorializing about America’s “victim” culture. Of the facts left out of the story were:

At the time, McDonald’s had a policy of serving coffee at temperatures between 195 to 200 degrees Fahrenheit, temperatures which can peel skin off bone.Liebeck became partially disabled from the resulting burns for more than two years.The fact that McDonald’s had received more than 700 prior complaints from others receiving serious burns from its coffee.