< PREVIOUS ] [ 1999 Index ] [ Ed Quillen HOME ] [ SEARCH ] [ NEXT >
First there was the nicotine litigation. State governments filed suit against tobacco companies. In theory, this was to recover the money they had spent on Medicaid to treat smoking-related maladies. In practice, this was a politically correct shakedown, a way to take money out of one set of pockets and put it in another, all justified by the sacred cause of purifying Americans.
Now there are similar lawsuits against firearms manufacturers, filed by large cities. The theory this time is that the evil handgun purveyors sold pistols to people who then shot at other people. This resulted in increased municipal costs for ambulances, emergency rooms, street cleaning, police overtime, coroners and the like.
The cities are suing to recover these costs -- in theory, that is. In reality, the plan is to make pistols so expensive and inaccessible that only police departments will have them. We all know that the police never shoot unarmed suspects, never invade private property without a warrant, never lie under oath, and so we'll all sleep better on that account.
At any rate, the trend seems pretty clear here -- if there's a form of social improvement that you can't accomplish by the normal legislative process, or is impeded by archaic constitutional provisions like the Bill of Rights, then engage some high-powered attorneys who know where to find deep pockets for their contingency fees, and go for it.
This means that tobacco and guns are only the start, and that we may well see these stories soon:
· Denver sues Broncos in wake of Third Super Bowl Victory.
After LoDo rioters caused more than $250,000 in direct property damages, despite the presence of hundreds of shielded police officers who were collecting overtime, Denver Mayor Wellington Webb announced that he had authorized the city attorney to attempt to recover these costs from the football team.
As long as the Broncos insist on winning,
Webb
said, the taxpayers of Denver are stuck with these
additional annual costs. It's one thing when the voters
approve Bronco bills, like the new stadium, but these
corporations cross the line when they cause these
expenditures of precious tax dollars without first getting
public approval.
· CDOT claims damages from Vail Mountain Resorts.
If Interstate 70 needs to be expanded to deliver more skiers to be fleeced by the resort cartel in Summit and Eagle counties, then the ski areas should pay for the expansion.
That's what the Colorado Department of Transportation is arguing in a $2.5 billion suit filed yesterday against Intrawest and Vail Resorts, which just announced plans for a substantial expansion in skier capacity at its Breckenridge operation.
Not only are they trying to get us to build more
lanes,
a CDOT spokesman said, but they insist on
constant plowing and sanding. Time was, people in the
mountains figured they could get snowed in once in a while,
and they lived with it. But that doesn't cut it with this
new industrial regime that has to meet Wall Street
analysts' expectations. So if the corporations want eight
lanes available all the time, they're the ones who should
pay, and that's why we're going to court.
· State suit targets drug, condom companies
Colorado Gov. Bill Owens yesterday confirmed that he had instructed Attorney General Ken Salazar to file a landmark product-failure suit against several pharmaceutical firms, fertility clinics and condom manufacturers.
What the defendants have in common, the governor said,
is that their products can either fail, resulting in
more births, or in the case of Viagra and the fertility
procedures, they succeed -- and again, there are more
births in Colorado.
In either case, the chief executive said, the state
often incurs increased medical expenditures for everything
from Medicaid payments to immunizations by public-health
nurses.
And then the real expenses start to mount, he noted.
Colorado taxpayers spend billions every year to educate
these children, and also, sad to say, on police, courts,
probation officers, detention centers and the like. It's
only right to try to collect from those who are responsible
for these costs.
Amplifying on those remarks, press secretary Dick
Wadhams said Of course we're not trying to halt
population growth in Colorado. We just want the right kind
-- childless couples ready to buy homes in Highlands Ranch
and make the state prosper even more, rather than those
children who consume scarce resources for years before they
start paying their own way.
Think of the possibilities. This could be just the start of interesting litigation. Public-land managers could sue the makers and distributors of SUVs for the damages inspired by their advertising. County landfills could sue newspapers and packaging makers for increased costs. Cities could go after spray-paint makers for graffiti-removal costs.
After all, somebody else is always responsible, right?
< PREVIOUS ] [ 1999 Index ] [ Ed Quillen HOME ] [ SEARCH ] [ NEXT >