Of "Tort Reform" and "Robin Hoods"

USA Today's cover story today is all about the growing push for tort reform across the country. Specifically, the article talks about jurisdictions that are havens for big buck lawsuits which create an "unfriendly" business environment. One of those jurisdictions happens to be West Virginia. I wonder what exactly a "friendly" business environment is? Presumably it's one where businesses and out of state corporations get to do whatever the hell they want while the average citizen gets screwed. That's certainly a fair reading of West Virginia history, I'd argue. In fact, the relative poverty of these "lawsuit hells" is noted with the explanation that poor folks may be more likely to sympathize with the big payday coming to the injured person. I'm sure that's true. If you're family has worked for years in the poverty stricken coal fields of southern WV, where out of state corporations play shell games with their subsidiaries to avoid paying worker's comp dues, ignore environmental dangers and then blame "act of God" when someone is killed because of them (think Buffalo Creek, people), and generally raped the land for the profit of out of staters, then you probably don't have a lot of sympathy for those businesses. And given the fact that most people feel cut off from the electoral system, which has shown a complete reluctance to do anything about said abuses, their one chance for justice (or revenge, if you like) is when they get called for jury duty.

Maybe if businesses were friendlier to the people than the people would be friendlier in return?