Readings, Rated
Thomas Geoghegan
Date: Thursday, January 24th, 2008
Time: 6:00 p.m.
Location: Seminary Co-op Bookstore
Chicagoan Thomas Geoghegan sounds like someone we’d all like to have dinner with. He’s a superstar labor lawyer who writes screeds against the Right for everyone from In These Times to The New York Times (you can check out a really good article that appeared in the former here). He’s at the Co-op to read from his new book, See You in Court: How the Right Made America a Lawsuit Nation,” published by our nation’s very best non-fiction house, The New Press. Thank you, Mr. Geoghegan, for allowing us to blame litigiousness, yet another despicable characteristic of American culture, on the Republicans — I always suspected that lady who sued McDonald’s over the coffee was a card-carrying Reaganite.
I assume the reason that the right is being held responsible for the amount of lawsuits is because they allowed corporations to operate with carte blanche. The McDonalds law suit is a good example- McDonalds KNEW their coffee was too hot. They just didn’t care. The elderly woman suffered second degree burns and she was only suing for expenses incurred-not damages. The exceptionally large judgement came about due to the negligence of McDonalds-essentially they were being punished because they knew there was a problem but they ignored it. Remember the Pinto? The Ford Co. knew that the car would explode on impact but decided it was cheaper to go to court when the accidents started to occur than to fix it. In a society where corporations were willing or forced to be responsible, there would be no need for the tyep of lawsuits that occur on a regular basis currently.
Or so I assume that’s the logic. And I gotta agree with him.
Thanks, Sadie. It’s rare to make a flip comment and get a very informative response in return. Appreciate it!