Other LanguagesWalter Olson, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, tweeted yesterday about AG McKenna's piece on abusive lawsuits. He smartly reminds readers about what he wrote in 2005:
Consider Washington state, whose courts have opened the door more widely than any other to failure-to-protect lawsuits. The result: a series of costly verdicts and settlements disrupting state budget and operations, and touching off a public uproar across party lines.
Olson explains the way lawsuits are handled in other states:
[M]ost carefully limit their exposure, usually capping the damages payable and sometimes steering the cases into special courts or claims panels without juries. And most states refuse to accept liability for injuries arising from distinctively governmental ("discretionary/policy-making") functions.
This is the very point AG McKenna again stressed this week in the Seattle Times:
Calls to attorneys general offices in other states reveal we pay much more than states with similar-sized populations: eight times more than Tennessee, five times more than Arizona and at least three times more than Massachusetts. These disparities date back at least 15 years.
In the wake of this week's guest op-ed, some suggest that our office seeks to bring back sovereign immunity or create draconian caps on payouts. But to gain insight into what a legislative solution might look like, take a look at AG-request legislation, sponsored by Sen. Adam Kline, D-Seattle, from 2006:
Tort liability does not extend to [state government]...except in the following circumstances: (1) the Legislature has provided that specific agencies or employees are obligated to enforce a statute for the benefit of a narrow group of persons and that tort liability may arise from failure to do so; or (2) there was direct contact between a public employee and an injured person and the employee gave assurances of protection or action upon which the injured person relied; or (3) a public employee, responsible for enforcing statutory requirements, has actual knowledge of a violation that presents an imminent risk of harm, fails to take corrective action, and the injured person is within the class protected by the statute.
-Dan Sytman-