On the radio program "Your Turn — Meeting Nonsense with Common Sense," the Center’s General Counsel, Renee Giachino, recently interviewed the American Tort Reform Association’s General Counsel, Victor Schwartz, about his thoughts regarding Democratic Presidential-hopeful John Kerry’s selection of former trial attorney John Edwards as his running mate, and the implications for tort reform should Kerry-Edwards win the upcoming election.

What follows are excerpts from the interview.

GIACHINO: My next guest has twice been named by the National Law Journal as one of the 100 most influential attorneys in the United States. He wears so many hats and has worn so many others, including former professor and dean at the University of Cincinnati College of Law. He is a partner in the Washington office of the preeminent Kansas City-based law firm of Shook, Hardy & Bacon. But I think the most impressive job that he serves is as General Counsel to the American Tort Reform Association, a group committed to much needed legal reform in this country. It is my extreme pleasure to welcome to the show Victor Schwartz.

SCHWARTZ: Thank you very much.

GIACHINO: Victor, thank you so much for taking time out of your extremely busy schedule to join me on the program. I know you have a limited amount of time because you are headed off to a fundraiser. Something fun I hope.

SCHWARTZ: Well they call them fundraisers, but they are not fun, exactly. But they are interesting, the characters that you meet there.

GIACHINO: Victor, there are so many issues that I want to discuss with you because you are an expert on so many of them, from politics to tort reform. Let me start with a question that touches both of those issues. As our listeners know, Presidential hopeful John Kerry has chosen Senator John Edwards from North Carolina as his running mate. This is the first time in the history of our country that a plaintiff’s attorney has run for Vice President. If the Kerry-Edwards ticket wins in November, will that change the prospects for meaningful legal reforms in Congress, do you think?

SCHWARTZ: Yes, it will. It will end any prospects for any types of reform. I did plaintiff’s work for 14 years and have had very close connections with men who have been President and Vice President, but President Clinton signed 11 tort reform bills, two of which we worked on, and they were very important, one brought back the aviation industry. There is not a doubt in the world that with Senator Edwards on the ticket that any civil justice reform would be vetoed. Let me give you an example of a bill that he has refused to support. It would block obesity suits against places like McDonald’s. Fifty-five Democrats in the House supported it, but Senator Edwards is not going to support anything that in any way limits any right to sue, even if it’s as absurd as suing a fast food place because you gained weight.

GIACHINO: Well, it’s interesting because I know his own hometown paper has dubbed him "Senator Gone" because he has missed so many voting opportunities at the Senate. Yet, he managed to vote against the obesity ban?

SCHWARTZ: Well, he hasn’t voted on it yet, but the office has indicated that he will not support it. It has passed the House by a very substantial margin, but his office has indicated that the Senator will not support the bill.

GIACHINO: Victor, I recall reading somewhere that Edwards said there were some legal reforms that he would support. Was that factually accurate or what do you think he is referring to? Do you think his record supports any of that?

SCHWARTZ: His record doesn’t support it. He has said he would support a bill that placed sanctions on lawyers who brought baseless claims. Well there is such a bill in the House and we are trying to see, and so far have failed, to get his support for that bill. He has said, "I’ll support sanctions against frivolous claims," but he hasn’t done it. And, it was used when he said it, when he was debating to vote against limits on medical liability. As you know, in Florida, and elsewhere, there is a medical liability crisis. Florida OB/GYNs are paying hundreds of thousands of dollars for liability insurance. So, there was a federal bill that was brought up in a variety of ways to put some limits on those lawsuits while assuring that legitimate lawsuits go to the front of the line. And in that connection, when he opposed that bill, he said, "Well, I could support a sanction against frivolous claims." But, that wasn’t in the bill. So, bottom line is, he would be against any reforms at the federal level.

And also, I think a point that hasn’t been made, has to do with judges. Now, President Clinton supported a number of judges — more women judges, more minority judges, liberal judges, and I think it’s helpful to have all sorts of judges. But we have never had somebody in the Oval Office who is there to put retired plaintiff’s lawyers on the bench. They’re very wealthy; they’d love to be on the bench because they can make law to help their brothers and sisters. So, apart from stopping every single civil justice reform at the federal level, I believe a Kerry-Edwards ticket would put on the bench plaintiff’s lawyers, many of whom are just in the campaign. The co-chair of their campaign is Fred Barron, who is a friend of mine, but he is one of the wealthiest, most effective plaintiff’s lawyers in the United States. And he is co-chair of the campaign.

GIACHINO: I agree. And I think that unfortunately we would probably just see an even greater rise in the runaway jury awards that we already have if we have those plaintiff’s lawyers on the bench.

SCHWARTZ: Well, it’s a bully-pulpit. The signal would be that there are no breaks on the system. And this is an emotional thing, not legal, but the message coming out of the White House would be that it’s all okay. I mean, Senator Edwards won an award for $23 million for one person in a medical liability case. Listen, the doctor may have done something wrong, but if every medical incident produced an award of $20 or $30 million we would not have doctors anywhere. So if his standard for the proper award is $20 or $30 million for each person, that means that becomes sort of a bully-pulpit standard.

And there is one other thing. There are a lot of other things you can do if you are President of the United States with governmental agencies to make it easier for people to bring lawsuits — to help your brothers and sisters in the bar. One agency, OSHA, can pass certain regulations that will make sure and make it easier for lawsuits to be brought in the workplace.

So, there are at least three things: stopping any meaningful tort reform, putting judges on the bench who are plaintiff’s lawyers, not pro-plaintiffs, plaintiff’s lawyers, and using federal agencies to make it easier to sue by regulation though litigation.

GIACHINO: I believe that it is your organization, the American Tort Reform Association, that has prepared quite a report, detailing some of the information that people should know about Edwards.

SCHWARTZ: Well there is a website, called Edwardswatch.org, where some of the information can be found. And, again, I just want to be fair to all sides. Edwards was one good plaintiff’s lawyer. Checkbooks flew out in North Carolina like it snows in Alaska in the wintertime. And he won major, major verdicts. That has been his principal experience. Most of his professional life, really all of it, has been as a plaintiff’s lawyer, so he is going to come with that perspective. If you had a farmer in the White House, he would be sensitive, or she, to the needs of farmers. And if you had somebody who was an engineer, they would be sensitive and understand about engineering. His whole life as a professional has been suing people. So that’s what he brings to the Oval Office.

And he matches Kerry, because Kerry’s votes were all the same way. There’s not a hair’s breadth of difference between them on these issues. Senator Kerry has been down here for 30 years, and he’s voted against every reform. My goodness, the General Aviation Recovery Act, which brought back the aviation industry, where Piper and Cessna had shut down, that would not be signed by this administration. That bill has produced 25,000 jobs, it’s 10 years old now and it was signed by Clinton.

GIACHINO: When it comes to legal reform, I know I often hear from people, "Well, I haven't been sued, and my doctor hasn't been sued, so why should I care?" Can you help us understand why that is, and why we should care about fixing the system? I don’t have the figures readily available, but maybe you do, as to how much a lawsuit costs the average family each year.

SCHWARTZ: Well, many, many small businesses have been, and people just with a home, have been subject to frivolous lawsuits. And, there is no real power to put a sanction on a lawyer who brings them today. So this is what happens to all of us. We are talking about baseless ones now. The insurance company is put in a dilemma. An offer is made, that is a low ball offer, it may be $8,000 or $9,000, and the insurance company knows that it costs more to defend the case than settle it. So they settle it. And it’s really a death of a thousand cuts — it’s a lawsuit here and another one there. And you see your automobile insurance, your homeowner’s insurance go up. And it’s not because of anything real. There’s a bill in Congress supported by Congressman Smith of Texas that would restore sanctions against frivolous claims. Yet, the trial lawyers oppose it. And, it’s a very, very important bill. Medical malpractice, where there are no limits, means that your doctor, who has never been sued, can have his insurance go up, or hers, very substantially, and a lot of them leave practice or we have added medical costs. And, finally, lawsuits that are just not just make us lose products that we want. For example, for the women listeners, the only medicine that was good for morning sickness, which is still approved by our Food and Drug Administration, was removed from the market, and was called Vandectin, because of baseless lawsuits. So it does affect every single listener, no matter his or her age, in a bad way. And what we need to do is preserve the good lawsuits, have fair amounts and get rid of excessiveness that hurts our society.

GIACHINO: I think you are right. Well, I know you spend a lot of time up on Capitol Hill, as evidenced by the fact that the Washingtonian magazine has twice named you one of the top 50 lobbyists in the Nation’s capital. Can you tell me and the listeners what is going on with the class action lawsuit reform bill that the Senate has been considering?

SCHWARTZ: Well that bill has had seven years of growth. It has passed the House three different times. But it got stopped in the Senate because the trial lawyer lobby is very, very effective. It’s stopped even though there are 62 Senators who indicated they would support it. But it got loaded up with amendments that had nothing to do with lawsuits, like minimum wage and additional regulations. So the bill had to be pulled out because the bill was not about additional regulations. But Senator Kennedy and some of his friends tried to amend the bill with things that had nothing to do with it, so it had to be pulled down. And that reform, plain and simple, would have said to every Floridian, when you get one of those class action notices in the mail it’s going to be in clear English that a 12th grader could understand. That bill also said that if there is going to be a settlement and lawyers are going to get millions of dollars and the only thing the client is going to get is coupons, then it must be reviewed by a federal judge to see that it is fair. That bill was killed. That bill was in the interest of every listener.

GIACHINO: For the listeners out there who support class action reform, tort reform in general, medical malpractice reform — and I know there are lots of them, what can they do to help?

SCHWARTZ: I think tomorrow your listeners should write their Congressperson to support HR 4571. That’s the Lawsuit Abuse Reduction Act of 2004. That’s a bill that will restore penalties against frivolous lawsuits and also stop forum chasing around this nation — so that lawyers cannot file suits in courts where they think they can get the best judges, even though the case has nothing to do with it. It’s a simple bill, it’s not complicated, and bills like that do have lift and do have heft and can become law. And, I think they can write Florida Senators to support the Common Sense Food Consumption Act. This was a bill by Representative Keller, a Florida Congressman. This Congressman is a hero. This one man was able to get 276 votes in the House by working day and night. Well, it’s now in front of the Senate, there is Democratic support and the Florida Senators should be written to support it. The nickname is the "Cheeseburger Bill." Just say that, they know what it is.

GIACHINO: Before I have to take a break, I was hoping to have you do an impersonation that I know you do very well.

SCHWARTZ: Let me just do it very quickly. Why don’t you just happen to stop and ask President Clinton what he thinks of the Cheeseburger Bill.

GIACHINO: Well, let me ask you about the Cheeseburger Bill.

SCHWARTZ: (impersonating Clinton): Let me tell you this. I want to tell all the listeners this. Huh. I never pay for my cheeseburgers, so I never pay the bill. I get them for free, I mean, when I’m on that book line, let me just be very clear, the young girls come up, they run up, they give me cheeseburgers, and I can stay out in that line forever. As long as there is a young woman, I will stay there to the last autograph I have to give. Bless them. Senator Dole, do you want to say something?

SCHWARTZ: (impersonating Dole): Still be in the Senate, still there. Probably World War II, we had K-rations, we didn’t sit around suing people. Wasn’t like that.

SCHWARTZ: (impersonating Clinton): You know Bob, if you’d stop talking about World War II, you could have been President. I mean, ha, talk about what I do — young women.

GIACHINO: (chuckling): Well, Victor, thank you very much. For the listeners just tuning in, that was not former President Clinton or Senator Dole, but rather Victor Schwartz of the American Tort Reform Association. Victor, thank you again. Can you give out your website address for people who want to learn more about tort reform.

SCHWARTZ: Yes, it is www.atra.org. And it will give you all of the information that you need to learn about civil justice reform.

GIACHINO: Please come back Victor, it has been an extreme pleasure.

SCHWARTZ: Thank you.