CAN THE POLITICAL RIGHT RIGHTLY USE THE RELIGIOUS RIGHT TO DEPRIVE PEOPLE OF THEIR CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS?

Personal injury and medical malpractice lawyers and especially “trial lawyers” have long been in the cross-hairs of right wing zealots doing battle for major corporations, insurance companies, HMOs, lobbyists and favored politicians. I often ask myself whether each of these opponents of the civil justice system truly believes in every issue that they espouse or if they are merely mouthpieces for a cause if not their own wallets.

Please don’t get me wrong, I do believe that many philosophers attempting to reconcile spiritual doctrine with concepts of the law such privacy and due process must struggle mightily with the tension between some of these principles. How else would one reconcile dedication to the right to life with the commandment that “Thou shalt not kill” when it comes to capital punishment?

While I do not consider myself a religious man, I was fascinated when I recently learned that the notion of compensating an injured person with money damages is actually rooted in the Bible and first found in the Old Testament. That alone held no significance to me other than perhaps the age of the wisdom as I believe that the spirit is advanced in the civilized Judeo-Christian role.

I make no pretenses to have researched all of the relevant passages in a scholarly fashion yet there in the book of Exodus verses 33-34 the Old Testament provides:

And if a man shall open a pit, or if a man shall dig a pit
And not cover it, and an ox or an ass fall therein,

The owner of the pit shall make it good; he shall give money
Unto the owner of them, and the dead beast shall be his.

Isn’t this a form of just compensation. Who said anything about arbitrary limits. And what happened to the “eye for an eye and the tooth for the tooth” also found in Exodus? For it does not appear to be a satisfactory response that one would literally take an eye of an assailant who causes another to lose an eye. Rather, the assailant is obliged to pay for loss of time and to pay for full recovery. To literally take an “eye for an eye” would not be a forgiving philosophy and other biblical passages suggest strongly that while there may be punishment, it need not be a punishment of like kind and quality.

And while it might be suitable to condemn someone whose system of belief’s is at odds with your own on issues of “right to life”, when that same Trial Lawyer stands between abuse of government to ensure that constitutional rights are protected or volunteers to represent victims of the terrorist attacks on September 11 or combats the abuses of insurances companies, HMOs, drug manufacturers so that you children won’t be harmed, or send charitable donations for relief of the victims of Hurricane Katrina, what does that make the trial lawyer then?

So the fight is joined. Is it alright with you that the big corporations, insurance companies, HMOs, lobbyists and corrupt politicians are trying to buy your Constitutional rights and change the rules so that you can’t get a fair shot in life? We’re trial lawyers and we say that it’s not alright.