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Follow the money: big business funnels millions through seemingly benevolent organizations to fund tort 'reform' efforts. These groups' motives are anything but benign.

Article Excerpt
In an age when corporate accounting scandals have taken center stage, and the most talked-about litigation involves such Fortune 500 firms as Firestone, Exxon, and McDonald's, it is easy to see the fight over the civil justice system as pitting trial lawyers against big business. Lawsuits have indeed targeted misdeeds by corporations, and corporations have poured billions into the political system. But the reality goes far beyond this simplistic characterization.

While companies are often happy to take credit for donations to politicians and their parties, the average CEO is reluctant to have the corporate name attached to what some might perceive as attempts to restrict consumer rights. But many groups are willing to pursue this agenda for them.

Corporations and a wide array of think tanks, business organizations, grassroots groups, academic institutions, state and national political parties, and individual politicians share a common interest in attacking trial lawyers and civil juries. Corporations want to reduce their liability, without appearing heartless to consumers. Interest groups and politicians want the corporate donations. Hence their concerted assault on the civil justice system.

Front groups

Behind many of these assaults, fronted by so-called citizen or nonpartisan/ nonprofit groups, lies corporate wealth. Many allegedly independent "citizens against lawsuit abuse" groups were created with seed money from tobacco companies, which sought anonymity by directly and indirectly funneling the funds first through the Washington, D.C., law firm Covington & Burling, then the American Tort Reform Association and its public relations firm, APCO Associates. (1)

Industry tort-reform groups utilize 'independent voices'--PR agencies and phony 'grassroots' front groups that appear to be independent of the direct beneficiaries of 'tort reform,'" writes David Johnson in The Attack on Trial Lawyers and Tort Law--an in-depth report from the nonprofit, nonpartisan Commonweal Institute that examines the people and groups involved in the tort "reform" campaign. "They have been disciplined, strategic, and patient. They have focused substantial resources on changing the underlying political and social environment, rather than focusing only on single issues." (2)

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has fronted corporate political initiatives. In 2000, the Chamber ran multimillion-dollar ad campaigns on the supreme court elections in Alabama, Michigan, Mississippi, and Ohio, and in the Indiana attorney general contest. (3) The Wall Street Journal reported, "Wal-mart Stores, Inc., DaimlerChrysler AG, Home Depot, Inc., and the American Council of Life Insurers all kicked in $1 million each for one of the Chamber's special projects: a TV and direct-mail advertising campaign aimed at helping elect business-friendly judges." (4)

The Chamber is still litigating to keep the campaigns' corporate funders anonymous. (5)

The Chamber also spearheaded an attempt to derail a bill that Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) introduced in the wake of the Firestone tire recall. According to the same Wall Street Journal article, the Chamber

mounted a fierce lobbying effort against the McCain bill and helped convince their COP allies in the House to introduce an alternative that provided business with far more protection from lawsuits.... The successful campaign was run out of the Chamber's Institute for Legal Reform, which, according to internal documents, has received $250,000 from GM, $200,000 from Toyota Motor North America U.S.A., Inc., $150,000 from Ford, and $50,000 from DaimlerChrysler.

Another organization that has thrived by helping corporations distance themselves from the political fray is the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), which calls itself "the largest bipartisan, individual-membership...

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