"Victims and Families United"

A new grassroots organization calling itself "Victims and Families United" is the subject of an article in the Alton Telegraph : "Victims say suits justified, to offer malpractice fixes," by Sanford J. Schmidt.

Judy Buckles helped form a group Victims and Families United. They say they formed because they are tired of hearing groups funded by Corporate America complain about justice in Madison County.

She said she resents the implication that all lawsuits filed here are frivolous.

"Not all lawsuits are frivolous, and behind every lawsuit is a real victim or family who is seeking justice and democracy," she said.

. . .

"This new Metro East grassroots group is dedicated to telling ‘the other side’ of the lawsuit debate in Madison County.

"Their mission is to bring balance and fairness to the debate and protect access to the courts for victims and their families," a spokesman said.

Buckles said "tort reform" groups such as "Illinois Lawsuit Abuse Watch" and the national American Tort Reform Association are funded by big companies, including tobacco makers and asbestos manufacturers who are concerned about losing money in the Madison County courts.

Comments

[Evan Schaeffer]

David Giacalone of EthicalEsq questions whether I should have used quotation marks around the word "grassroots" at the beginning of this post.
The newspaper article refers to the organization as being "grassroots" but it's hard to tell, due to a misplaced quotation mark in the source article, if it's the article's author or a spokesman for the organization calling it "grassroots." An article the following day in the Alton Telegraph (the link is on this site in a later post) raises questions as to whether the organization is really "grassroots" -- at the very least, it raises questions that call for a writer like me to define the term when using it.

I'm not going to change this post since it's already up and David has a pointer to it on his site. But please note the correction here.

[woody]

I believe that the organization vitims and families united does have at least some support from trial lawyers but the other side is strictly funded by insurance companies and corporate interests. I wonder why we cannot agree to meet somewhere in the middle of all this. If we block the pain and suffering part of the lawsuits then we will hurt real victims. It seems to me that we could have a indepentent board look at the lawsuits and decide beforehand if they merit going to court.