[rextorres]

It's unfortunate that some politicians and radio pundits have been able to shift the discussion to blame the trial lawyers instead of focusing on companies that act recklessly or criminally while at the same time not insisting that these companies at least be forced to act responsibly.

The whole point of punitive damages (which some here have mistaken as "pain and suffering") is to punish companies for reckless and criminal behavior. Not as some have claimed as a form of a lottery. An analogy would be the speeding ticket. If the fine for a speeding ticket is only $5 you probably would not stop speeding. If it's $100s of dollars is all of a sudden makes you stop and think. Also - you can't throw a company in jail, but you can cause it to pay large sums of money.

The poster child for frivolous lawsuits is McDonald's. What you hear on the radio is that this woman should have known coffee was hot.

What you don't hear about is that McD's to save a couple of pennies on each coffee sold was serving coffee that was needlessly too hot in cups that were notorious for loosing their lid. This woman was not the first to have complained and McD's purposely ignored and dismissed any complaints. In fact McD's didn't even offer an apology or any medical compensation they just hoped the woman would go away. The woman had to go through months of therapy because of these burns. If I had been in that woman's place I would have been mad and you probably would have been too.

The only way to force them to change this reckless practice was through a lawsuit. Tom Delay or Rush Limbaugh sure would not have done anything about it.

A good example of a company that did act responibly is Odwalla and they never paid punitive damages because they acted as a company should. You all can look it up if you are interested.

Anyway - I would suggest that most if not all high punitive damage awards are the result of companies not only producing faulty products but also covering them up to continue to make profits.

I don't know about you but if someone I loved died or suffered extreme harm because of a company's malfeasance I think that company should be held accountable.

Now anyone who thinks that a company should not be held accountable when they knowingly cause extreme harm or death please speak up.