Justice system is last, best line of defense

By Steve Crowley

Over the years, the American civil justice system has become a popular punching bag for corporate pawns in Washington, who like to blow hard about juries distributing “jackpot justice.” But recent events serve to remind us that the marketplace is the real casino, and the courtroom is the one place that finally protects consumers when they roll the dice in the showroom.

America's civil justice system is our best and last line of defense against substandard medical care, unsafe consumer products and unscrupulous business practices. If corporate lobbyists are able to shut down consumer lawsuits while consumer protection agencies are asleep at the switch, then we will see many more consumer-commerce crack-ups like the Toyota Motor Co. debacle that's all over the news.

As it turns out, Toyota has been manufacturing vehicles with serious defects for several years, including, most infamously, the acceleration defect that has killed a number of people. All the while, the company has managed to drastically limit its recalls, leaving millions of vehicles on the road with potentially lethal defects. Adding insult to injuries, Toyota lobbyists brazenly boasted to the company's top brass about profits it saved by minimizing recalls.

This is probably just the tip of the iceberg. Through recent congressional hearings, we've discovered that Toyota may have knowingly misled American consumers as to the cause of its product malfunctions.

While the company has been focusing relentlessly on avoiding accountability, federal records show 2,600 complaints of sudden unintended acceleration from Toyota and Lexus owners, according to the Los Angeles Times.

You might be asking yourself: Isn't somebody supposed to be watching over these companies, assuring their products are safe? Yes - there are several government agencies charged with assuring the safety of goods that enter the U.S. market. But these agencies are grossly understaffed and underfunded and simply cannot keep up with their workloads, especially now that the stream of commerce flows into the United States from foreign countries where health and safety standards are sometimes lax or virtually non-existent.

At no point in our history has such a high percentage of our goods come from foreign countries. In fact, last year 83 percent of recalls announced by the Consumer Product Safety Administration were from foreign manufacturers. And as lethal products inevitably make their way here, consumers look to their historic fallback – the American civil justice system.

When consumer protection agencies let down their guard, people pursue justice in our civil courts - not only seeking compensation, but to send a message of accountability to current and future manufacturers.

In the case of Toyota, it appears our consumer protection agencies once again will be found wanting. But if we let it, our civil justice system will be up to task. Toyota ultimately will be called to account in our courts, just as Ford Motor Co. was called to account in the 1970s when its Pintos were bursting into fiery pinatas upon rear-end collisions.

Thanks to the American civil justice system, the whole world was able to see exactly what happened when Ford put profits ahead of people. And for a time, a whole industry took this lesson to heart.

But, the lesson clearly needs to be learned all over again - which is one of many reasons America needs a strong and vibrant civil justice system and always will.

Steve Crowley, an attorney in Burlington, is a former president of the Iowa Association for Justice.