Excerpt from Speaker Benge's press release:
OKLAHOMA CITY (May 12, 2008) –House Democrats voted in lock step with the trial lawyer lobby today when an attempt to override the governor’s veto of reasonable lawsuit reform failed on the House floor.
Gov. Brad Henry vetoed House Bill 2458 last week, claiming the bill is unconstitutional. The bill would require a plaintiff in a civil lawsuit for professional negligence to attach to the petition an affidavit attesting that a “reasonable interpretation of the facts supports a finding that the acts or omissions of the defendant….constituted professional negligence.”
Rep. Colby Schwartz, author of the bill, called the legislation a meaningful step in reducing frivolous lawsuits in Oklahoma and criticized House Democrats for locking up on a bill that passed the Senate unanimously in its current form.
“The governor of Oklahoma does not get to decide if legislation is constitutional; that job is left to our court system,” said Schwartz, R-Yukon. “This bill would have cleared the courts of frivolous lawsuits to make way for those with legitimate cases, but instead House Democrats voted today to keep our court system clogged with expensive lawsuits without merit.”
The House Democrats actions today reminded us of a website our readers should be familiar with that deals with legal extortionists:
www.overlawyered.com.
A massive archive there helps you follow the major league offenders, such as Ron Motley, the Charleston-based legal pirate that Edmondson has brought in to work the poultry cases on behalf of the, ahem, taxpayers since his other buddy
Dickie Scruggs has been unavoidably detained.
Labels: AG, Drew Edmondson, Speaker Chris Benge
Posted at 5/12/2008 08:48:00 PM
