Lawsuit Abuse Must Stop
 
The American legal system prides itself on fairness and justice. But for millions of consumers and small business owners, the personal injury industrial complex is anything but fair. Spurred by the promise of endless recovery dollars, billboard lawyers have spun up increasingly aggressive cases — divorced from reality — in front of judges and jurors. The resulting costly judgments bankrupt small businesses and property owners, drive up prices, and make it exceptionally difficult for housing complexes to charge affordable rents.  Fortunately, states such as Florida and Georgia are reforming their legal systems to ensure that plaintiffs recover what is fairly owed to them — not a blank check dictated by a high-powered attorney. When businesses genuinely fail consumers and workers by not maintaining their premises and equipment, there’s nothing wrong with injured parties getting their day in court. The problem is that judicial dockets are littered with phony cases designed to extract the maximum possible payout from already-struggling businesses.  According to a 2024 investigation by ABC’s New York affiliate, phony slip and fall claims “are causing insurance premiums to rise for building owners who are then passing on the increased costs to tenants, homeowners and consumers.” One Brooklyn building owner “received a fraudulent lawsuit from a man who alleges he was severely injured when he fell on the sidewalk outside the owner’s building. Eyewitness News reviewed the surveillance video of the fall and it doesn’t appear to be a serious incident.” Even if that evidence can be shown in court and exonerate the defendant, the promise of high payouts continues to lure plaintiffs pushing dubious claims. 
 
Some are attempting to fight back against these outrageous antics. For example, the Union Mutual Fire Insurance Company is waging an all-out legal battle against a purported network of phony personal-injury claim participants. As the International Comparative Legal Guides noted in May, the insurer has filed multiple lawsuits “under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York. These lawsuits, all lodged over the past few weeks, target an array of defendants including prominent personal-injury law firms, medical providers and litigation funding providers.”  Participants allegedly took part in staged accidents, and “clinics knowingly performed unwarranted procedures and prescribed unnecessary treatments as part of a wider effort to maximise [sic] claim values and settlements.” 
 
Until states limit the scope of open-ended liability, this laudable legal pushback will devolve into a cat-and-mouse game. Fortunately, Georgia has taken leadership on the issue by enacting far-ranging tort reforms. In April, Gov. Brian Kemp signed legislation ensuring that businesses are only liable for premises and factors they directly control, protecting companies “for simply opening their doors and employing hardworking Georgians in communities and neighborhoods that need them.” Tort reforms also ensure that medical damages are limited to expenses that are actually incurred, and “pain and suffering” damages reflect actual submitted evidence.  Lawsuit abuse reform will lead to lower costs, and not just for businesses and their consumers. When carefully crafted, liability changes can also ensure a cleaner Earth by tying liability to actual environmental damages. State tort reforms to tie legal liability to defendants’ degree of blame reduces toxic releases reported by the Environmental Protection Agency across industries and deters some of the worst polluters from contaminating America’s air and water. 
 
Even the most promising reforms cannot wave away societal problems such as phony claims and pollution. However, tort reform can significantly improve these issues and reduce costs across the board. Initiatives such as Protecting American Consumers Together are laudably fighting for a better and more predictable legal system that keeps overzealous litigation in check. It’s up to lawmakers across the country to fight for fairness in the courts. 
 
Senseless Census Responsibilities for Postal Service
 
The U.S. Postal Service (USPS) cannot stop losing money. America’s mail carrier lost an astounding $9.5 billion last year and has already lost more than $6 billion this year. These gargantuan losses are hardly an anomaly for the agency. Rather than responding by focusing on its core competency of delivering mail, the USPS continues to take on work and responsibilities wholly unrelated to mail delivery. From enforcing antitrust law to selling money orders, the USPS is now adding another boondoggle to the mix: the census. According to recent reporting, the U.S. Census Bureau “plans to try using U.S. Postal Service mail carriers to conduct census interviews at two census test sites” in preparation for the 2030 count. The USPS should leave the census to the Census Bureau, which ought to seriously rethink how it counts America’s populace. The U.S. census is already on a course collision with runaway expenses. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) considers the census a “high-risk program,” citing escalating expenses and cost overruns. In 2020—when the most recent census was conducted—the inflation-adjusted cost of counting a household was more than double the 1990 price tab. The 2020 Census cost taxpayers an astounding $14 billion, and the 2030 Census will likely cost even more absent reform. And it will likely cost even more than it needs to if the USPS runs the show.
 
Over the past few years, America’s mail carrier has been on a mission to grow its career workforce as much as it can, overlooking less expensive temporary (or “pre-career”) employees. Before leaving office, former Postmaster General Louis DeJoy gloated, “We converted 190,000 employees to full career status over the past 4 years, increasing our total career employees by approximately 28,000 employees.” Given that USPS pre-career employees cost far less than their career counterparts, these conversions are a significant budget-buster. A 2021 analysis by the GAO estimates that the compensation gap is around $25 per hour, though this total shrinks to $8 per hour when comparing similar types of workers with similar experience. Yet, it will (most likely) be those pricey postal employees going door to door for any census project, instead of the temporary field representatives who ordinarily do the door knocking at a fraction of the cost.
 
Other countries have begun to realize that an “actual” count can be achieved by bringing together data already collected via various systems such as social safety nets. In more than a dozen European countries (i.e. Switzerland, Norway, Germany), bureaucrats cobble together data already on the books to create elaborate, linked records in master databases. To see what this would look like in practice, consider how websites such as Ancestry.com help consumers find relatives past and present. Their master database contains wide-ranging records such as birth, marriage, and death certificates, as well as citizenship/naturalization documents. If the government wanted even more information in their “census” database, they could make use of more detailed records at their disposal such as tax records. The National Research Council has suggested that this could work, noting in a 1995 report that a, “high proportion of the U.S. population is included in one or more existing administrative records…the coverage…may well expand in the future.” Thirty years later, surely more information is available. While this approach may pose constitutional questions, a less-intensive census is still perfectly consistent with Article I, Section 2, Clause 3 of the Constitution. While the text requires an “actual Enumeration,” this likely refers to any deliberate effort to count the population (e.g., compiling records) and the clause grants Congress plenty of discretion as to how to accomplish that. The Census Bureau and Congress should start reforming this “actual Enumeration” by rejecting attempts to insert an overextended and debt-ridden agency into the mix. Only then can they consider real reforms to the centuries-old practice.
 
BLOGS:

Monday: The Latest Happenings at HHS

Tuesday: Jon Husted’s AI Age Verification Bill is Dangerous for Children’s Privacy

Wednesday: Trade, Not Tariffs, Will Keep U.S. Healthcare Competitive

Thursday: Trump Misses the Big Picture on Tinseltown Tariffs

David Williams
President
Taxpayers Protection Alliance
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