I always feel like there is some mythical line drawn when you can no longer say Happy Holidays or Happy New Year. I think it is still fair to say Happy New Year from California Citizens Against Lawsuit Abuse. We are hopeful that 2012 brings the people of the United States and California good times and good fortune. There is no doubt that the past four years have not been the greatest and I think we are due for some good news.
Along with the new year always comes the usual new year’s resolutions. I am sure we all have quite a few and we know that most people abandon their resolutions within the first few weeks of the new year. CALA thinks that we need to have a resolution that we can and want to keep.
Watching the ball drop in Times Square reminded me about how lawmakers have continually dropped the ball on legal reform. In the minds of many legislators, there is a complete disconnect between legal reform and job creation. It’s simple: a poor legal climate contributes to this state’s poor business climate, which discourages investors from investing in job-creating businesses here.
If we want to create badly-needed jobs in California, legal reform must be a legislative priority in 2012. Not only is legal reform a common sense solution, it is a common sense resolution for our legislators to make in 2012. Lawsuit abuse increases the prices we pay for goods and services, and consumes valuable tax dollars that could be spent on economic development, schools or services for needy citizens. It also increases health care costs and threatens jobs and our economy.
Even as I write this, AB 1207 by Assembly member Furutani has already threatened to create more lawsuits by removing the statute of limitations related to the exposure to a pollutant or hazardous substance. Luckily, this bill was defeated in committee, but there are a lot of other bad bills out there that would only continue the negative decline California has been over the past years.
If California and the United States are serious about job creation, then we need to look at where jobs are being created and why they are being created in those states. It is time to get serious about legal reform. We all pay and we all lose as a result of lawsuit abuse. Let’s all resolve to make 2012 a year of legal reform!