Tort Reform to Help Business

John Hopkins

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In 1996, Louisiana's Governor Mike Foster and his Republican legislature fulfilled his campaign promises to business and gave tort refom to Louisiana. He wanted to help the business climate; to protect the corporations who do or might do business in Llouisiana.

This is the same state devastated by Hurricane Katrina and the deplorable efforts on the part of FEMA in providing aid to the ravaged citizens there.

Now, these same Louisiana citizens are hit by a hurricane spawned by the good Governor Foster.

New Orleans Business News reports that as a result of tort reform efforts, 4000 to 7000 "Louisiana households face financial ruin" because of the destruction of these people's homes by Chinese manufactured drywall.

Louisiana State Senator Julie Quinn put it better than I could:

"We took that away from the consumer. We say, ‘Sorry, you’re going to have to sue the manufacturer in China.’ That puts people in Louisiana at a huge disadvantage. We threw the consumer under the bus under the purview of ‘Hey, this will attract business to Louisiana.’ All we did was hurt the consumer."

For his part, Governor Foster said he thought it was unfortunate that the law "...may work to someone's disadvantage".

With Governor Foster's tort reform and Katrina, I think Louisiana has had more than its fair share of disaster.