I watched the HBO documentary Hot Coffee on Monday night. Here are a few random thoughts.

• The Mississippians in the documentary were superb. Former Miss. Supreme Court Justice Oliver Diaz, Jackson attorney Rob McDuff, former Miss. Supreme Court Justice Chuck McRae and author John Grisham all spoke eloquently and convincingly.
• I had forgotten how bogus the government’s case against Diaz appeared. For me, the fact that the government prosecuted Diaz soiled the prosecutions of Minor, Teel and Whitfield. I don’t have a problem with those prosecutions. But the decision to prosecute Diaz was a mistake and, in retrospect, looks politically motivated.
• I felt stupid to have never connected the fact that taxpayers pay for the cost of tort reform. When tort victims fully recover in the Court system, Medicaid and Medicare are reimbursed and are not saddled with the plaintiff’s future medical care. Under the cap system, people wind up back on the Medicaid rolls and these entities receive less reimbursement.
• It also reminded me that the system that Mississippi nursing homes use to shield their operators from liability also shifts the burden or paying for their negligence to taxpayers who are funding Medicare and Medicaid.
• I had never seem the pictures of the burns to the legs of the victim in the McDonald’s coffee case or heard the actual facts of the case. The fact that people in this country were misled by her lawsuit is sad.
• The documentary solidified what I had already figured out: the general public does not understand tort reform. They believe that caps apply to frivolous lawsuits. In fact, the opposite is true. Caps only come into play in non-frivolous cases with extensive injuries. Big business has effectively and intentionally misled the public on this issue.

The film made me sad. Sad for the victims portrayed in the film, who were under compensated due to caps or kept from the courthouse due to mandatory arbitration clauses. Sad for the American public, who were duped into supporting tort reform by those they trust.

The film also made me sad for my profession. The legal profession has had its image tarnished by greedy ambulance chasers who advertise that they can get large sums of money for accident victims who were not really hurt. They may not come out and say that in their ads, but that is what they are selling.

Have you ever noticed that in lawyer commercials with people who got a big check, the people don’t look hurt? How it’s never the family of the dead guy? Or the woman who lost her leg? Or the child who suffered brain damage and will never be able to take care of herself? Think these commercials could be a factor in public support of tort reform?