Should You Harness the Power of Purdue Pharmacy Law to Bring Corporations to heel?
If you are unfamiliar with the concept of a kindred lawsuit, it is an interesting legal concept. A kindred lawsuit is a legal lawsuit where two or more plaintiffs come together in a bind to pursue legal action against a corporation that they believe has acted in a way that has injured them through their conduct. In short, the plaintiffs attempt to sue the entity in question because they feel that they have been harmed through its conduct.
For instance, they might have been injured because of the corporation’s failure to appropriately train its employees in hazardous workplace conditions or perhaps it could be that the corporation has intentionally marketed products that have been dangerous for the workers who utilize its services.
Kindred Lawsuit
In this regard, Kevin McCarthy, in his recent book, Industrial Law for the 21st Century states “is placing corporations into legal liability for harms often involves challenges for the courts, not for the courts or shareholders or management. Thus, corporations increasingly seek advice from attorneys with experience handling industrial law cases.”
Even when conventional liberal thought prevails, as it does for most of the people who support the plaintiffs in such lawsuits, the reality remains that such liberal theories do not work well. That reality is made clear by the fact that only very few attorneys who are considered to be in the mainstream of the legal community are actually practicing them.
It would seem to be quite clear then that the main reason corporate clients are not seeking counsel from Kevin McCarthy and others who practice these theories is because they simply don’t understand them.
That’s rather ironic, since it is Kevin McCarthy who states in his new book, No Compromise, that “the plaintiff’s burden of proof to prove that his or her injury was the result of defendants’ negligence is preposterous.” Yet in a review of this same book, one cannot fail to note that the Michigan attorney who represented the car dealer who caused an accident to occur in Michigan was unable to persuade a judge that the car dealership’s liability insurance coverage should apply to this accident because it was deficient. Why? Because Michigan’s Tort Law was too vague.
So, Kevin McCarthy, as he so often does, takes a case from some obscure minority of cases to make a point about how litigators on the plaintiff’s behalf should act.
He begins his discussion of litigants by telling the story of a case he tried in state court in which the Michigan Supreme Court reversed the trial judge’s decision and held that a city council had no business regulating which video game stores could use their property for displaying games of violent and aggressive nature. The Michigan Supreme Court held that the city council had exceeded its authority in setting the criteria for permissible gaming by allowing gambling at all places of business. Why did the court allow the state legislature to regulate this? Because “the legislature has broad power to regulate corporations,” the court reasoned.
Well, perhaps Kevin McCarthy would also be wise to heed the wisdom of his fellow author, Leo Tolstoy, in his famous article, “The Master of the Game,” where he eloquently explained that the real reason for regulating corporate speech is not to protect the public against harm inflicted upon them by corporations, but rather to protect the public against the danger of harm inflicted upon themselves by individuals.
Kevin McCarthy, therefore, is quite correct when he tells his readers to beware when corporations make “inflammatory comments about other people’s free speech rights.” For if they fail to heedfully heed his advice, those within the echelon of his circle will go too far in demanding that their viewpoint is allowed in the marketplace. That only increases the problem.
Kevin McCarthy then explains, correctly enough, that corporate clients should be careful not to “buy into the lie”, “Free speech absolves the corporation from responsibility for the speech of its corporate clients.”
This is an excellent book for any individual who wants to know whether they should heedfully pursue their desire to file a lawsuit against a corporation that is doing wrong in its business practices.
It is a book I highly recommend to anyone who is worried about corporate greed and corporate malfeasance. It provides much valuable information about how to discern what is Purdue Pharma’s real agenda, how to navigate the maze of corporate bureaucracy, and how to build an effective case against a corporation when it does commit malpractice.
I would also recommend it to those who are seriously concerned about the disastrous effects of pharmaceutical drug lawsuits on consumers and the health care system overall.