Rob McKenna; I think I figured it out (Part 2)

I puzzled overnight how Rob McKenna could within a very short period of time issue apparently wildly contradictory statements. He says the courts are out of control with damages and the legislature needs to step in and impose limits. He also argues that courts should be able to disregard legislative limits on damages and he supports enormous punitive damages.

My problem in trying to figure this out was that I presumed that there was an over arching doctrine that somehow melded these two opposing positions.

No, the answer lies in the reason for espousing them. Tort reform, however unsupported by actual evidence, is a Republican campaign cornerstone. As a Republican candidate for Attorney General, Rob McKenna embraced the issue. The issue still has currency and Mr. McKenna uses the issue to gain publicity.

The Exxon Valdez case is internationally known and public sentiment lies almost entirely on the side of the victims of this environmental disaster. Mr. McKenna claims to have inserted himself into this case to rally other states into participating as advocates of the victims.

He took the politically popular position of advocating for exactly the opposite result from the one he had campaigned on. Governor Gregoire’s signature, high profile case was the suit against the tobacco companies. The tide of approval for this effort washed her up on the shores of the governor’s office. The Exxon Valdez case has the same sort of <i>cache</i> as the tobacco cases and could perhaps advance McKenna’s career in the same way.

McKenna, trying to have it both ways, publicly continued to speak out for tort reform while while using his office to seek the opposite result in the Exxon Valdez case.

He is trying to appear to be a big business tort reformer (the only real benefactors of this position are insurance companies and big businesses) and at the same time appear to be a hero to tort victims. The the notoriety of the Exxon Valdez case promised enough political advantage to compensate for whatever losses their might be from his big business base.

That’s the only coherent answer I could find. The principle that one derives from this is that Rob McKenna will say and do anything to advance his career.

Washington’s Attorney General Takes Both Sides of Tort Reform Issues (Part 1)

Washington State’s Attorney General Rob McKenna recently campaigned for tort reform, claiming that the legislature needed to step in and reduce the awards that were being entered against the state. He indicated that the courts were out of control and the legislaure needed to do something about it:

“But the courts have moved so far away from what the Legislature intended back in the early 1960s that the law removing sovereign immunity is no longer recognizable, and at the same time the Legislature has failed to act at a policy level where the limits ought to be.”

Mr. McKenna got into office advocating tort reform for everyone, saying that judgments were getting too big.

That sounds to me like just expedient court bashing. He says lawsuits are preventing the state from taking corrective action? That sounds like baloney.

Well, what did he do when the Exxon Valdez case got to the Supreme Court and the Court was asked to review the biggest punitive damages award in American history, $5 billion? This award was being attacked on two grounds. First, Exxon said that it was excessive. The plaintiffs were awarded all their proven damages, plus $5 billion. Second the spill was a violation of the federal Clean Water Act which does not award punitive damages at all. This omission from the law was fought for by Republicans, who generally are beyond cautious with respect to environmental laws. The $5 billion punitive damages award was granted under court created doctrine that the trial judge held applied in spite of the Clean Water Act.

The arguments of Exxon are exactly the same positions that Mr. McKenna campaigned on and which he has been advocating recently.

Mr. McKenna participated in this case by helping prepare a brief on behalf of Washington and 33 other states which argued that the punitive damages award should not be reduced and that the court created doctrine that allows punitive damages ought to be respected in spite of contrary language in the Clean Water Act. This is exactly the opposite of what he is saying in public.

Lawyers are sometimes required to advance positions they do not believe in but this does not appear to be the case in this instance. Mr. McKenna is crowing about the result and how he helped preserve punitive damages under court created doctrine!

The statement he issued on June 25 says this:

“We are pleased the court upheld an award of punitive damages, since Exxon had argued that no punitive damages can be awarded in a maritime case under federal law, no matter how egregious the circumstances,” McKenna said. “We are disappointed, however, that the Court did not award the full punitive damages authorized by the Court of Appeals. The reduced award is brutally disappointing for the Washington and Alaska fishermen and their families who were counting on this money to help make them whole.”

Don’t get me wrong; I don’t disagree with this sentiment. It is just that because I agree with him, I cannot in good conscience claim to support tort reform, particularly the two points championed by Exxon and Mr. McKenna in public statements.

I have puzzled over this for some time trying to render Mr. McKenna’s divergent positions rational. The only thing I can come up with is that Mr. McKenna thinks that punitive damages are fine for injured people in other states but not for people in Washington, except for fishermen. That still does not make sense to me.