The country is on a precipice in trying to get another covid aid bill from Congress.
There is a gaping divide over the amount of additional aid, with the Democrats wanting up to three trillion dollars and some GOP wanting to limit aid to one trillion dollars.
Besides being on a precipice as regards the amount of additional aid, the country is further on the aid precipice as regards the matter of protections from coronavirus liability.
The precipice that the country is on as regarding protections from from coronavirus liability needs to put in the context of a decades long battle that business, doctors and others, on one side, and lawyers, on the other side, have been fighting over tort and other legal liabilities and class action lawsuits.
In the battle, society and citizens collectively have a legitimate interest on both sides. On the plaintiff side, each member of society can be an injured party who desires rights to sue a wrongdoer who has caused his injury. On the other side, since all payments ultimately come out of the pockets of individuals, frequently in the form of small amounts coming out of the pockets of large numbers of individuals, there is a societal interest that imposing liabilities not be done too liberally in favor of the plaintiff side in a way that does not adequately take into account the general societal interest on the defendant side.
The lawyers are biased by their personal financial interests in favor of there being more legal liability, such bias causes the lawyers to seek for the law to provide for more liability, and the bias impairs lawyers from fairly seeking for the law to operate in a way that balances the interests that society and citizens generally have on both sides of the matter.
Ultimately, lawmakers determine the liability rules and it is their job to provide liability rules that fairly balance the interests that society and citizens generally have on both sides of the liability matter.
Lawyers are a powerful lobbying force as regards how the lawmakers determine the liability rules.
Many believe that lawmakers have been unduly influenced by the lawyers in determining the liability rules, and there is a significant imbalance in the liability rules in favor of more liability, to the benefit of the financial interests of the lawyers.
The two sides are far from reconciled about the liability rules, and the long standing war between the two sides threatens the virus aid bill, which has the country on the precipice.
To get past this and get a virus aid bill, it would behoove the country for the voters to be informed about the battle over liability rules, and the arguments on the two sides, as to enable the voters to reach their own decisions about whether it is "right" or "wrong" for McConnell to require virus liability protection as part of the virus aid bill being currently considered by Congress.
8/3/20
Thank you, Montgomery City Councilman Clay McInnis.
Clay McInnis (@voteclaymgm): Alabama businesses need our congressional delegation to pass liability protections #alpolitics https://t.co/dkvSC6AQRk
— Yellowhammer News (@yhn) August 3, 2020
Please take the lead in Montgomery in drawing out the local business community and the local bar and others to inform your Alabama citizens about virus liability protection in the aid bill.
You have a excellent roster of prominent persons who are directors of the Montgomery Chamber of Commerce (listed at https://www.montgomerychamber.com/board-of-directors). The directors include representatives from industry, utilities, finance, government, insurance and health care, plus members of two law firms.
Please also note the officers of the Montgomery Bar Association listed at https://mcbar.org/page/BOD.
Further, you have the academic resource of the faculty at the Thomas Goode Jones School of Law. https://law.faulkner.edu/directory/
See also Our country's dire condition and You must get political.
1/15/21
See Larry Nassar and AAG election, an earlier post giving more extensive discussion of this matter.
12/17/21
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