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"The Man" Forces Me to Work Against the Little Guy

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I have a client who doesn’t pay me despite the fact that I spend much of each day fighting to get it paid. This client sends me threatening letters and emails. It threatens to sue my other clients, the ones I care for, if I don’t do a good job getting it paid. I get no thank yous; only scorn. No “good jobs”; only rude silence after I send it money. Although I fight to get this client paid, I hate the thought of this client and what it does to others. My malpractice and ethical exposure increases and now half of my life is dedicated to a client who uses me to take advantage of others. I can’t successfully serve the Little Guy if I am but a slave to The Man’s bidding. But someone has to keep fighting for the Little Guy, right?

You see, I represent the insurance industry. I don’t have a contract and I use the term “client” facetiously, but the fact remains that I work for the insurance industry as a consequence for my work for my personal injury and wrongful death clients. It’s more like an indentured servitude set forth by The Man. The Man enslaves me by virtue of my cherished relationships with my actual injured clients and I have a forced duty to ensure that my role in the Tort Deform Machine is preserved. There is no recourse as The Machine gets more powerful and the Little Guy is all but out of legal ammunition to fight.

The Man isn’t so much a governmental entity as it is the byproduct of the growing and misguided American ideal that paints victims of personal injury as malingerers, and their lawyers, ambulance chasers. The Man was born when the Seventh Amendment of the US Constitution was forgotten by the American public. Because of The Man, one’s right to a civil jury trial, once hailed as a “sacred” right by our Founders, is now a distant third behind the financial interests of the insurance industry and the government.

Because of The Man, money in personal injury claims is many times not passed to the aggrieved, but from one insurance company to another by virtue of what is called “subrogation”. Subrogation is the process where the Little Guy is legally required to pay back his first party benefits (you know, the benefits he paid premiums on) for money the health or first party car insurer paid out on medical bills. The Little Guy can now theoretically get in an accident, suffer terrible injuries, and have all of the available money go to pay back his health insurance company. There are no longer equitable (consideration of fairness) remedies for this. The Man has determined that these insurers can place just about anything they want in insurance contracts, and if the Little Guy agrees (which they have little to no choice if they are to be insured), well, they are out of luck. A meeting of the minds and the unfair bargaining position the of Little Guy is in now means nothing.

So then it becomes my job to make sure the subrogation “rights” of the health insurance (and first party car insurance through what is called MedPay) companies are protected. The duty I have to my real client is compounded, and if I don’t comply with The Man’s bidding, I could get in trouble and the Little Guy I represent can lose his benefits, be sued, or both. I am forced to file more lawsuits in order to address subrogation and get the Little Guy compensated something. And when I file more lawsuits, The Man accuses me of filing “frivolous” lawsuits and the Tort Deform machine builds more power. The calculated dehumanization of the injury victims and their lawyers by the Tort Deformers who are pulling The Man’s strings contributes to the billion dollar profits of the insurance industry.

One day, the Little Guy will again stand in a legal position to be reasonably compensated without The Man bringing him down. Today is not that day. If I have to continue to serve as an indentured servant to the insurance industry in order to assist the Little Guy, then I will. But if there is to be subrogation, then there needs to be fairness to those to who suffer.

Ohio voters need to stand up to The Man. Don’t fall victim to the propaganda being spread by the Tort Deformers. Educate yourself on tort deform.

You can start by getting the real facts about the McDonald’s Hot Coffee Case: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCkL9UlmCOE

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