Letter:Ordinary people have difficulty fighting greedy, malicious suits

Saturday, Oct. 4, 1997 | 6:44 a.m.

I have great respect for a newspaper that prints stories of ordinary working people struggling for their rights in a nation that "guarantees" freedom of speech and touts "liberty and justice for all."

I know now what Judge Learned Hand said is true: "The Constitution (and Bill of Rights) is just a piece of paper." The struggle to defend our rights in the real world is an unending battle, as many Americans have long known.

On John Stossel's special, "The Trouble with Lawyers," the statement was made that a law degree is a license to torture, even destroy, people.

There is tremendous financial incentive to slap citizens with lawsuits for the flimsiest of reasons. A lawyer knows the overwhelming difficulties citizens face in calling public attention to their cases and that the legal system is wide open for use as a tool of intimidation and coercion.

The time is long overdue to confront the arrogance and greed of the legal system by creating independent oversight of attorneys with open public scrutiny.

The Bar Association protects its own, and citizen complaints about attorneys are not given serious attention except in rare cases.

Attorneys face few, if any, sanctions for bringing malicious lawsuits or for using the courts to intimidate citizens and deprive them of their constitutional rights, even as the attorney fattens his bank account.

I hope citizens will check lawyer Josh Landish's statements made in the SUN article.

I am told by Consumer Affairs that Best Auto's more than 90 complaints (now 95) go back to '89, not '83 as Landish stated. Comparing its record with other shops is even more enlightening.

The end of this lawsuit will not erase Best Auto Specialist's "unsatisfactory" record with the Better Business Bureau nor complaints filed against them at Consumer Affairs.

I hope the end of this case makes other businesses with numerous consumer complaints think twice about using a lawsuit as a means to silence communication.

I also hope it reaffirms freedom of speech for consumers, the victims of a multibillion-dollar consumer fraud industry right here in our own wonderful, "freedom-loving" United States of America.

Betty J. Butler