If state Sen. Tom Harman (R-Huntington Beach), Assemblyman Van Tran (R-Costa Mesa) and Costa Mesa Mayor Allan Mansoor get hit by a reckless driver as they pull into South Coast Plaza later this morning, do not expect them or their insurance companies to sue the driver.
And if the accident is the fault of some confusingly screwy signs in the parking lot, don't expect the politicos to sue the tony shopping mall.
And if they find a severed human finger in the lobster bisque they are served inside the Clubhouse, don't expect them to sue the restaurant.
For all of that would surely be perceived by the potential plaintiffs as lawsuit abuse, something the guys above are adamantly against.
Of course, do not take this revelation as an invitation to run the three over, subject them to Wiley Coyote wrong-way signs or sneak a digit into their soups.
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First, doing any of those fictional things would be wrong. Second, where are you going to get a finger on such short notice?
In any event, Tran and Harman will be picking up awards at the Clubhouse for being “staunch advocates of civil justice reform
in the California legislature” and therefore recipients of California Champion
Against Lawsuit Abuse Awards. Cheering them on at the function, presented by Citizens Against Lawsuit Abuse, will be Mansoor.
The fun begins at 11:30 a.m. at the restaurant, 3333 Bristol St., in Costa Mesa, next to Bloomingdale's.
The nonprofit claims 97 percent of
the respondents in Southern California to a survey indicated it is important for the
state Legislature to enact reforms to help attract more jobs to California
and retain the jobs currently in the state, and that 61 percent of them favor candidates who support legal reform over those that do not.
And yet the group claims the biggest foe to enacting the reforms is . . . drum roll, please . . . the same California Legislature that counts among its members the two honorees. “Flush with campaign contributions from the plaintiffs' bar,” the anti abusers say, Sacramento “continually
blocks legislation to reform shakedown lawsuits and class action
lawsuit abuses.”
The lunchtime deal is part of Lawsuit Abuse Awareness Week, which explains the festive lights decorating the building directly across the 405 freeway from Bloomingdale's.
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.