Judge Robert Bork: Is This Funny or What?

Dan Frith

Contributor

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Do you remember old Judge Robert H. Bork?  The same Judge Bork who served as a solicitor general and acting attorney general in the 1970s. The same Judge Bork who, from 1982 to 1988, was a federal appeals judge in Washington and the same Judge Bork denied a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court in 1987, after his nomination by President Ronald Reagan.  

Do you remember Judge Bork's opinion on civil lawsuits and tort reform?  He didn't have much use for them.  Judge Bork has been a leading advocate of restricting plaintiffs' ability to recover through tort law.  In a 2002 article published in the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy--the official journal of the Federalist Society--Bork argued that frivolous claims and excessive punitive damage awards have caused the Constitution to evolve into a document which would allow Congress to enact tort reforms that would have been unconstitutional at the framing.

Well guess what?  Old Judge Bork fell last year at The Yale Club (New York City) after stepping onto a platform to speak and he sued the Yale Club for $1 million!  The case recently settled for a confidential amount.

I guess all personal injury cases are frivolous....unless it happens to be yours!