Blog Post

On May 20, 2009, President Obama issued the following press release: [link]

This executive order by President Obama reverses 8 years of corporate shielding by the former President Bush. For the first 200 years in America, if a company was negligent and hurt someone - like with a dangerous drug, or with a defective automobile, or a dangerous truck driver - then the injured party would sue the company. It was a simple concept - holding a company responsible for causing injuries through negligence.

Under the Bush administration, though, that process changed. Bush ordered the different agencies of the federal government to issue "preambles" to new regulations. In these "preambles" the agencies claimed that only the AGENCY had the ability to decide if the corporations were negligent. So, if an agency like the FDA had allowed a drug to be sold, then no consumer could ever sue the drug company. Even if the drug was later discovered to be terribly dangerous (like Vioxx, Phen-Fen, Baycol, and many many others). The agency never requested a change in that 200 years of law, they just stuck the language into their "preambles" and then the companies quoted that language to try to avoid any lawsuits.

The impact could have been horrible. NHTSA reviews automobiles, so the auto makers claimed that any automobile on the road could never be sued for defects (like defective Firestone tires, or Explorers that rolled over too easily, or airbags that didn't deploy, or seatbelts that failed, etc.). Or the FDA reviews drugs and food both, so tainted peanut butter and Heparin from China and Vioxx lawsuits could never happen. Or the FAA reviews airline travel, so the recent crash in New York, with pilots that didn't understand their wings had iced over, those families could also never file a lawsuit for the death of their loved ones.

Thankfully, that danger has now been eliminated by President Obama. The executive order takes us back to the 200 years of civil law in the US. If a company makes a dangerous product and people are hurt because of it, the company is expected to be responsible for it's product. That's just basic fairness.