At the close of its latest session, the Texas legislature passed a loser pay law. Essentially, if you bring a lawsuit in Texas and the jury finds against you, you pay the other side’s costs (and attorney’s fees I assume). If you bring a law suit and win, the defense pays your costs. The goal is to end frivolous lawsuits, and encourage more people to settle short of trial. Both are excellent goals IMO.

I have never supported a loser pays law because I think it will result in a shift of the burden from the negligent party to the tax payer. If an injured plaintiff loses his case, or doesn’t bring one, out of fear of losing and thus being forced to pay, his alternative is to collect welfare from the taxpayer.

There is no guarantee that a jury will make the proper decision. I’ve witnessed cases where there was no doubt of the defendant’s liability or the plaintiff’s damages but the jury found for the defendant presumably because he liked him more, or didn’t like the plaintiff or even the plaintiff lawyer. That stuff happens.

My solution has always been to limit attorney’s fees. If there is a maximum amount a lawyer can earn on a case, he will get to the settlement table quickly, which is a better solution for everyone. In a loser pays situation defense counsel would be paid his hourly rate if victorious, but presumably plaintiff’s counsel would be awarded his contingency fee from the verdict, which is more than likely covered by insurance. So the law punishes plaintiffs and insurance companies while defense lawyers escape unscathed, and plaintiff lawyers assume the same risk as always.

In addition, you can’t take someone’s ability to sue away from them, so a plaintiff who loses who has no money would probably never pay. Essentially Texas is substituting the government for the negligent party in cases where the risk seems to be too great.

We will see if it works.

Over at Legal Insurrection Professor Jacobson has a Scott Brown post that pretty much mirrors my thoughts about Senator Brown.

I too championed Brown early, and even spent some time phone banking for him. I talked him up on my radio show. I remember sending an email to Jim Geraghty at the Campaign Spot warning him to not ignore what was happening in Massachusetts. It was indeed palpable. And the tea party was instrumental in making it happen.

A few months ago at a tea party leadership meeting a bunch of people expressed their displeasure at Brown’s position on the financial services bill. Others defended him with the typical Massachusetts response that he is “the best that we can do”.

That may indeed be true but it is not saying much.

Throwing the Ryan plan under the bus is however the very last straw for me. I’m not alone. This morning I got a text message from a friend who is in Singapore on business, saying he is done with Brown too.

What are you thinking Senator? I visited you in your DC office shortly after your election victory and you made it clear that DC was very dysfunctional. Yet now you seem to fit right in. You are not helping Massachusetts by pretending the budget can be fixed by “fighting waste and abuse”. Pray tell, what waste and abuse have you identified and gotten rid of since you took office?

So yeah, where are we gonna go? Holly Robichaud at the Boston Herald wants us to remember Brown is better than a democrat. That may be true, but as a tea partier who has spent the last 2 plus years trying to get this country back on track, I’m not ready to embrace the same old Washington baloney and I’m certainly not ready to kiss and make up.

I tell you what Senator Brown – show us your plan for fixing the debt, for making sure medicare stays strong and funded, and for keeping social security strong and then we will talk. Until then, this tea partier is no longer a supporter.

The latest from Matt’s Meditations by Matt Holzmann

As the stories about Philippe Strauss Kahn filter out, a picture has emerged of a renegade libertine that even by lax European standards is quite disturbing. The Guardian has broken the silence imposed by both the political establishment and draconian French privacy laws specifically enacted to shield the peccadilloes of public figures from scrutiny.

Now there are rumors in the European press and blog spots of conspiracies and American Puritanism at work. That Mr. Strauss Kahn has a lurid history of mashing, sexual assault and worse seems to have little to do with the growing dissonance in the narrative.

Mr. Strauss Kahn’s arrest comes at a precarious time. The IMF is in the middle of the whirlpool that is the European sovereign debt crisis. DSK, as he is known, is a prime advocate for the role of the IMF as the world’s economic authority and is a guarantor of Greek, Irish, and Portuguese debt. He was until yesterday also the prime Socialist candidate to replace French president Nicolas Sarkozy. Now even with all of the protections of the oligarchy he may not be able to withstand the scrutiny and the law.

Tristan Banon, the daughter of a political ally alleged that a sexual assault had occurred in 2002. But even when she refused to name her assailant, she was, she says, blacklisted by the establishment for even mentioning what was an open secret. Her advocate is now preparing to press charges against Strauss Kahn. More recently, DSK was admonished for a tumultuous affair in 2008 with an IMF employee with an episode at the World Economic Forum in Davos. It is an open secret that his conduct when dealing with women is far beyond the pale, even by European standards. But as a lion of the Left, he was able to get away with it until now.

“Droit de Seigneur” or “Right of the Lord” is a medieval term connoting the right of the Lord to take the virginity of his serfs daughters when they married. Lost in the fog of time, the practice as described may or may not have existed. What clearly did and does exist, even today, is a double standard for the rulers and the ruled.

Whether it was JFK and his womanizing or Teddy Kennedy and his debauchery, the existence of this double standard has long haunted society. From the depredations of the Kings, Princes, Dukes, and lords of England, France, Russia and (insert name here) to today, the copulations and excesses of the upper class was the norm and women were objects of desire with little legal recourse. The practice transcends societies and time.

Since the rise of Protestantism and the middle class, however, limits have been placed upon such conduct. The stakes had been rising for the libertines. In the past 50 years sexual assault has become the bête noire of both the women’s movement and civil society and the penalties are severe. But equality of rights has been espoused but not enforced at the highest levels.

The watchdogs are as much to blame as anyone. The powerful buy silence or enforce it it via the law. The political imperative has almost always overridden the facts. Teddy Kennedy was guilty of manslaughter and escaped punishment. In Italy, the Berlusconi scandal gets deeper and deeper. In his case, he owns much of the media. In America, the media have become fellow travelers and enablers of the worst miscreants so long as they have the same political views.

Unlike in France, Mr. Strauss Kahn is innocent until proven guilty in the United States and the bar is set high. He is also entitled to the best defense money can buy.

However, it becomes more clear every day that we are in a new age of oligarchs to whom the law does not apply. Whether it is the suspicious political murders in Russia, the Droit de Seigneur so prevalent in the West, or the financial mayhem without consequences as practiced in Washington and on Wall Street, there are few if any consequences for the rich and powerful.

Integrity was at one time the cornerstone of Western Society. The ethical and legal strictures arising from the Reformation demanded this from kings and commoners. From Casanova to De Sade to Mayerling, society recoiled at the excess of libertinism. The French monarchy in particular fell because of not only the economic and political rot at Court, but also the perception of moral degradation by the bourgeoisie. The Mandate of the Gods evolved into the consent of the governed but on a regular basis the mandarins push the envelope.

The world is at a strange and dangerous juncture. The moral cement that held us together is losing its grip and our leaders offer nothing in its place but sophistry and deception. The economic challenges are just as sinister. Taken together, the prognosis is unclear.

I don’t have the answers but I will try to frame the historical and ethical context.