First ‘Kill all the Lawyers’

It's unfair to say all lawyers are greedy scum robbing our nation of needed wealth and destroying the things that made America great. OK, not all the lawyers. But USA Today gives a good place to start with its front-page piece on the money sought by trial lawyers and "victims" of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

According to the paper, there were 247 individual filings against the Army Corps of Engineers for more than $1 billion. "One claim alone seeks $3 quadrillion in damages," wrote Brad Heath. You heard that right. That's "a 3 followed by 15 zeros - about 250 times the nation's gross domestic product." That even tops John Edwards' kind of money.

Another claim was a mere piker by comparison - seeking $6 trillion, or just half of annual U.S. GDP. The claims blame the Corps for the storms wrecking havoc on Louisiana. There are 489,000 claims in all. But the article notes that the two hurricanes caused about $100 billion in physical damage and the federal government has already dedicated "more than $130 billion on recovery from the hurricanes."

Just another way trial lawyers like Edwards do their part to make America great. And though Shakespeare didn't really want to kill all the lawyers, it does make ones mind wander.