The death of common sense. (Guest Editorial).

The legal tort system of America is corroding the fabric of our society, and we need a radical overhaul of the underlying philosophy.

The harm to society of our tort system is not the occasional crazy verdict, but the fear and distrust of the system of justice. For every lawsuit, there are millions and probably billions of decisions made or not made, reasonably, every day, because of fear of the system. It has literally changed our culture.

It is not just happening to physicians, but in every arena of life. Principals cannot get rid of bad teachers for fear of lawsuits, Teachers won't touch children--so the crying second grader can't be comforted--because how do you disprove that it wasn't an unwanted sexual touching?

Many churches have told their ministers not to counsel troubled parishioners because there may be a lawsuit if a couple gets divorced or someone commits suicide.

We did a nationwide poll of doctors, nurses, and hospital administrators. The chairman of the Harris poll said he had never seen numbers so high as the number of the distrust of the system of justice by physicians. Seven out of eight physicians said basically that they did not trust the system of justice to achieve a reasonable result if there was a lawsuit.

The physicians said because of this distrust they ordered tests, referrals, and even medicines that they did not think were needed. But that is not the worst of the effects. The Institute of Medicine, in its study of errors a couple of years ago, said it is very hard to improve the quality of health care when you don't get reports of near misses or mistakes. We can learn from your mistakes. But physicians are very reluctant to be candid with each other because it ...