A race to the bottom
Folks in Red States should be grateful for the idiotic liberal politicians in Blue States. After all, what is the greatest export Blue States have? They are exporting their jobs, their wealth and their productive citizens.
These Blue States seem to be in a race to the bottom. They keep trying to see which can be the first to totally implode financially and lose all of their jobs, productive citizens and businesses.
One Blue State has just taken the lead.
Which one is it?
It is Rhode Island.
What has Rhode Island done?
It has now passed a “Homeless bill of rights.”
You have got to be kidding.
It guarantees the “homeless” the right to use the sidewalks, parks and public transportation without discrimination.
What makes this worse is that the law that enshrines the homeless bill of rights also creates the right for a lawsuit for any violation of the bill of rights. Here is what the new statute says:
In any civil action alleging a violation of this chapter, the court may award appropriate injunctive and declaratory relief, actual damages, and reasonable attorneys’ fees and costs to a prevailing plaintiff.
What does this mean in plain, non-lawyer English? It means that a judge may declare certain activities illegal. Those activities might be demanding that some smelly, drunk, crack using “homeless” people quit congregating around the front door of your business because it is driving business away.
The judge can then issue an injunction preventing a business owner from doing anything to stop the “homeless” from congregating at the business, award actual monetary damages and then award attorney’s fees.
Here is what will happen. The homeless advocacy groups will find a business that objects to the homeless driving their customers away and sue. They will sue for actual damages less than $50, which means the defendant (the business) cannot get a jury trial. Then you will have some radical left wing judge issue an injunction against a business, award nominal damages, then award a massive award in attorney fees.
There are so many problems here but one of the biggest problems is this is a form of loser pays litigation. In fact, this is worse than loser pays. This is a subsidy for litigation. It encourages litigation. There is no reason for the “homeless advocates” not to sue. The ACLU has stayed in business for decades by garnering attorney fees off of its bogus litigation.
The civil litigation system is for the most part wonderful. It is not perfect but it is the best system out there. This is an abuse of the civil litigation system. This is not allowing a wronged party to go to court and seek redress. This is creating litigation for the sole purpose of advancing political policies that would never get through the legislature.
The Governor of Rhode Island is Lincoln Chaffee. He was a worthless RINO when he was in the Senate and he is even worse as a governor. He is expected to sign the legislation.
Meanwhile, the States of Tennessee and Texas and the other Red States wish to thank Rhode Island and the other Blue States for exporting their jobs, their businesses and their productive citizens.
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