How Citizens Can Help Fix Law

How Citizens Can Help Fix Law

Hi.  My name is Bob Raitt.  I'm a partner here at the law firm.  I want to talk to you today a little bit about some legislation that is now sitting in the Michigan Senate that's very important to both our practice of law because we primarily practice in automobile negligence cases with serious trucking accidents, as well as your rights as citizens of this state should you be injured in an automobile collision.

We sit here today under a law with a case named Kreiner v. Fischer.  Kreiner v. Fischer came out years ago and this Michigan Supreme Court basically stripped the rights of citizens when they're in accidents with serious injuries to get their cases to a jury.  In fact, after that Michigan Supreme Court case came down, the first 165 Michigan Court of Appeals cases, 140 of those found for the defendant, and once again, took the rights away from you as citizens who were seriously injured.

Fortunately, I am involved as president of the Michigan Association for Justice, which is over 1,700 attorneys across the state.  Our organization, along with the attorneys who are involved in automobile negligence law like our firm, have pushed legislation through the house and it now sits in the senate to change this very bad law, the Kreiner v. Fischer law.

I implore you to talk to your legislatures, whether they're representatives, and give them support for what they have done in moving this forward to the senate, or whether they're senators, letting them know that you know about what's going on, you know if you or your loved ones are in an automobile collision that your rights have been taken away, and ask them to support the legislation, the Kreiner legislation it's commonly called, that sits in the senate now.

All we need is a fix on the senate side and the bad law that the Michigan Supreme Court set forth will be changed much more in line with what the legislature originally meant it to be giving you back rights because we have cases that the common citizen wouldn't believe that are being thrown out on a daily basis.  Whether you're talking about an individual who's hit by a drunk driver and goes through knee surgery and is going to have permanent restrictions or you're talking about an individual who has neck surgery with six months of disability or a seventy‑six‑year‑old grandmother who has six fractured  ribs, those cases were thrown out and hundreds like them have been thrown out because of the ridiculous, quite frankly, law that has been put in place by the supreme court.