Chris Placitella

Cohen, Placitella and Roth

Date: 8/1/2005

Duration: 22:11

Chris Placitella speaks with Myles O'Malley and Jayne Santasiere from Consumers for Civil Justice about the Consumers for Civil Justice organization.

Video Transcript

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Chris Placitella: Hello, my name is Chris Placitella, and we are here today on Community View. Today on Community View we have the members of the largest coalition of consumers, labor and other organizations in the state of New Jersey here with us today.

Today we have Myles O'Malley, who is the chair of Consumers for Civil Justice and Jayne Santasiere, who is the president of Consumers for Civil Justice. We are very fortunate to have them with us today and we are going to go through and find out a little bit about Consumers for Civil Justice and what it is. So Myles, tell us, what is Consumers for Civil Justice and how did it come about?

Myles O'Malley: OK. Well, Chris, first of all we want to thank you very much for inviting Jayne and I here to talk to you about Consumers for Civil Justice. Consumers for Civil Justice is a coalition of now 17 different organizations. Our primary intent is to preserve the right of victims by preserving access to our civil justice system. And I might say preserving fair and equal access to our civil justice system.

Consumers for Civil Justice is an umbrella organization. So, what we try to do is to bring all these organizations together, allow them to give voice to the issues that are of great concern to them and then to assist them in organizing their advocacy efforts on behalf of victims from each organization to accomplish its goals.

So, Consumers for Civil Justice really is a leveraging organization. It really attempts to take all these different organizations and build a unified, larger lever to affect public and social policy.

Chris: Can you tell us about some of your organization members, who they are?

Myles: Well, you know, I hate to just do a list, but maybe that's what we need to do. We have 17 organizations now, Chris, and I'm going to read the names of these organizations and talk a little bit about the history of Consumers for Civil Justice and its relationship to these organizations.

First of all, we're very proud that at the top of our list, it's an alphabetical list, we're very, very proud to have worked over the years with the American Association of Retired Persons. We've worked also with the Bain Injury Association of New Jersey, with CCJ's eldercare advocacy group, with my organization, the one I founded, CLPER Childhood Lead Poisoning Emergency Response.

We have much involvement with labor unions, CWA-District 1, for example. HPAE, the Health Professionals and Allied Employees. Another organization we're very proud to be affiliated with is the Hemophilia Association of New Jersey, Housing and Community Development Network of New Jersey, dedicated to affordable housing, Mothers Against Drunk Driving, New Jersey Advisory Council on Safety and Health, New Jersey Citizen Action, New Jersey Public Interest Research Group, New Jersey Work Environmental Council, Physicians and Patients for Quality Care, Service Employees International Union and our most recent addition to the CCJ is Voices for Patient Protection.

Chris: That's quite a list.

Myles: Well, when we tell you that these organizations represent about a million and a half people in New Jersey, I think you can get an idea that that actually is the case.

Chris: Now, Jayne, you are president of Consumers for Civil Justice, correct?

Jayne Santasiere: Yes, that is correct.

Chris: How did you get involved?

Jayne: It's about 13 years since the organization was formed and I am a victim of an unsafe medical product and because my health was compromised in a very severe, serious way, I felt that I did not want the next person, next to me, to be effected by an unsafe product.

Therefore, I came as a victim saying, "This can't go on. Big Business' cannot only work for profit and compromise consumers' health." There are many, many products out on the market now that are getting passed by whatever agency passes them and then the consumers consumes them and their health is compromised.

So, my involvement was from a very personal victim's point of view in hopes to highlight that this is something ongoing that should not be allowed. Consumers for Civil Justice was an organization that afforded me that platform and then the audience to reach out to. So, I'm proud to be part of it and sad that I've been victimized, but hopeful that there will be fewer victims out there due to unsafe products on the market.

Chris: Are there others victims like you that are also members?

Jayne: The Hemophiliac Association is an organization that touches your heart every single day. The Asbestos Victims, the White Lung Association, the elder community in themselves are victims constantly because they are by virtue of them being older are not able to communicate their concerns and problems and are usually overlooked. So, the elder communities are definitely a victim and victimized many, many times.

Nursing, the service employees, the nurses and the aides in nursing homes and in hospitals are people who work beyond their limit and are not allowed to leave their shift till they are replaced. Over time there's a serious issue. So, we are varied. We have victims and we have people that take care of us.

Chris: If someone wanted to become a member, is there any barrier to entry here?

Jayne: No barrier.

Chris: How does a group of people with concerns join your coalition?

Jayne: Hopefully, again by today's filming that we're doing they will know about us and again it could be an individual, it could be an organization, it could be a coalition of a few organizations. Anyone can join CCJ knowing that they will be heard, listened to and if there are concerns that need to, be brought to the forefront in terms of our government in New Jersey, we are the vehicle for them. So, yes, anyone can join.

Chris: Myles, what kind of issues have you confronted to start with at the CCJ and what kind of impact do you think that you have had?

Myles: Well, I've made a few notes here Chris, [laughter] so I hope I don't steal the show. You think I can just do it from memory? All right, listen Chris, back in 1994; it was before the New Jersey legislature, a package of bills that were touted as tort reform.

Now, the reality was that they were foot defamation. They ranged all the way from having a the loser in a civil justice battle pay the freight of filing the lawsuit to begin with to the virtual elimination of joint and several liability tort environmental suits to putting a very low onerous cap on punitive damages.

These bills were so...draconian was the term we used at the time that we had to pull CCJ together to fight these tremendously powerful interests that really looked like they were going to win the day. And we did that. We pulled all of these organizations together and we effectively fought them. Now we did not completely win.

At that time, we had very little political clout and the best we could do was hold off the worst advances of these business interests that were simply intent on eliminating the victim's right to access to our civil justice system. We did pretty damn good I must say.

Chris: Let me ask you a question, as CCJ has grown in numbers and strength, what kind of issues have you had to grapple with and what kind of success have you had?

Myles: Yes, we certainly did not stay in the past and the entire medical malpractice assault, that was one of our more recent battles, and we very effectively headed off that attempt to destroy a victim's rights to fair and just compensation having been injured by a bad medical practice.

That was a particularly hard battle for us because the insurance industry, we still don't know how they did it but they enlisted the aid of the medical community in their interests, in the interests of the insurance community.

And the medical community organized, they were down in Trenton, they threatened to withhold their services and really we all learned a very important lesson from that battle.

The lesson was that there would be absolutely no victory, there would be no forestalling these attempts to destroy victims' rights unless the victims took the battle in their own hands and organized to defend their interests.

And that's what happened, and CCJ was extremely happy to assist in the development of a new organization, which is Voices For Patient Protection, they are the most recent members of CCJ's Board.

Chris: Who are they?

Myles: They are a group of individuals who have suffered at the hands of medical practitioners who simply were incompetent. And those medical practitioners represent a tiny percent of the medical profession but they do a tremendous amount of damage and the medical malpractice caps and the bill was designed to protect the insurance industry at the expense of our victims and we didn't let that happen.

Chris: Jayne?

Jayne: I just wanted to add one thing to all that Myles has highlighted. We have a victim and we have now access to the civil justice system in terms of bringing that victim's lawsuit to the forefront. The victim is hopefully compensated fairly, however, the other most important point is the punitive, the punishment of the wrongdoer.

And it's important that you understand this and we highlight this today that Consumers for Civil Justice wants to punish the wrongdoer, wants that not to be that amount set aside, or compromised or lessened, because they're such a big industry and we need to make money from the big industry.

So, compensation to the victim is one end and punishing wrongdoers is the other very important part.

Chris: So, what you're saying, you're trying to change conduct for the future.

Jayne: Absolutely, the future is where we have to be made aware of that we don't what something to repeat itself again. We don't want a poor medical device put out there and somehow profit made more important than the consumer's safety.

Chris: As a victim yourself representing your victims, do you believe that you, through CCJ, have the capacity to give voice to people who otherwise wouldn't have it?

Jayne: We have definitely given voice to people who have not had voice, but it hasn't quite been loud enough and we're still going to keep fighting.

Chris: Well, does the legislature and the executive branch know who you are?

Jayne: Absolutely.

Chris: How do they know who you are, Myles?

Myles: We're constantly advocating, we're attending hearings in Trenton, our executive direction, Peter Guzzo is abreast of issues, is bringing those issues to our monthly board meetings, we're writing letters. So, our legislators know that CCJ is aware of what's happening and is not going to let victims' rights go by the wayside.

Chris: How many days a week does CCJ make their presence known in the legislature at the current time?

Myles: I can't answer that question, how many days a week, but I'll tell you one thing, all of our legislators are aware of CCJ and take cognizance of our presence.

Jayne: I just wanted to add also that CCJ was very influential resurrecting the position of public advocate in the state of New Jersey. It's been approved but it hasn't been effectuated yet.

The public advocate, again, is also another voice for the victims, for the citizens of New Jersey. It was a position that was removed in some administration and it's now being brought back and I really think that will be a major, major benefit to the victims.

Chris: So, your organization is not just to serve notice or complain about things that are going wrong, your mission is also to do positive things to help protect people, even if it's not necessarily involved in litigation. Is that fair?

Jayne: That's correct. Absolutely. We're not out there to sue everybody because we don't like him or her. We're out there to make a better place to live in, and a safer place.

Chris: And do you feel as a victim or someone who was hurt that you have some effect?

Jayne: Yes, I absolutely feel that CCJ has had an effect and a voice and is being recognized as helpful, again, to people who have been victimized.

Chris: Now, Myles, I looked at the list of members that you have and the list is impressive - some great organizations with a deep history for representing people, and groups, and labor, and if somebody gets involved in CCJ can they count on those kinds of organizations to help them with their issue if CCJ puts their arms around that issue?

Myles: That's the function of CCJ, as I said earlier, is to bring these groups together. We're constantly looking for other organizations that want to work with us, and I'll give you a couple of examples. We've worked over the past several years with HPAE, that's the Health Professionals and Allied Employees, with New Jersey Citizen Action, and with other organizations on some very important health issues.

So, for example, with HPAE and New Jersey Citizen Action, we assisted them in advancing what finally became law as the Health Care Quality Act of 1997. That was a very important piece of legislation, because it really brought some standards to our health care industry, to our managed care organizations, making them far more responsive to the rights of patients then they ever were in the past.

In addition to that, we've worked with HPAE to extend the Conscientious Employees Protection Act. That's a whistleblower act and we got that extended to healthcare professionals. It was very, very important. Other community groups we've worked with are New Jersey Perk, an extraordinarily important piece of legislation - the Health Care Carriers Accountability Act. Managed care organizations have been interfering in the provision of medical service to the users of the medical community, to victims, and they were not accountable for their actions.

So, the Health Care Carriers Accountability Act that was passed in 1998 it made these companies liable should they delay or deny medical care to individuals who needed it. In other words, should they take on the function of the doctor, the physician, and then they were going to be held responsible for the consequences of that.

By the way, the Association of Retired Persons was extremely instrumental in the passage of these pieces of legislation as well, so we're very, very proud that CCJ was able to play the role of coordinator and facilitator, assisting all these organizations to leverage their power.

Chris: Have you done any work on a national level?

Myles: Wherever we can, we work with our - when we can get together on issues on a national level. But yes, I think we've been perhaps, most effective on the asbestos front, on the national level, CCJ. As chair of CCJ I had a familiarity with issues that affected asbestos victims over the years and we have always responded to asbestos legislation that was designed as bailout legislation, in effect eliminating the right of asbestos victims to the courts.

We fight this battle every year in Congress, and CCJ has been very effective in that arena, and also all of our efforts in medical malpractice here in the state of New Jersey have had an effect at the national level as well. We continue to fight that battle.

So, what we do at the state level, really, is never finished, because everything we accomplish at the state level has the potential to be undone at the federal level, so we definitely try to stay involved. But I must say that our most effective work is at the state level. That's where we do our little effort.

Chris: Tip O'Neill once said that all politics is local, so I guess that's what you're talking about.

Myles: I'm talking about that. We are a New Jersey organization. But, we cannot do what we need to do unless we attend to federal issues as well.

Chris: This just sounds like an unbelievable organization doing great things. If someone wants to join CCJ or bring issues to CCJ or find out what CCJ is doing on certain issues, how do they get a hold of you?

Myles: Well, we have a web page. That's probably the most important place to contact us. Our web page is njccj.org. We're very, very receptive to new members; in fact, we want to expand our reach. Even if members don't want to join us formally, we want to know about their issues, and we want our member organizations to know about their issues and we can certainly help organizations on an ad-hoc basis.

Chris: Thank you, Myles, for coming, it's been great, we've learned a lot. Jane, thank you for taking time out from your busy schedule to come with us and you have a great organization. I've been aware of your work for many years, and we as citizens in the state of New Jersey are indebted for all of your hard work.

That's it for Community View, you've heard from Consumers for Civil Justice, the largest coalition of consumers, labor, environmental, and other public interest organizations in the state of New Jersey. Thank you and we'll see you next time.

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