California Judges Bemoan Court Budget Cuts

A July 20 Los Angeles Times story, “Budget cuts to worsen California court delays, officials say,” reports that judges there are bemoaning sharp budget cuts.

Pardon our lack empathy.

Perhaps if Sacramento lawmakers weren’t so bent on expanding liability and otherwise making life for personal injury lawyers so easy, fewer employers may have fled the once Golden State in recent years, the tax base wouldn’t have eroded so severely, and painful court budget cuts, among others, wouldn’t be necessary today.   

In any case, if California judges want to avoid jammed court dockets and delayed justice, they might consider, for starters, becoming less welcoming to both the trial lawyer-benefitting and wholly absurd consumer class actions and the wheelchair shakedown lawsuits that target small businesses, for the which the state has now become infamous.

During the past 30 years, California lawmakers and judges built a field of dreams for parasitic plaintiffs’ lawyers.  So no one should now be surprised that the lawyers and their lawsuits came, while businesses, jobs and tax revenues left.