No Fault Car Insurance

Let's look on the bright side of Proposition 103 refunds--when they are eventually paid, each refund will include trillions of dollars of interest! FRANK MENNONE, Riverside

Funded by several high-tech firms, political consultants turned in 2.3 million signatures to election officials Monday, signaling the start of a new initiative war over attorneys fees, lawsuits and car insurance. The package of initiatives is headed for an already fat March primary ballot and includes a "no-fault" auto insurance plan, one to discourage lawsuits against corporations by shareholders and a third to sharply limit fees charged by plaintiffs' attorneys.

In a major reorientation of the push for no-fault auto insurance, a coalition of minority and low-income groups will join with several legislators today to announce a plan to abolish the state's requirement for liability insurance and replace it with a no-frills, no-fault policy that would cost only $160 to $200 a year. Assemblyman Patrick Johnston (D-Stockton), chairman of the Assembly's Insurance Committee, said Tuesday that he will radically revise his current no-fault bill to incorporate the mandatory no-frills policy, which would sell for the same price throughout the state.

The reason consumer, environmental, civil rights and community groups oppose legal "reform" schemes, such as those shamelessly sold by Michael Johnson, Andrew Tobias and Bill Zimmerman ("A New, No-Fault Road Map to Auto Insurance Reform," Commentary, June 5), is that 95% of all litigation results from businesses suing each other, yet curbing big business lawsuits and the fees charged by their high-priced attorneys is never addressed. Only the rights of consumers are revoked, for instance, in the initiatives propounded by Zimmerman, Johnson and Tobias, who appear to be no more than a front for rich special interests seeking immunity for wrongdoing.