Groups mobilizing in wake of malpractice, liability rulings

Is Wisconsin a "cold-weather Alabama"?

That's what the Wall Street Journal called the Badger State in an editorial criticizing a series of state Supreme Court decisions the newspaper said "puts out the welcome mat for trial lawyers."

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The court rulings included rejecting caps on pain and suffering for medical malpractice cases. In another case, Wisconsin was the first in the nation to allow manufacturers of a lead-paint pigment to be sued even though the plaintiff had no evidence of who made the product that he said left him mentally retarded.

Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce, the state's largest business group, has launched what it calls a "job defense fund" seeking pledges from members for ads and other efforts, including lobbying.

"The editorial sends a signal to every CEO and top executive in the U.S. that Wisconsin will be a risky state in which to operate until our litigation crisis is resolved," said a posting on WMC's Web site.

And a national conservative group expects to spend up to $2 million here in its efforts to overturn the court's decisions as it eyes elections for the high court and the governor's office in 2006.

"This could have such a detrimental impact on Wisconsin's economy and on its families, and you'd hate to see the Supreme Court be able to stymie the economic growth of Wisconsin," said Cameron Sholty, state director for FreedomWorks.

The Washington-based group � led by former House Majority Leader Dick Armey, R-Texas, and C. Boyden Gray, a former White House attorney for the elder President Bush � has Justice Patrick Crooks in its sights.

Crooks, who is up for re-election in the spring, sided with the majority in all three of the court's decisions that raised the ire of business groups and some lawmakers.

Sholty insists the group's effort will be educational and "not necessarily to defeat Justice Crooks or to usher him back into office, but to use the campaign cycle and his candidacy really as a platform to bring these issues to light to the citizens of Wisconsin, to the voters."

FreedomWorks is also poised to get involved in next fall's race for governor if Democrat Jim Doyle rejects any bills that would restore medical malpractice caps or turn back the court's other decisions in some way.

Doyle has not said whether he supports those efforts, al-though a spokesman said the governor has encouraged all sides to work together to address the concerns the court raised in its rulings.

"The national org-anization is watching Wisconsin and is going to commit a significant amount of resources to this issue," Sholty said.

The Republican candidates in the governor's race, U.S. Rep. Mark Green and Scott Walker, will likely find a friend in FreedomWorks and could end up echoing its message on the campaign trail.

As a state representative, Green authored the legislation capping medical malpractice lawsuits and argues the caps "are one of the few measures working to keep costs down."

And in a blog on his campaign Web site, Walker wrote that lifting caps on medical malpractice cases will affect the cost and availability of quality health care. He also said the court's decision in the lead-paint case "will have a major impact on companies looking to expand or even come to Wisconsin."

"We need to wake up and realize that these type of decisions are not made in a vacuum," he wrote. "They have consequences."