Joker in Play

The ante has just been raised in the high-stakes dispute over frivolous lawsuits.

Businessman Ray Boyd is holding a royal flush: a lousy meal, a $70-million comedy award, a sobriety checkpoint, contraceptive jelly and a case of a bad Clapper.

His nemesis, trial lawyer Bruce Brusavich, is looking at a straight flush: beans and bologna, hacked-up cake, chili heartburn, stamped envelopes and cold sacks.

The two men are peering at hands of freshly minted, sardonic playing cards that have been designed by Boyd’s group, Citizens Against Lawsuit Abuse. The front of each card is emblazoned with a lawsuit Boyd says has wasted judicial time and taxpayer money.

Boyd is a North Hollywood security company owner and a founding director of the lawsuit-abuse group, which is supported by business interests lobbying for restrictions on lawsuit damage awards.

Brusavich is a Torrance-based personal-injury lawyer and past president of the Consumer Attorneys Assn. of Los Angeles--the very lawyers who are the target of Boyd’s group, which designated last week as “National Lawsuit Abuse Awareness Week.”

Brusavich’s group includes about 2,500 local trial lawyers, who aggressively lobby against new laws they contend would limit consumers’ right to sue companies and corporations for defective products or service.

Neither he nor Boyd bothers trying to keep a poker face as they each pop open a fresh deck and examine its contents.

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Boyd is gleeful. “I’d love to see these cards being played in Sacramento by state legislators,” he says as he shuffles them at his Valley office.

Brusavich is disdainful. “I’m sure there are more facts to these cases than they printed on the cards. This is just a gimmick to get attention,” he says after being handed a deck during a break in a USC judicial conference he’s helping to moderate.

The cards--with pictures of stop signs and the words “52 reasons we need legal reform, this game must end” printed on the back--are indeed attention-getters. Consider the five cards that form Boyd’s royal flush:

The 10 of clubs features a woman who sued the manufacturer of The Clapper, claiming she hurt her hands because she had to clap too hard to turn her TV on and off. The jack tells of a woman who sued a contraceptive jelly maker after she ate it on toast and became pregnant anyway.

The queen takes note of a tavern owner who sued Arkansas because state sobriety checkpoints caused people there to drink less. The king tells of a comedian who sued award show organizers for $70 million for failing to nominate him for an award. The ace features a lawsuit against a restaurant, the police department and a town council--filed by a man who was unhappy with the way his meal was cooked at a steakhouse.

Boyd said his group wants the California Legislature to allow juries to decide whether lawsuits are frivolous and then force the person who is suing to pay the other side’s defense costs. Currently, only a judge has the power to issue such an order.

“A lot of small businesses can’t afford to defend themselves from these frivolous suits, so they settle,” Boyd said. “But small business doesn’t just eat these lawsuits. The cost gets passed on to consumers. Everybody pays.”

When Brusavich pulls five cards from an unshuffled deck, he finds that each one deals with lawsuits filed by prison inmates. With plenty of time on their hands and access to lawbooks, convicts can be prolific litigators--and are a popular target of criticism from Boyd’s group.

The 2 of spades cites a prisoner’s claim of an improper variety of beans and an excess of bologna on a prison menu. The 3 of spades features a lawsuit over a piece of cake that was served “hacked up” by the prison kitchen.

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The 4 of spades alleges “cruel and unusual punishment” because of a bellyache a convict suffered after eating chili. The 5 of spades claims a violation of constitutional rights for a prisoner who did not receive free stamped envelopes from prison officials. The 6 alleges cruel and unusual punishment by a prisoner who was served two sack lunches and a hot meal during lock-down instead of the usual two hot meals and one cold sack meal.

Brusavich dismissed those cases as examples of lawsuits that are quickly thrown out of court. But he said other prison lawsuits have turned the spotlight on serious problems and led to important reforms.

“We don’t think there’s a frivolous lawsuit problem,” Brusavich said. “Juries know what they’re doing. They’re going to turn away a frivolous suit. There’s no percentage in a lawyer pursuing a suit without merit.”

Boyd, meantime, said his group and its 9,000 supporters hope to send a costumed court jester to the state Capitol to hand out the playing cards to lawmakers.

Brusavich hinted that lawyers may dispatch someone in a wheelchair--perhaps a “victim of gross medical malpractice”--to Sacramento to counter such a stunt.

Both sides said they are willing to gamble that lawmakers will easily see through the opposing side’s financial motives when it comes to the issue of tort reform.

Wanna bet?