L’Observateur / June 12, 1999

DEAR EDITOR: Immunity is a popular scheme in this legislative session. Immunity,however, does not promote responsibility. In fact, by its nature, immunityremoves responsibility. And, it obliterates the economic incentive to makeor maintain the safest or useful products feasible. From an economicstandpoint, the person who manufactures or controls a product or device are the ones who profit from from the sale or use of a product or thing, and they should bear the risk if the product doesn’t perform as represented. Immunity also provides much less incentive for the mostresponsible person to fix the problem now.

To promote responsibility, financial responsibility should be assigned to the persons who caused the harm. Not surprisingly, that person is usuallyin the best position to avoid the harm in the first place. The amount offault that any party contributes in causing an injury or problem is a question best answered after knowing all the facts. With immunity,however, that question is never asked. Instead, immunity ignores the factsand removes financial incentives from the immune party to act responsibly.

One of the biggest travesties of this legislative session is the proposed immunity of the State for highway disrepair. Rather than promoting saferhighways and better infrastructure to promote business, the legislation actually encourages disrepair and discourages development of business by giving the State a windfall for its failure to repair roads. Although theState is in the best (and probably only) position to avoid the injury and promote business, the proposed immunity takes away its incentive to protect the motoring public or to improve our state. Shouldn’t we be ableto assume that our roads are in as good of a condition as feasible? Under the proposed legislation, the public is put at peril, while the State enjoys limited or no responsibility.

This and other immunity legislation is intended solely to protect big business and government at the expense of small business and individuals.

To say otherwise is intellectually dishonest. The supporters of thislegislation and the Foster administration are not representing the people of Louisiana. Call Reps. Chaisson and Faucheux at 1-225-342-6945 andSen. Landry at 1-225-342-2040.

Andrew LemmonLemmon Law Firm New Orleans

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