I couldn't respond. At first I couldn't believe what Bishop Mark Pevakunas of Omaha, Nebraska was telling me. I called him from my home in Maine to ask him about an individual who used his name as a reference. My mother-in-law had just lost her husband to a nursing home and was afraid to stay alone. The family put an add in a local paper looking for a possible companion to help her through some very difficult times. One individual, we were hoping to hire, was a young man who had taken some time away from his quest to become a priest. He was a bit broke and the prospect of free room and board was attractive to him. The family also liked this person because of his religious background and he did give a Bishop's name as a reference.
But the Bishop told me that he couldn't recommend this person positively or negatively for fear of litigation. Litigation? I was hoping to get some information concerning this person from who, I used to believe, existed to help people and to direct people toward God. I tried to explain to him that my mother-in-law was in a very delicate position and having the right person act as her companion could mean a new lease on life. The Bishop again told me that he could not tell me anything for fear of being sued. After a few more seconds of silence I had to ask him why he was afraid to give me any information? He again told me that he was sorry and hung up.
How incredibly powerful have we allowed lawyers to become. Over the past decade the legal profession has shown us that it has an insatiable appetite for creating misery. As a teacher, I have to fear working with my students in laboratory settings and on field trips. I am now told to lock all of my closets and doors and to not allow any of my students to do independent work. I am also advised never to pick up a student who is walking no matter what the weather conditions. In other word, I am told not to perform the duties necessary to become a successful teacher. And again, this is for fear of litigation.
Consider the backlog of cases and the mounds of paperwork involved for businesses and municipalities that spend a sizable portion of their budgets to cover themselves with insurance against legal entanglements. Consider further, the new entrepreneurs who have had to close their doors and eliminate their dreams because of an influx of money-soaking legal activities.
But a priest? A bishop? This is a person I always believed feared nothing but God. I guess I am wrong. I used to take comfort in the fact that their are more lawyers in law school than their are lawyers. This stiffer competition between today's legal weasels give rise to television commercials promising wealth and fortune to those who will simply sue their neighbors.
The most frightening part of this reality is that today's lawyers are often tomorrow's leaders. Just flip through the headlines that are now reporting cases of how congressmen and senators are engrossed in their own obsession of acquiring wealth by selling their own culture. Their reasons remain simple. Their position dictates power. And their power does not necessarily need responsibility.
Lately some of our more prestigious lawyers are finding out that they are not invulnerable. F. Lee Bailey just began a prison sentence because he did not believe that it was necessary for him to follow the same laws he was supposed to defend. Yet, no one believes he will be in prison for long. After all he is a lawyer.
Who do I blame for this problem. That answer is simple. I blame all of us who allowed them to become this powerful. We did this because like the lawyers of today, we are also greedy. The lawyers put the carrot of wealth in front of us and bought our soul. Bought our concepts that wealth is always right.
What can we do about this problem? We have to take our souls back. We have to tell our elected legislators to produce laws which will lesson our anxiety about being sued. We have to make it more difficult for today's lawyers to represent frivolous suits. We also have to create a ceiling on the size of these lawsuits. We should also legislate laws protecting the client by lessening how much a lawyer is allowed to take of the settlements. This point alone would eliminate our addiction with litigation.
In all honesty, I have always disliked lawyers. I believe that they took a very respected profession and turned it into a means of collecting wealth with little thought of our culture and society. The lawyers of today have simply become prostitutes. My dislike has now evolved into fear. Fear that they have become so powerful and have intimidated our society into believing that they can't be stopped. Even the church, which used to represent all that was true, is afraid to perform their duties of protecting the society because of a fear of litigation.
My 75 year old mother-in-law is still in trouble. We did not hire this person in fear that their may be a problem. Bishop Mark Pevakunas did a major dis-service to this elderly woman and represents a failure by what used to be a corner stone of our society. But then again so was the legal profession.
Jim Fabiano is a free lance writer living in York Beach, Maine
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Last Updated: May 13, 1996