A Lawyer’s View of the Absurdities of Tort Law

Bill Littauer interviewed Tom Morrison’s “Please Pass the Tort$,” the follow-up to “Torts ‘R’ Us,” on a Zoom meeting sponsored by Noble Horizons Wednesday, Jan. 13.

The two “Torts” novels are legal farces, following the adventures of Pap and Pup Peters, the brothers who decide to chuck their traditional law practices and dive headfirst into the zany and lucrative field of class action and patent lawsuits.

Littauer, a Salisbury, Conn., resident who had a 50-year career in journalism, led off by asking if finding humor in the practice of law isn’t oxymoronic.

Morrison replied: “Most lawyers take themselves way too seriously.”

He should know, having spent 50 years in the profession. An attorney who now lives in Salisbury, Morrison has quipped that everyone likes to make lawyer jokes, so the legal profession lends itself naturally to comic fiction.

He said he conceived of a farce about modern litigation — “especially class action lawsuits.”

Such actions rely on the notion that “every perceived slight in life” is a legitimate cause.

The result is a lot of frivolous lawsuits, he added.

Morrison said he tried to do to the legal profession what Joseph Heller did to the Army Air Corps in “Catch-22.”

Asked about where he finds his raw material, Morrison said he drew on news and legal reports, and from his experience.

The novel relates the tale of a lawsuit against the makers of blueberry Corny Flakes, in which the plaintiff opened 21 boxes of the product without finding a single berry.

“There are hundreds of cases where similar claims have been made,” said Morrison, adding there is an attorney on Long Island who specializes in such matters.

Such cases are frivolous, he continued, not because companies should be allowed to mislead consumers, but because “the consumer is going to get a coupon and a couple of bucks.”

The big money goes to the lawyers.

Morrison noted that certain jurisdictions, notably California, are fertile ground for class action lawsuits because they have broad consumer protection laws.

In “Please Pass the Tort$” the Peters Brothers, who work in New York but live in Connecticut, try to convince the state Legislature to pass a similar law so that the federal courts in Bridgeport, New Haven and Hartford get an increase in the volume of class action suits, and thus bring economic prosperity and tax revenue to those cities as legions of lawyers and their entourages pack hotels and restaurants.

Littauer asked about Morrison’s writing process.

“I wrote all my life,” responded Morrison, referring to his legal career.

“I wrote both books fairly quickly.”

The court dialog came easily. “I did it all my life.”

“Please Pass the Tort$” is available at Oblong Books in Millerton, N.Y., and at the Salisbury General Store on Main Street.