Tort Law Education Day celebrated in Winsted

By John Torsiello

WINSTED — The stars came out in Winsted Saturday — stars in the field of tort law, that is.

The walkway to the Winsted United Methodist Church, where the event was held, certainly could have had a red carpet laid down to welcome speakers and prominent guests for the first ever Tort Law Education Day, arranged by Winsted native, attorney, consumer activist and former Green Party presidential candidate Ralph Nader. It was a day for big hitters.

Those who addressed the crowd, which sometimes reached 300 for morning sessions, were a veritable who’s who of the legal system and civil law, ranging from attorney Lynne Bernabei, who has been litigating employment discrimination, civil rights and whistleblower protection causes for more than 30 years; Rhode Island Senator Sheldon White, a staunch advocate of the civil justice system; to Ken Reed, a sports policy director for the League of Fans; and author and attorney Joanne Doroshow, the founder and executive director of the Center for Justice and Democracy and co-founder of the Americans for Insurance Reform. They and others addressed issues including sexual assault, police violence, medical malpractice, privacy law, pollution and the civil justice system’s battle to protect citizens.

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Attorney Doroshow somewhat jokingly referred to a “Trump Tort Report” that her group has conducted since Donald Trump was elected president in 2016. The Trump administration’s stance has been one of being anti-worker and seeking an end or place limitations on class action suits where multiple individuals seek legal recourse when they believe they were negatively impacted by the neglect of companies and /or the products they produce, she said.

“There’s been almost a constant attack on the civil justice system,” she said. “Those in Congress that are influenced by corporate lobbyists have been leading this fight to undermined that system in favor of big business.”

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