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Wow. You know The Examiner has a frivolous argument when it somehow manages to work the war on terrorism into a screed against lawsuits and the civil justice system.

It is absurd to suggest that lawsuits will stop people from "stand[ing] up and assum[ing] the risks that really matter - such as hunting down madmen who fly airliners into skyscrapers."

The Examiner should have told its readers that every judge in every state and federal court in the country has the power to dismiss a frivolous suit at any time and fine the attorney who filed it. You should have reported that, according to the Department of Justice, tort trials in federal court are down 79 percent since 1985, and personal injury trials in state courts are down 32 percent since 1992.

This ridiculous hyperbole is especially ironic given that barely a month ago, The Examiner's cover headline reported: "Investigation: Assassin's bullet could penetrate president's body armor"; "Firm allegedly sold defective vests"; "Company may have waited two years to alert customers."

How were the public and law enforcement alerted to the flaws in the vest? By lawsuits.

Two years ago, when a criminal shot and killed Tony Zeppetella - a police officer in Oceanside, Calif. - with a bullet that penetrated his vest, his widow filed a lawsuit. It turns out company executives knew they were selling bulletproof vests made of a defective material to police officers, the Secret Service, the U.S. military and even the president of the United States, but refused to pull them from the market.

Until they were sued, that is. Because of that lawsuit, and a number of lawsuits that followed it, the company was forced to recall 100,000 defective vests.

Local and federal law enforcement and our U.S. military, the men and women who hunt down "madmen who fly airliners into skyscrapers," are today wearing safer body armor and bulletproof vests because of the lawsuits, trial lawyers, and civil justice system The Examiner is so quick to mock and so vicious to attack.

The civil justice system is the embodiment of American values such as responsibility, fairness and a level playing field. And as the faulty bulletproof vest lawsuits and so many others prove, it is also the last resort for ordinary Americans to hold corporate CEOs accountable when they put profits before human life.

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