Our View: They who write the laws often are beneficiaries

There's no argument that businesses selling alcohol need a healthy liability insurance policy. However, there is sound argument to be made for how ridiculously high their premiums are and how disproportionately the liability is or can be spread among businesses when someone has patronized more than one and winds up in a wreck that results in serious injury or death.

Let's say someone stops at Joe's bar and has a beer. He then goes to Bill's bar and has two beers. Bill has not seen any evidence the customer is inebriated and has no idea the customer already had a beer at Joe's. The customer leaves Bill's bar and heads over to Al's bar where he sits for several hours and tosses down multiple drinks, maybe even mixing things up a bit with beer and whisky. He leaves, Al's and drives head-on into another car, killing that car's driver. Under current law, Joe and Bill can be held equally liable as Al. Fair? Not at all.

State Sen. Mike Gambrell, R-Anderson, joined other legislators in sponsoring a bill, Senate Bill 533, that is designed to make liability be proportional. In essence, allocate the fault proportionally among establishments that served the at-fault customer.

Where this legislation goes remains to be seen, but Gambrell, in discussing the bill, brought up a key point that speaks to legislation's yin and yang in general.

In trying to fix the current law's lopsided effect with new legislation, Gambrell said, "I'll be honest, it'll be an uphill battle because most of the Legislature is attorneys."

They who write and pass the laws are all too often the very ones who benefit the most from those laws. Yet, we keep sending attorneys to Columbia — and Washington, D.C., for that matter.

As the saying goes, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see how it works. They can fill bills with lawyer-speak that the average person can barely, if at all, interpret and hang their shingles out for business that the laws create. They know the ins of the laws and, just as important, they know the outs.

It reminds us of another popular saying about foxes guarding the hen houses.