GOP Awards Business with Tort Reform

For the last two decades, Larry Mocha has had a simple request for lawmakers in his home state of Oklahoma: make it harder for people to file lawsuits against businesses.

Mocha, the 65-year-old owner of APSCO, Inc., a small, Tulsa-based company that makes truck parts, has a personal reason for his pursuit. In the late 1980s, he faced a pair of lawsuits from people claiming that faulty parts made by Mocha’s firm had led to personal injuries. Mocha strongly denied the accusations, but he never had a chance to prove himself in court because his insurance company — fearful of a big payout if a jury sided with the plaintiffs — forced him to settle, costing the insurer $600,000. Later, the insurance company dropped him altogether, even though he insists he never did anything wrong in the first place.

The episode was a turning point for Mocha. He says it nearly cost him the business that his father had started in 1964. He joined the local, state and national chambers of commerce — even rising to the level of board member with the U.S. Chamber — and lobbied lawmakers relentlessly in Oklahoma City and Washington to do more to protect businesses from the threat of costly lawsuits. He says he visited the nation’s capital for the first time in the early 1990s and “knocked on every Senate door” in an attempt to draw attention to his cause.

READ MORE …