Today’s Wall Street Journal has a great piece by Walter Olson (unfortunately, subscription required) in which he discusses initiatives in various states to rein in the looting spree that have made trial lawyers among the super-rich. Next to kings and the like, they’re probably the richest group ever not to have produced anything. (My words, not Olson’s.)

He provides a few recent examples of the lawsuits that almost anyone but another lawyer would regard as demented. Here’s my favorite: “This summer, a court told retailers and other defendants to fork over $3 million in fees to attorneys including the famed Bill Lerach because they’d marketed as “Made in USA” a Kwikset lock that turned out to include six screws made in Taiwan.”

Needless to say, the trial lawyers are going all out to defeat the initiatives. And if Kerry should win, all federal efforts at tort reform would be DOA in the White House.

Adam Smith remarked once, “There is much ruin in a nation.” True — the US won’t collapse from the trial lawyer tapeworm that’s feeding off our insides, or even the combination of all the many other parasitic interest groups that use politics and “legalities” to enrich themselves at the expense of productive people. But simply because a parasite isn’t fatal doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t try to get rid of it.