Kind of excited to see that the Oregon Consumer web page has gotten its sea legs and is publishing.  Here is the link for some interesting information on a wide range of consumer issues. I’ll be monitoring and noting some of their published reports. My hope is that the web page realizes its potential,  as we consumer advocates need all the help we can get.

Peter Goodman of The New York Times does a nice job here of looking at the problem of for-profit trade schools. The story mentions our class action against Western Culinary Institute/Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts in Portland.  And while it’s all exciting to see the case written up in the Times, that’s hardly the point.

The Goodman article points out the disparity between the costs of trade school education and expected earnings.  I was taken by a Sr. Vice President, Brian Williams, comment, “You go in the industry and work your way up.”

I don’t have any idea how much Mr. Williams knows about labor statistics. But the cold reality is that there are very few high-paying jobs in the culinary field–at least as compared to the scads of low-wage kitchen jobs that require no training. In short, there isn’t much “up” to reach.

Some suggest that this is not different from an expensive law or medical degree or a BA in liberal arts from a four-year school. I suppose it’s tempting to take that view, but in reality the differences are profound.

Let’s look at them.

Western Culinary Institute/Le Cordon Bleu say in their catalogs that they provide entry level training. In the lawsuit, we take issue with what they don’t tell students.  A culinary degree doesn’t provide a student much in the way of qualifications for an entry level kitchen job. By comparison, you simply can’t practice law or medicine without degrees and licenses.

In marketing the program, the school tells its prospective students about high placement rates–above 90 percent. But they don’t talk about the pay.  The school collects initial placement and earnings for its graduates. As the New York Times article explains, the vast majority of students earn very low wages upon graduation. Those low earnings won’t allow most students to repay their loans.

Defenders of for-profit trade schools also cite the profoundly expensive four-year bachelors degree problem. They are right about the high cost of four year schools, but wrong to compare the two. Ivy league schools cost far in excess of most middle income families’ abilities to pay, leading many students to incur heavy debt loads.

But several things are different.  The liberal arts program doesn’t sell itself as “vocational training.” Nor does it tout its placement statistics or skill-based career training as the reason to attend. And the universities aren’t run by billion dollar corporations who are concerned about their Wall Street performance.

Our case has taken two years so far. If we succeed, students who suffered losses will recover money that will help pay down their debts.

We need better oversight of these schools, these loans and these lending practices, as students who enroll at for-profit trade schools often are underwater from the day they graduate.  Effective oversight of trade school programs and educational loans would prevent these types of abuses.

This is one of those posts that is read only by those who need to know. So first, I am sorry that you find yourself needing to review this information.

There is a lot of misinformation out there. This is a summary of what I’ve learned as an injury attorney in Oregon over the last two decades.

So let’s start with the big picture. Here are three things you need to understand about the Oregon injury system.

1. Nothing that happens here will leave you better off. You are not reading this to get rich and that’s a good thing because that won’t happen. The Oregon system is conservative.

2. The Oregon injury system shouldn’t be used for small injuries or near-misses. While near misses are scary and traumatic, the reality is that resources are limited and need to be available for those who are badly injured.

3. Injury claims stand or fall on three basic elements: 1) fault, 2) “causation;” and 3) harm. That means that compensation is available only if someone else was at fault, that fault caused harm, and the harm was significant.

So how do these principles apply? Motor vehicle collisions  provide a good way of illustrating the principles.

1. The system is conservative; you’re not going to get rich

Let’s look at the first one. If you were injured in a motor vehicle collision, you know this truth in a fundamental way. Given a choice between health and money, you would choose health every time. Put another way, you didn’t choose to be in this system. If you didn’t have to worry about your medical bills, or your damaged neck or back, you would be less stressed. And without the pain and limitations, you would be healthier and happier.

If your body worked like it did before the crash, you would be out there living your life and not dealing with the uncertainty that comes with injury. You certainly don’t think of this as a lottery win, and anyone who thinks otherwise probably doesn’t understand your life.

The lottery comments are particularly offensive. When you pay two bucks to play the lottery, you choose the entertainment and the fun. When an inattentive driver takes away your health,  you didn’t make a choice, and it certainly cost you more than two bucks.  Having said all that, Oregonians are thrifty by nature and rarely provide large money assessments when cases go to trial. They expect you to get by on less and to not be defeated by your challenges. You understand that, of course. The rare cases of large damage assessments simply mean that the consumer is badly injured. That’s cold comfort, at best.

2. Near misses

I imagine this has happened to you. A crazy driver blows a stop sign or a red light. Or maybe an inattentive driver turns in front of you. Through a combination of your vigilance, skill, and luck, you manage to avoid the collision. “That jerk could have killed me,” you think. And you’re right of course. Still, we don’t dabble in near misses. In Oregon, we expect you to gather yourself and go on. The same is true of trivial injuries. The bruise that heals in a few days isn’t worth troubling over. We teach our young kids to pick themselves up and dust themselves off and go on. The same is true here.

3. The three elements

To pursue a claim, we must prove that someone’s fault caused your harms and losses. Sometimes it’s obvious. A drunk driver runs a stop sign and plows into your car. You’re badly injured. Medical expense, time lost from work, and uncertain future of pain and disability result. That’s the easy case.

But cases are often harder than all that. Fault is often the easiest part of the case. It is proving the connection between the fault and the harms and losses and the extent of those harms that gets harder. So, for example, sometimes the injured person has been injured before. After all, few of us get through life without some prior history. The at-fault driver will often argue that your neck injury was “actually” something that existed before. The law says that the fact you were more susceptible doesn’t let the unsafe driver off the hook.  But it’s easy to sow doubts.

This is particularly challenging when, for example, a doctor makes an error and a patient suffers profound injury. The error part is generally the easy part of the case. But showing how the error led to the result is hard, especially when the patient was sick or otherwise compromised to start.

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That’s enough for this post.  There are often many challenges in pursuing an injury case, so don’t mistake this summary for all the detail that goes into investigating and proving a claim. Want more? Part 2 is here. And Part 3 is here.

David Sugerman