In his Jan. 11 column “Lawsuits and death of common sense,” George Will expressed anguish about a proliferation of rules, warnings and safety measures, ridiculing many of them and suggesting that this epidemic is prompted by purported lawsuit abuse.

It would be interesting to follow George Will through a morning in Washington, D.C., and think about the warnings and safety measures he would get rid of. Let’s say he gets to the Metro to go to work at the Washington Post and he sees the blinking lights as the train is coming to alert riders to stand back. Should they turn off the lights? Should other transit companies get rid of the bumpy tread along train tracks designed to stop people from falling over? If it was raining that day and the Post building managers put up plastic, yellow signs cautioning about wet floors, was that a waste of their time and money? Is it wise or necessary for the elevator at the Post to have communications systems and emergency bells?

George Will should know about the Constitution, which in its Seventh Amendment guarantees all of us a right to a jury trial. I know that because I used to work at the National Constitution Center, a new museum on Philadelphia’s Independence Mall dedicated to the history, meaning and evolution of the document created there. One day, I noticed George Will wandering around the lobby as he waited to see the opening show, “Freedom Rising.” Once you leave the theater, one of the first things you come across is a model jury box, paying homage to jury trials and the Seventh amendment to the Constitution.

You can learn a lot about the document there, but Will must have forgotten some of it, at least what it says about our right to jury trials. He includes an encyclopedia of stories which he portrays in no more than 12 words as frivolous lawsuits. Some of the cases involve children and schools, like a new rule at a South Florida school banning running at recess because of a child that got out of hand.

He probably obtained many of his anecdotes from think tanker Philip Howard. He quotes Howard in his anxiety about “a bubble wrap approach to child rearing” from a “cult of safety.” In other words, the argument goes, companies and institutions are so worried about lawsuits that they set rules by the bakers’ dozen and hang up warnings everywhere. Philip Howard is a genial man (whom I also met working at the Constitution Center) whose “think tank” has a genial name, “Common Good.” He works for a large law firm which represented the tobacco industry in its decades-long battle against people suing who were dying or dead because of the lethal nature of cigarettes. (The “safety cult” won a warning on cigarette boxes long ago.)

When are the warnings that Will and Howard dispute unwarranted? When is a safety measure justified or urged on by the “safety cult”? Is everything else a frivolous lawsuit until you get hurt and sue? What about the Supreme Court Justice who constantly railed against unjustified lawsuits, until he fell off a stage giving a speech at the Yale Club and sued? The Wills and the Howards of the world think it makes common sense to let the free market regulate industry, not the courts or government. This common sense deregulation and downsizing of civil justice brought us the meltdown on Wall Street, (alleged) Ponzi schemers like Bernard Madoff and the sub-prime mortgage crisis. We’re headed for much more trouble if they want to extend it to the places where our children play and the lead painted toys they chew on.

It is the civil justice system embedded in the Seventh Amendment that keeps us safe, saves us from being cheated and provides us with fairness when others commit reckless conduct, especially at a time when government has turned its back from providing for the general welfare. The courts, brave plaintiffs seeking justice and their lawyers are the only ones filling the void. When corporations and institutions respond with rules, warnings and measures to make us safer, that, too, is the free market system at work.

Anthony Green formerly served as a vice president at the National Constitution Center and is presently Executive Director of the Pennsylvania Association for Justice.