Posted on 07/14/2016 6:28:15 AM PDT by Kaslin
It’s become as American as apple pie. When something awful happens, someone gets sued.
It’s one thing when there is obvious fault or negligence, but we’ve gone from being a nation of individual responsibility to a culture that seeks a payday out of any tragedy.
I am not ascribing a motive to the family, and the hell they’re going through is unimaginable. But I just watched a segment on TV about the tragedy of the toddler who was killed by an alligator at Disney World. One of the lawyers was talking about liability and Disney potentially being on the hook for quite a bit of money. That may be true.
But should Disney be on the hook here? Was it Disney’s fault a wild animal attacked and killed a child? How can you assign blame for that?
I think of a story I heard as a kid about why lawnmowers started to have the cut-off handle that stops the engine the moment you let go of it. It was a pain as a kid because you’d always stop for something or other, let go of the handle for a second and have to restart the clunky thing.
I’d heard this “innovation” was created because someone thought it would be a good idea to trim their hedges by picking up the mower from the bottom and sliced off his fingers. What should have been met with a, “Good lord, you’re an idiot,” was instead allegedly met with a lawsuit against the manufacturer of the mower.
The way I heard the story – and I don’t know if it’s true – is the stubby-handed horticulturist won the suit because the mower could be picked up while running and the manufacturer should have foreseen this and protected against it. In essence, the mower manufacturer had to pay a moron because it didn’t do enough to make the product moron-proof.
That’s the norm now.
Some washing machines come with a label warning against putting a person inside and turning it on. Chainsaws carry warnings against holding the wrong end. There was even a label directing people not to eat their iPod Shuffle. You can find all of these online and marvel at the fact that for someone, somewhere in the world, this was an issue at one point. And, most likely, this led to either a lawsuit or the threat of one that ended in a settlement.
I’ve been hungry. In fact, I’ve been very hungry. But I’ll never be so hungry that I’d look at a circuit board and a plastic case and think, “Hmm, maybe I’ll give that a go.” That’s on the person who does it, not the company that produces it.
Yet there are lawyers out there who would take that case, in spite of the warning label. Why not? The worst thing that could happen is it gets dismissed. All it costs is a little temporary embarrassment for the plaintiff and some time for the lawyers who, if they do take cases like this, obviously have some free time on their hands.
We all remember the suit against McDonalds for serving coffee that was “too hot.” What would have been laughed out of court 50 years ago, if you could even find a lawyer to take the case, ended up with a huge payday. After that it was “game on.”
Burglars now sue homeowners they were trying to rob if they’re injured attempting to rob them. People resisting arrest sue police because police fought back “too hard.” And stupidity is rewarded every day by companies that settle these suits to avoid the cost of defending themselves. It has to stop.
We need a “loser pays” system, where the plaintiff has to cover the cost of the person or company they sue if they lose. It shouldn’t be universal – sometimes you have a legitimate case and simply lose on a close call – but there should be boards of experts created who, after the case is done, can be petitioned to determine if the suit was frivolous or simply didn’t meet a legal threshold.
If it’s determined to be frivolous, the loser should pay. Maybe not the whole bill, but at least some of it. A punishment must be created for wasting the court’s time and taxpayer’s money.
And not just the plaintiff, but the plaintiff’s attorney as well. Even bad lawyers should know junk cases when they see them. If they could be on the hook for filing a frivolous lawsuit, they will begin to think twice before bringing one.
Stupid people are always going to be with us, and a user manual the size of “War And Peace” with all the warnings in the world won’t stop them from playing with the business end of a chainsaw. Society has to step in and tell them and their lawyers “no more.”
Either that or be prepared to pay a lot more for things or be required to cloak yourself in bubble wrap when you leave the house. At least until someone suffocates because of it and the family sues the manufacturer out of business.
ALL lawyers are Martha-fargin-bastiges..........until you need one. :0)
Walk down the street in D.C. and you’ll have a hard time picking anyone out who is NOT a lawyer.
Not gonna happen in any of our lifetimes, unfortunately.
Dick The Butcher - The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.
(Shakesspere’s Henry VI, part 2, Act 4, Scene 2)
A tragedy for one person is a new business opportunity for another.
There are reasons so many politicians are lawyers and so many lawyers are politicians.
Trial lawyers have taken a lot of the fun out of being a kid. Thanks to lawsuits or threats of such, teeter-totters, merry-go-rounds, jungle gyms and straight metal slides have long ago disappeared from parks. And diving boards have mostly disappeared from swimming pools.
I myself managed a few months ago to circumvent the idiot-proofing on my crossbow.
My thumb still ain’t right.
But it never occurred to me to sue anyone as a result.
And it is the 99% that give the 1% a bad name.
:0)
I was in London a year ago, and it was so refreshing to not see warning labels on everything. At the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace there was a big slab of concrete ringed by a curb with a 6” gap between them. You could easily break an ankle. No warning signs or anything.
I had jury duty on a civil case and was asked what I thought about tort reform by a lawyer from Morgan & Morgan. I told him it was past time for it. Needless to say, I was recused.
International trade deals will/are immunizing multi-national corporations form litigation.
Government and their armies of bureaucratic also possess too many protections from prosecution and individual accountability.
The only entities deserving of tort reform protections are small businesses and individuals. That won’t happen in the oligarchic states of America.
The irony of this is that lawyers are willing and eager to bring baseless cases, and often win them, but the head of the FBI didn’t think all of Hillary’s wrongdoings were enough to indict.
My favorite is the folding aluminum/cardboard sun screen used in auto windshields that has the warning “Do not drive while in place.”
Tort reform and getting rid of Medicare/Medicaid were the most vital steps in fixing our health care system, and tort reform specifically can be implemented almost immediately.
Of course malicious vermin such as trial lawyers (who are almost 100% liberals) are going to oppose it; like accountants, their livelihoods depend on an inefficient system.
Don’t forget ball pits from play-places in fast food restaurants; in fact, just include entire playplaces.
(Chik-Fil-A, thankfully, has not succumbed to lawyer pressure to remove their playplaces. This is likely because liberals do not patronize Chik-Fil-A in the first place.)
The reasonable man no longer exists in our society. Not to defend attorneys, but they are only able to get out of case what a jury says is reasonable. The problem is that we have a society that believes that it is reasonable for someone who has wealth (whether through insurance or deep pockets) to pay to a sob story person who does not have wealth regardless of whether there is any negligence. It's the "take from the wealthy whether warranted or not" mentality that is the real problem. The PI attorneys are taking advantage of the problem, and encouraging it, but I would still blame society. If the jurors said "sorry, but you were an idiot" instead of "the poor guy" then we wouldn't be talking about the need for tort reform.
And this is an old graph.
Visitors to America must think we’re just plain stupid people, with all the warning labels on everything.
America’s biggest problem - too many attorneys. A non-attorney POTUS candidate is extremely refreshing!
They add cost to everything, make people greedy, get in politics then increase laws and themselves. Tort reform is likely the biggest single healthcare cost reduction tool there is.
Lawyers - The OTHER white meat.
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