In the old days, our culture wasn't litigious like it has become...and that goes right back to your question. Why is it, only fairly recently, that our society is this way?
The legal profession is a bit out of control, but so is the culture..........my story was true btw.......I'm still shocked at what we were told to do.....by people that should have known better.
That's because in the old days "live and let live" was the prevailing philosophy (with some exceptions), human decency was more natural and most people realized that accidents happen. It isn't always somebody's fault, and when it was, forgiveness was a higher road than revenge.
Now, with God and his followers forced to the back of the bus, so to speak, virtues such as forgiveness have taken a back seat to the sins of greed and lust (for power as much as anything else).
Whereas doing something because it was the right thing to do used to be the norm, now it has become doing something because you can or because there's something in it for you and it matters not in the least how many innocent people are hurt by it.