“Loser pays” would also have the beneficial result of putting a lot of lawyers out of work. I remember reading about some country that made “Loser pays” the law and within 1 year major law firms were letting about 1/3 of their lawyers go, as in fired. Now, there’s something I’d like to see.
We (Florida) already have tort reform. The Stand Your Ground law includes a bar against prosecution and then a bar against tort if it involves a righteous shoot. The attacker in this case jumped out of a vehicle, knocked his victim to the ground, and continued to hit the victim. The attacker’s blood was .28 % alcohol. The victim shot the attacker during the fight.
It always seems to me like many of these civil cases are effectively “double jeopardy”.
It seems to me that if you can’t get a conviction for criminal wrong doing, that you shouldn’t be able to bring a subsequent civil suit for damages at all.
This sounds roughly akin to a FReeper’s tagline that I saw recently: “Never pick a fight with an old man - if he’s too old to fight, he’ll just kill you.”
Ditto that.
Florida law prevents this lawsuit from ever taking place, so I’m not sure why a lawyer familiar with Florida laws would even try to start a case.
776.032 Immunity from criminal prosecution and civil action for justifiable use of force.—
(1) A person who uses force as permitted in s. 776.012, s. 776.013, or s. 776.031 is justified in using such force and is immune from criminal prosecution and civil action for the use of such force, unless the person against whom force was used is a law enforcement officer, as defined in s. 943.10(14), who was acting in the performance of his or her official duties and the officer identified himself or herself in accordance with any applicable law or the person using force knew or reasonably should have known that the person was a law enforcement officer. As used in this subsection, the term “criminal prosecution” includes arresting, detaining in custody, and charging or prosecuting the defendant.
(2) A law enforcement agency may use standard procedures for investigating the use of force as described in subsection (1), but the agency may not arrest the person for using force unless it determines that there is probable cause that the force that was used was unlawful.
(3) The court shall award reasonable attorney’s fees, court costs, compensation for loss of income, and all expenses incurred by the defendant in defense of any civil action brought by a plaintiff if the court finds that the defendant is immune from prosecution as provided in subsection (1).