| 0 |
Subject: Tort Reform: First We Kill All the (Trial) Lawyers
Posted by: Myboyjack
- Leader [108231015] Tue, Feb 25, 2003, 14:22
I've been kinda ambivalent on the subject of tort reform; the subject is often used as a ruse for big business interests and insurance companies to try and pad their bottom line at the expense of consumers. However, articles like this one from the National Journal have me convinced that any advantage gained by consumers and any check on unscrupulous business interests provided by our current "lottery style" tort system is being far outweighed by the costs to the same constituency.
In some states, women are having trouble finding doctors to deliver their babies, because soaring jury awards and malpractice insurance premiums (now $166,000 a year in Miami) are driving doctors out of obstetrics. Other physicians and surgeons are moving out of state or getting out of medicine or staging protests, for similar reasons. Fear of ruinous liability has long stalled companies from developing new contraceptives and vaccines.
Multimillionaire trial lawyers have rounded up more than 600,000 plaintiffs—the majority of whom are not sick or impaired, by any reasonable definition—to sue thousands of companies that once made or used asbestos products, bankrupting more than 60 of them and depleting the resources available to compensate the small percentage of plaintiffs suffering from asbestos-induced cancers. Lawyers are financing their private jets on the backs of the smokers who ultimately pay the billions that the law firms have collected in tobacco litigation fees. Some of them are rounding up fat people to sue fast-food companies. A law review article calls for tort lawsuits against those who contribute to global warming. (Who doesn't?) A college baseball pitcher seriously injured by a line drive sues (among others) the maker of the hitter's bat. A high school student sues school officials to raise his A to an A-plus. And so on, and on.
But one group deserves a special niche in the annals of those who have perverted the legal system for personal and political gain at the expense of everyone else: the politically connected trial lawyers who have signed up Rhode Island, Chicago, San Francisco, St. Louis, and dozens of other governments, school districts, and housing authorities to sue over health hazards associated with sales of lead pigment and paint for indoor use. The last of those sales took place more than 45 years ago.
.....When lead paint chips or crumbles into dust, it can cause terrible brain damage to children who eat or breathe large amounts. But no victim of lead poisoning will get a dime in compensation from Rhode Island's lawsuit. Its ostensible purpose is to force the companies to pay for stripping any and all lead paint that remains in more than 300,000 homes, apartments, schools, and other buildings. (Cost of removal: as much as $10,000 per home.) Old lead paint is perfectly safe if properly maintained, however, and stripping it can actually make it more dangerous by spewing hazardous particles into the air. The most cost-effective, and arguably the safest, remedy is for homeowners and landlords to clean up any crumbling or flaking lead paint and periodically seal surfaces with a new coat of paint or sealant.
For these reasons, few homeowners or public officials choose to strip lead paint from their buildings. And even if plaintiffs win big awards, it seems questionable how much (if any) of their winnings they would use to strip old paint. Indeed, one law firm assured Texas school districts from which it was seeking a 40 percent contingent-fee deal that "it doesn't matter at this point" whether their school buildings actually contained any lead paint, and that officials would be free to spend winnings "for any appropriate purpose," leaving any lead paint right where it is.
I'm no econmist, but there's got to be a better way...
|
| 1 | Perm Dude
Leader
ID: 0059248
Tue, Feb 25, 2003, 14:38
|
Yeah, here in NJ the docs went on strike. And I was reading some very interesting stuff on the asbestos claims recently on one of my favorite new sites, Stella Awards.com, named after the woman who successfully sued McDonalds. A great site that tries to root out real awards from the fakes, with background information.
pd
|
| 2 | Toral
Sustainer
ID: 2111201313
Tue, Feb 25, 2003, 15:04
|
We need a biological model here. The crasser type of trial lawyers are like scavengers or parasites, who can only proliferate when there is some reason for them to overbreed. Take asbestos for example -- please! -- the trial lawyers who got recompense for proving its danger were admirable. I guess. No more installation of asbestos. The next stage was the scavengers, who caused society to waste huge amounts of resources by ripping out all asbestos -- even though it was shown that ripping it out, and thus sending the stuff around and about again, caused more harm than just leaving it there.
Most of the things that trial lawyers expose (e.g., problems in medical care. and in the specificity of the warnings about harm given to patients.) are things that should then be immediately dealt with by law, by legislation, to minimize dangers and equitably expose risk. That's what Liberals are put there by God for! Typically, liberals ignore that what they are good at and instead suck up to the shark lawyers. That's cuz they're liberals, I would guess; they never get anything right.
Toral
|
| 3 | Dec
ID: 29107410
Tue, Feb 25, 2003, 15:09
|
Sorry, I must admit I'm very ignorant in US laws (beside TV shows or movies) but why is it almost exclusively in the US you will heard about those silly law story?
I don't want to sound silly (anyway it won't be a first for me) but when a case is present to the court, is there any buffer procedure before actually going to court that will say "Man/Woman, don't make me lose my time with this"
I find it hard to beleive that a doctors will have to pay 166K for insurance.
|
| 4 | Myboyjack
Leader
ID: 108231015
Tue, Feb 25, 2003, 15:23
|
Dec - That's a good question. Actually, I don't think tort law in the US is all that different than in Canada or Australia or GB. We're all following the English common law tradtion, after all.
I think the major difference in the way tort awards have developed is a cultural, rather than a legal one. Really, juries in the State of California who in the post-WWII era began awarding masive judgements in favor of plaintiffs + the workings of the 1st Amendment and our tradition of limited government interference in business associations (which allow lawyers to advertise and practice business in ways not allowed in other countries) play a big role, as well.
Additionaly, we continue to emphasize judicial (amd jury generated), rather administrative remedies to civil and private wrongs.
|
| 5 | Perm Dude
Leader
ID: 0059248
Tue, Feb 25, 2003, 15:31
|
It's also been compounded by the sense of "rights entitlement," in which we demand societal change as a result of inherent, unrestrained "rights," often as a result of membership in a particular class or group.
No where else in the world is the legal system so driven by the clash of rights rather than the discernship and dispensation of justice.
Because the clash of "rights" often involve unmovable objects the potential for mediation or compromise is minimized.
pd
|
| 6 | biliruben
Sustainer
ID: 5310281417
Tue, Feb 25, 2003, 15:33
|
Medical malpractice insurance payouts have remained remarkably steady over the last 15 years. There was a large upsurge in insurance payouts in the early 80s which tracked the large rise in the costs of medical care, peaking in the late 80s. Since then the payouts per physician have been largely constant or declining.
Insurance premiums, however, vasilate wildly, mainly tracking interest rate and market trends. The reason for this is that insurance companies make the majority of their money on investment income. When they aren't able to make as much money by investing our premiums, they raise those premiums to make up the short-fall. They then come up with cover stories about inflated jury awards to excuse the premium hikes.
We are being played by the insurance companies.
|
| 7 | Toral
Sustainer
ID: 2111201313
Tue, Feb 25, 2003, 15:36
|
MBJ...huge difference is contingency fees, which until recently have been regarded as verboten in Canada.
Toral
|
| 8 | Myboyjack
Leader
ID: 108231015
Tue, Feb 25, 2003, 15:41
|
bili - that's certainly an undereported part of the problem with medical malpractice insurance rates, along with the fact that there are some really lousy dctors out there; something 80% of all medical malpractice awards are generated by 5% of doctors. If the AMA would do a better job of self-regulating they could save their members a lot of money, no doubt.
What has sent me over the top on tort reform is the increasingly grossness of various class action suits which serve no purpose other then to enrich a few at the expense of us all.
|
| 9 | Perm Dude
Leader
ID: 0059248
Tue, Feb 25, 2003, 15:41
|
Yeah, bili, I watched the doctors picket outside the state legislature here when they were on strike, shouting at the legislators who did not sign on to "tort reform." Really, it was just a tool of the insurance industry to limit awards and limit the ability of claimants to gain discovery.
My wife and I were looking at each other, saying that the reason these guys are on strike is because the insurance companies charge too much money, so why are the doctors on their side? Shouldn't there also be a limit to how much money an insurance company should make?
pd
|
| 10 | Madman
Donor
ID: 398591212
Tue, Feb 25, 2003, 15:53
|
Shouldn't there also be a limit to how much money an insurance company should make?
Oh yeah, the big bad insurance companies are milking the system. Here in Arkansas, insurance companies are getting their clocks cleaned on medical malpractice insurance. So many carriers have left the state because the risks are unprofitably high that there simply isn't any decent competition anymore. Insurance companies are losing almost twice as much money as they are taking in for premium. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out why the system is on the verge of breaking. The legislature is debating a bill right now that will begin to plug the dam, but it may not go all the way.
Worse, almost half of all nursing homes don't even bother with insurance because it costs so much, and no insurance company is willing to step in and take the risks. So, if you think there's a ton of money to be made here, why don't you come in and do it, perm dude? There is just no way I would ever risk one dime of my own money in those markets. Wayyyyy too risky.
Why should you force someone to provide a product to someone at a cost for which they will lose money or take risks disproportionate to the gain? Unreal. I guess it's just the simple and reflexive answer. Ask for your cake and eat it, too.
And, for the record, none of this has anything directly to do with my company, since we aren't in these markets, although higher doctor medical malpractice costs get funnelled through us and we pass them along to our policy holders.
|
| 11 | Perm Dude
Leader
ID: 0059248
Tue, Feb 25, 2003, 15:59
|
Well, you're right, of course, but that's a symptom of the larger problem. And, of course, my suggestion merely was one on the profit side, since insurance companies can decide whether to provide their services or not, or to eliminate (or raise rates many times over) for those who are riskier for them.
Why do insurance companies charge so much money? As a private enterprise, they need to make money. Nothing wrong with this, per se, but to get you've got to give.
pd
|
| 12 | biliruben
Sustainer
ID: 5310281417
Tue, Feb 25, 2003, 16:12
|
Robert Hunter's analysis of US Medical Malpractice premiums.
For some reason I don't recall right now, I was supposed to hate this guy when I was working as an actuary. I think it had to do with Texas being one of the few states that wouldn't just rubber stamp our rate increases.
|
| 14 | biliruben
Sustainer
ID: 5310281417
Tue, Feb 25, 2003, 17:12
|
I equate offering insurance in a market to playing blackjack with a two-deck shoe. The house won't let you play just when the odds are favorable to you. If you leave the table after you see a bunch of tens and aces, you can't come back when the odds are more favorable.
Insurance companies run the game. They spread the risk for themselves and can promise a good return for themselves over the long-term. If they are so greedy as to only want to play when the profits are maximized, screw 'em. Why should be line their pockets and play be their rules. We are better off eliminating the middle-man and self-insuring as a nation. It would save us a bundle.
|
| 15 | Madman
Donor
ID: 21020124
Tue, Feb 25, 2003, 20:27
|
biliruben insurance is a product not just a gamble. Insurance companies offer to eliminate (or reduce) your risk for a fee. So, of course our nation would have more excess cash to spend on other things if no one chose to insure themselves. We'd have more excess cash if no one bought computers, too. That's a meaningless statement.
You are asserting that we are "better off" by eliminating the middle man. And that assertion just is not true if people are risk-averse on an individual level.
Furthermore, insurance has the effect of screwing over bad doctors who repeatedly get hit with lawsuits. A national system would be a nightmare on this dimension.
To that article, that is a comic excuse for analysis, to be frank. There is no evidence for the assertion regarding insurance industry profits via revenue. Exhibit two doesn't actually even refer to profits; the best I can see is that it is the under-writing margin, before expenses. In that graph, paid losses per doctor have more than TRIPLED since 1976 in real terms.
I have no idea from these graphs how much retention or expenses really run in that sort of industry. Plus, I just don't get the point. He's arguing that insurers did not CHARGE DOCTORS ENOUGH in the late 1990's, and that now they are coming back to something that is more of a fair price. And people are arguing that a return to a fair price is somehow grounds for insurance industry reform????? I totally do not understand this.
Plus, the logic is just fubared with respect to their hypothesis on their "smoking guns". I quote:
First, if large jury verdicts in medical malpractice cases or any other tort system costs are having a significant impact on the overall costs for insurers’ and are therefore the reason behind skyrocketing insurance rates, then losses per doctor should be rising faster than medical inflation over time. Second, if lawsuits or other tort costs are the cause of rate increases for doctors rather than decreasing interest rates and other economic factors, those losses should be reflected in steadily increasing rates, not in sharp ups and downs that might instead reflect the state of the economy, the well-documented insurance economic cycle (Exhibit 1), interest rates, the stock market or the level of insurers’ investment income.
1) If large jury verdicts are substantial, this has nothing to do with whether the increase is greater than or less than the extraordinarily high inflation otherwise experienced in the industry. How substantial something is should be measured by how large it is absolutely, not relatively. And, as I noted, their own data indicates a tripling of costs in 30 years. That is an absurdly high rate in and of itself. If that could be contained, that looks like a substantial cost savings to me.
Furthermore, they ignore the spill-over effects in terms of increased utilization, etc., as a result of malpractice avoidance.
2) If lawsuits are the cause of increases, there is no implication regarding the short-run variability of premiums. None whatsoever. Consider the stochstic formula: y = x + e, where e is an error term with some unknown distribution.
Are y and x causally related? Well, if this formula holds in a causal way, YES! Do x and y track each other observation by observation? Of course NOT, especially if the variance of e is large.
Furthermore, add in another variable for investment income, and you can see how benevolent (or competitively driven) insurance companies would give doctor's price breaks if their investments go well.
The bottom line conclusion using his OWN analysis is that insurance companies seem to be in a market that is competitively driven and that therefore cuts margins reasonably close and passes price breaks on to doctors when possible. This has been possible over the past 15 years perhaps because of interest income. However, doctor costs have tripled, and the market has collapsed, meaning that insurance companies must begin acquire additional premium from doctors into the future. If that isn't an argument in FAVOR of tort reform, I don't know what is.
Actuaries would LOVE guys who make arguments this silly and easily debunked.
|
| 16 | biliruben
Sustainer
ID: 589301110
Wed, Feb 26, 2003, 09:54
|
Actually, he is an actuary, and a former insurance commissioner. I think the salient fact that the final table provides is that losses per physician have not gone up over the last 15 years. That alone dubunks the insurance industries' claim that large jury payouts are killing them. Sure. It is easy to say that they were under-charging in one period. It is just as easy to say they were over-charging in the comparison period and charging fairly at the time you say they were under-charging.
Feel free to bring profit numbers into the equation. I would love to see them. I think looking at premiums and losses, without bringing expenses into the equation, is more clear, but if you want to highlight the insurance industry's bureaucratic largess and high salaries, please do.
|
| 17 | biliruben
Sustainer
ID: 589301110
Wed, Feb 26, 2003, 10:04
|
BTW, do states still allow you to consider expenses when requesting rate changes? I thought you could only consider losses and premiums?
|
| 18 | Madman
Donor
ID: 21020124
Thu, Feb 27, 2003, 09:35
|
I think the salient fact that the final table provides is that losses per physician have not gone up over the last 15 years.
I fail to find why this is "salient" as per my logic above. The underwriting margin is at an all-time low. There is just no way you can profitably provide insurance at those rates toward the bottom.
Yes, of course states implicitly allow you to consider expenses when requesting rate changes -- they do not require you to lose all your premium in claims. The bottom line is that you have to be able to be able to cover all your costs, or you will leave the business. It's that simple. Prove that case, and you can raise your rates. Any insurance commissioner that would turn down such an argument is an insurance commissioner who wouldn't have any insurance left in her state. It does happen, of course, because you get brain-dead consumer advocates in there from time to time. But most of the time legislators or advisors or the law itself prevents those types from doing too much damage to the system. Well, that and the fact that companies know people like that aren't too bright and are likely to get canned before too long, so they eat losses for the short-run to stay in business over the longer haul.
Hunter's analysis indicates to me that the insurance industry is most likely indeed in crisis. A tiny underwriting margin coupled with no interest income is a recipe for disaster. I don't see how you can spell it any other way.
Regarding the insurance industry's largess ... the way to solve that is to deregulate -- allow more competition, not less. You can't get rid of overhead by putting more governmental restrictions on behavior.
I just looked J. Robert Hunter up. Amazingly, he's an expert in Property and Casualty, not health. But you are right, he is an FCAS. Goes to show that credentials don't mean a lot, eh? He's still making arguments that actuaries would love to hear.
|
| 19 | biliruben
Sustainer
ID: 589301110
Thu, Feb 27, 2003, 10:02
|
Sorry. "With regard to this thread, the salient fact is..."
We are talking about tort reform, here. I am sure we can debate until we are blue in the face about the sufficient margins for insurance companies. I agree with you that regulators should allow, and do allow rate hikes sufficient to keep insurers in business. One person's sufficiency is another person's usury. All this is tangential to MBJ's thread, however.
I intended to present evidence that insurers are crying wolf with regards to spikes in jury awards, and I beleive I have done just that.
|
| 20 | Madman
Donor
ID: 21020124
Thu, Feb 27, 2003, 19:02
|
Well, they are crying foul about profitability. Jury awards maybe haven't spike that substantially.
But if you have a $200 million problem, and can eliminate $50 million of it, why not fix what you can fix? It will help the problem, of that there is no doubt.
More importantly, at least down here in Arkansas, you haven't seen anything yet. Without reform, it's going to become a major issue in the near future. Carriers are pulling out faster than you can spit. And people spit fast down here.
|
| 21 | biliruben
Sustainer
ID: 49132614
Thu, Feb 27, 2003, 19:25
|
Bah. Insurers are always threatening to pull out of this market or that market. Some times they do, sometimes it's just hot air to try and sway the Insurance Commissioner.
Regarding the insurance industry's largess ... the way to solve that is to deregulate -- allow more competition, not less. You can't get rid of overhead by putting more governmental restrictions on behavior.
Hey, I'll will back limited deregulation when the insurance industry gives up their anti-trust exemption. Insurers largely apply rate increases and decreases in a lock-step fashion, the little ones following what the big ones do. It's called price-fixing, and it's legal.
We should really give MBJ back his thread.
|
| 22 | Madman
Donor
ID: 398591212
Fri, Feb 28, 2003, 08:41
|
Anti-trust exemption? Say what? The FTC/DOJ is investigating down here. I don't know what you are talking about.
And insurers HAVE pulled out of Arkansas. It wasn't a threat, for both health-care and doctor insurance.
BTW, calling the insurance industry an industry is an extreme misnomer. Doctor re-insurance is what is in terrible crisis. That has very little to do with what I'm involved with, and P&C (Hunter's speciality) is doing just fine and not in any real danger. The risks and issues are substantially different in different areas.
And of course sometimes it's hot air when companies threaten to leave. But data like what HUNTER provides indicates to me that the threat is more than a threat. Especially when I know how quickly people are bailing down here.
|
| 23 | biliruben
Sustainer
ID: 589301110
Fri, Feb 28, 2003, 08:57
|
I admit I haven't kept up and never was particularly interested in the details at the time, but it was my belief that my job's existence 10 years ago was largely due to the McCarran-Ferguson Act of 1945, allowing the sharing of loss and premium data and the rate changes those data suggested, as well as the outlining of the state's right to regulate the industry. This pooling of pricing information could be considered anti-competitive, to say the least.
|
| 24 | Madman
Donor
ID: 398591212
Fri, Feb 28, 2003, 09:35
|
holy geez. What industry did you work in? I.e., what field?
We in health insurance here most certainly not allowed to exchange that sort of information. I had never heard of that.
|
| 25 | Madman
Donor
ID: 398591212
Fri, Feb 28, 2003, 09:36
|
Well, to be clear, we do particpate in national surveys and things for trend analysis and such ... but not to any degree of specificity, I can assure you ...
|
| 26 | biliruben
Sustainer
ID: 589301110
Fri, Feb 28, 2003, 10:26
|
Perhaps it is just property-casualty, though I had assumed it extended to all insurers.
|
| 27 | biliruben
Sustainer
ID: 49132614
Fri, Feb 28, 2003, 11:42
|
I worked as an acturial assistant in a data clearinghouse of sorts, called Insurance Services Office, at what used to be 7 World Trade Center (fortunately, the company fled to Jersey 6 months before the attack). Other than some projects on improving projections and such, we essentially gathered data from the majority of insurers across the country, crunched the premium and loss data, and filed rate increase or decrease requests to all fifty states, for nearly all lines of property and casualty insurance.
The final year I was there, we were forced to remove all expense numbers from these filings, so as to give less of a perception that we were fixing rates industry-wide, though that was in essense what we were doing, regardless of whether we included or excluded that simple multiplier, the value of which was common knowledge.
|
| 28 | Myboyjack
Leader
ID: 108231015
Mon, Apr 07, 2003, 10:35
|
SCOTUS Overturns State Farm Damages Award
|
| 29 | Mark L
Leader
ID: 4444938
Mon, Apr 07, 2003, 11:23
|
Before I click on MBJ's link, I'm going out on a limb to say that must be the one from Utah, couple billion IIRC.
|
| 30 | Mark L
Leader
ID: 4444938
Mon, Apr 07, 2003, 11:25
|
Right state, wrong number. Getting old.
|
| 31 | Seattle Zen
Donor
ID: 30216620
Mon, Apr 07, 2003, 14:00
|
Interesting bedfellows in the dissent.
|
| 32 | Mark L
Leader
ID: 4444938
Mon, Apr 07, 2003, 14:22
|
Not a surprise to see Scalia there. Ever since the Ct started looking at substantive punitive damages issues, he has consistently taken the position that punitive damages do not present a federal constitutional question.
Will be interesting to see whether Ginsberg wrote separately or joined someone else's dissent. Maybe I am confused here but I believe she wrote the 2001 Leatherman decision that held the amount of punitive damages awarded by a jury is subject to de novo appellate review - if I am remembering that right she may have thought that the Utah supreme court's review was sufficient to satisfy any federal constitutional concerns.
|
| 33 | Mark L
Leader
ID: 4444938
Mon, Apr 07, 2003, 14:28
|
Way off, again. Stevens wrote the Leatherman decision; Ginsburg dissented.
Not a good day for me; probably should stop giving advice and go home.
|
| 34 | biliruben
ID: 441182916
Fri, Jan 02, 2004, 16:11
|
To follow up on #23, yes, Medical Malpractice Insurers are covered by the McCarran-Ferguson Act's antitrust exemption. This link goes to a nice congressional report which lists many of the nuances of this tort-reform discussion pretty well. Apparently Leahy introduced a bill early in 2003 to limit the insurer's ability to price-fix, even though the insurers insist they don't (largely on evidence that that they don't use my old company, ISO, and therefore don't share loss costs).
I also ran across some more complete payout numbers, including both judgements and settlements over the last decade or so compliled by calpundit. (thanks Wampum, via Lean Left). These data come from The National Practitioner's Data Bank I believe, though I have yet to explore. I didn't know such a resource existed!
There was some other thread where we discussed the numbers and trends, I think, but I can't find it.
It does indeed look as if your state was hit particularly bad the last couple of years, Madman, though it may be because of eagerness to settle!
Question: If no cases go to trial, can you still blame trial lawyers and excessive jury awards?
|
| 35 | Tree
ID: 29082512
Thu, May 03, 2007, 09:56
|
or maybe we need to kill all the judges...
Judge sues cleaner for $65M over pants
|
| 36 | katietx
ID: 243562819
Thu, May 03, 2007, 10:02
|
Sherman Joyce, president of the American Tort Association, has written a letter to the group of men who will decide this week whether to renew Pearson's 10-year appointment. Joyce is asking them to reconsider.
I certainly hope they reconsider. This is the most ridiculous thing I've heard in...well I can't remember. (yes I can but...)
The fact that his pants were found (shortly after and he refused them) and that he thinks these folks should pay for the rental car for him to drive to another cleaners? omg...totally whacked.
|
| 37 | Myboyjack
ID: 8216923
Thu, May 03, 2007, 19:02
|
He's an ALJ - not really a judge-judge. I've never met an ALJ who wasn't a real jagoff.
|
| 38 | Mark L
Leader
ID: 03601149
Fri, May 04, 2007, 08:32
|
They think they should have been appointed or elected as
courtroom judges and they absolutely despise the consolation
prize -- so you and your clients get to pay for it. MBJ nailed this
one.
|
| 39 | Perm Dude
ID: 30550117
Mon, Jun 11, 2007, 14:56
|
Robert Bork, advocate of restricting damage awards and other tort reforms, sues Yale Club for $1 million for a fall
|
| 40 | Perm Dude
ID: 30550117
Mon, Jun 11, 2007, 15:17
|
Hypocrites
|
| 41 | sarge33rd
ID: 76442923
Mon, Jun 11, 2007, 18:36
|
"He alleges that the Yale Club is liable for the $1m plus punitive damages because they "wantonly, willfully, and recklessly" failed to provide staging which he could climb safely."
Doesnt that essentially say that Judge Bork cant walk and chew gum at the same time? (I'm fairly sure he was talking to someone as he attemtpe4d to climb the dais.)
|
| 42 | Seattle Zen
ID: 49112418
Mon, Jun 11, 2007, 18:46
|
Wow, a true demi-god in Toral's eyes. Where many, many Conservatives would simply answer, "it's in my financial best interest to take advantage of today's tort rules... no unilateral disarmament... blah, blah, blah," Bork considers himself the paragon of virtue, or at least the arbiter of what is virtuous. This lawsuit has to upset his supporters.
|
| 43 | Doug
ID: 441251914
Mon, Jun 11, 2007, 20:03
|
From the Hypocrites link...
In this case, Bush seemed to understand one of the most important functions of civil lawsuits — to deter further wrongdoing.
Part of the problem, or at least, part of the perceived problem... is that the amount of punishment necessary to achieve the "deterrent" goal is typically an order-of-magnitude different than the injury suffered by the plaintiff. People object (and I think rightly so) to someone receiving millions of dollars for spilling hot coffee on themselves. Lawsuits shouldn't be the lottery. My impression is this sort of things is what leads to the commonly referenced "frivilous lawsuits", which are encouraged and taken up by the shadier breed of lawyers (which IMHO are a minority, but a minority that does disproportional damage to the overall system).
Certainly the victim should get compensated for whatever the injury is... medical bills, time off work, and even the more abstract "pain and suffering" within reason... you could even take that amount and double it. Say in coffee-lady's case she gets $200k... $50k for bills, $25k for missed work, $25k for pain/suffering... then doubled. Fine. But to penalize McD's we need say a $2 million penalty (just to throw a number out for the purpose of example). What to do with the extra $1.8 million (in lieu of awarding it to the plaintiff)?
What if there were some sort of "Better Business Bureau" fund or other entity that the penalites would go to support? Not "to the state" in the general fund, as that could clearly lead to bias (seeing as the state administers the justice system...). The money shouldn't be used to maintain highways or other such things for example (unless there was a money available from a successful lawsuit against a highway construction contractor who did sub-standard work that now needs to be repaired, etc.).
In a utopian sense this might make sense, directing the money to rectify the crime or help prevent/prosecute similar abuses... but in reality govt. bureaucracy tends to botch these things up and abuse the system as well (IMHO).
Basically I'm just thinking in the abstract of whether there might be some way to improve the balance of penalties/rewards/motivations between the competing goals of having a detterent effect on companies, mitigating against the "lottery effect" of frivoulous lawsuits, and whatever role the government plays in adjudicating the cases and possibly disbursing the penalties.
Oh, and as a separate question... just curious, but if someone files a frivolous lawsuit that's clearly just trying to get money out of a company or individual, hopefully by getting them to settle out of court, etc. even if there's no real valid claim (in short, "if someone is abusing the system"), then is there any way to turn around and pursue legal action against the abuser and/or their lawyer? If so, is this something that realistically occurs, or is the burden of proof such that basically people can get away with filing lawsuits at will unless it becomes WILDLY egregious?
|
| 44 | Perm Dude
ID: 265111218
Tue, Jun 12, 2007, 22:50
|
As a follow-up to #35:
"Dry cleaner" judge leaves courtroom crying over pants
|
| 45 | Myboyjack
ID: 8216923
Wed, Jun 13, 2007, 07:31
|
Yeah, as if the $54 million pair of britches weren't enough proof, it's clear this guy has some issues. Can't imagine having a case in front of him right now.
|
|
|
|
Post a reply to this message: (But first, how about checking out this sponsor?)
|
|