Now I've heard EVERYTHING!!!

[Sir Belisarius]

I read in my local paper today that a man is suing a Las Vegas casino because they failed to stop him from gambling and losing too much money!!!!

I mean, Boo Hoo! These ridiculous and frivolous lawsuits coming out today are incredible!!! When did people lose their free will?!?!? Have we gotten so pathetic as a society that we need to sue due to our own mistakes and shortcomings?!?!?

As a lawyer - I am disgusted!

Fortelling the Future: The next lawsuit....

Someone suing a local school district because they were too stuppid to get an education!

I'm going to stop here before I get really riled up!

[8people]

There was something once where someone sued someone for killing their tamagotchi

[ejsmith]

Yeah, they threw it into a cup of water or something.

I still like the 60 y.o. that burned her mouth on coffee at Mcdonalds, and was awarded 4 million or something.

Personally, as I've said before, there are many aspects of Arab Justice which would immediately improve the entire social functioning of our world. Not to mention the States' Judicial Branch.



Support Public Floggings.

[Dragon's Jewel]

What about the guy who's suing fast food restaurants for the fact that he's so overweight? How far are we going to take this before someone sues God for not programming in sufficient self-control?

Hey, or what about Singapore? Cane 'em. Cleanest damn city in the world.

[Laches]

ejsmith, this is somewhat akin to a topic that was up not long ago, about that McDonald's case where she "Burned her mouth." I wondered there how many people bothered to read the case before criticizing them. I'm not sure what is more off target, the claim she only "burned her mouth" or the claim she "got 4 million dollars."

I can't talk about this case, because I haven't heard the facts. Newspaper reports are notoriously unreliable. I hesitate to rush to judgment.

I don't know whether to laugh or cry. Look here.....

http://www.sorcerers.net/cgi-bin/ult...c;f=7;t=002435

[ November 02, 2002, 00:13: Message edited by: Laches ]

[ejsmith]

Hmmmm.

My bad.

So, I'll go with the graffiti kid in Singapore then, now that the Mcdonald's chick is out of the running.

Anyone have all the dirt on the Singapore kid? I dunno if they gave his father front row seats on that one (like the Arabs do), or what.

[Falstaff]

Hmmm - a class-action against God... not a bad idea!!

<Falstaff ducks to avoid lightning bolt>

[Slappy]

Sir Belisarius for years we in the UK have laughed at the US sue happy culture. I remember being most impressed by a male worker and his female supervisor who didn't get on. She suspected him of going to the toilet just to waste time so she confronted him (in the toilet ) and the both sued the other for sexual harresment.

Sadly the UK seems to be following the US lead on this sad road. Things have now become so stupid that bags of nuts have warnings like 'Danger contains Nuts' on the packaging. It seems that society is determined to promote stupidity and a lack of self-accountability as virtues.

I hate to think what Darwin would make of it.

[ejsmith]

Darwin would support public floggings too.

[Laches]

I disagree that the U.S. is a "sue happy" culture, I agree that it is perceived as such. First though, I take by "sue happy" most people usually mean tort cases. After all, you rarely hear the media and general public mocking a breach of contract claim and their rarely mentioned at all barring some other interesting factor.

Here are some facts I used in that other thread linked above. The documentation is there, I'll just reiiterate a few salient points here:

This argument first errs by suggesting that the nation's courts and businesses are inundated with a rising tide of tort suits and tort liability claims. If anything, the opposite is true. The number of tort suit filings was nearly constant from 1975 through 1990 and has actually fallen since then. Most of the ten million civil actions filed each year in state courts are divorce, estate, contract, and property disputes. Only ten percent of all civil suits are tort suits; of these, nearly half are auto accident cases, ten percent are medical malpractice cases, and only three percent are products liability actions. Nor is there a rising tide of large awards: The average recovery in a products liability case has been estimated at only $48,000.....

Thus, there is no empirical data to suggest a rising tide of tort litigation. Nor is there any such data that suggest that contingent-fee contracts encourage frivolous litigation. In fact, there is no rising tide of tort litigation precisely because the contingent-fee contract does not encourage frivolous litigation. To be sure, the contingent-fee contract does give plaintiffs a risk-free means of asserting claims. But it does not eliminate the risk -- and costs -- of failure. Instead, it merely shifts the risk from the client to the attorney. Since the attor- ney's fee is contingent upon success, the attorney has a compelling economic incentive not to accept cases in which the probability of success is so low as to make the case a poor investment of time and money. Indeed, the contingent-fee contract more likely deters the filing of frivolous cases because it puts the risk of failure on the lawyer, who is the person best-positioned to assess its merits. As one economic analysis of the question concluded: "In other words, under a contingent fee the primary screening function shifts to the lawyer, and the lawyer will probably do a more effective screening job. We can at least conclude that contingency itself gives little or no encouragement to groundless speculative suits."

In my opinion, law suits and crime make for interesting news coverage. Therefore, the media spends a disproportionate amount of time covering a relatively small number of events. Look at the number of crime television shows and courtTV. I think both are indicative that the subject matter is typically found to be interesting. I believe that in part due to media saturation people believe there is a great many more "frivolous lawsuits" being filed than there actually are. Usually, people don't even bother to determine the facts, they just assume the worst. That's because it's socially convenient to blame lawyers (I go into this a good bit in the aforementioned link.)

How does the perception of the gambling case change if the gentleman was obviously mentally challenged and the casino not only let him gamble away an entire trust left to care for him by his grandmother but did so after a request to not allow him to do so and further continued to feed him large amounts of alcohol to keep him there. Imagine someone with an IQ of 65 or so who wandered away from his caretakers? Would that change peoples perception of the case? I personally doubt any of that is true but the point is I don't know whether it is because I don't know all the facts. And neither does anyone else here. The newspapers don't report all the relevant information, it can destroy the story and they are confined by space. Look to the link above for some of the facts about the "horrible McDonald's case" to see what I mean; so many people assume the worst without knowing the facts.

[ November 02, 2002, 15:56: Message edited by: Laches ]

[JohnnyRTFM]

As far as ridiculous lawsuits go, all I can say is this:

A friend of mine was in San Diego a few months back. While driving along in the right-hand lane, a woman in the middle lane - speeding and talking on her cell phone - decided to make a right-hand turn thereby smashing into my friend's van. Two of the van's five passengers were seriously injured - one had spinal cord injuries, the other lost the use of both of her legs (we still aren't sure if it is permanent or not).

So what happens? The woman who caused the accident files suit against my friend! To the tune of $700,000! For "emotional trauma" or some such nonsense!

[ November 02, 2002, 16:08: Message edited by: JohnnyRTFM ]

[Morgoth]

A few years ago a "criminal" organisation operated in my neighbourhood.
They waited in a car for somebody to drive by and then rammed him, but they made it look like the rammed driver was the rammer (as in, the person responsible for the accident) and then sued him (emotional distress, damage, yettayeattablahblah, etc).
The police noticed the huge amount of accidents the group got in, and arrested them for fraude(or whatever you could call it what they were doing).

[ejsmith]

"speeding and talking on her cell phone "

50 lashings with a cane pole, on the Golden Gate bridge, in late July, while her children and father watch.

Next.


"fraude"

50 lashings, for two consecutive days with a cane pole while tied naked to a wooden stake in Times Square, by a team of 8 WWW wrestlers; and the whole thing broadcast live by some 14-year-old with a telephoto webcam from some nearby office building.

Next.

[Faerus Stoneslammer]

Have you ever heard of the "Stella Awards?" It's a tribute to all those ridiculous lawsuits...a disgrace to the North American legal system...here's a few examples:

Stella Liebeck is the 81-year-old lady who spilled coffee on herself and sued McDonalds. This case inspired an annual award - The "Stella" Award - for the most frivolous lawsuit in the U.S.

The following are this year's candidates:

1. January 2000: Kathleen Robertson of Austin, Texas, was awarded $780,000 by a jury of her peers after breaking her ankle tripping over a toddler who was running inside a furniture store. The owners of the store were understandably surprised at the verdict, considering the misbehaving little bastard was Ms. Robertson's son.

2. June 1998: A 19-year-old Carl Truman of Los Angeles won $74,000 and medical expenses when his neighbor ran over his hand with a Honda Accord. Mr. Truman apparently didn't notice there was someone at the wheel of the car, when He was trying to steal his neighbor's hubcaps.

3. October 1998: A Terrence Dickson of Bristol, Pennsylvania, was leaving a house he had just finished robbing by way of the garage. He was not able to get the garage door to go up since the automatic door opener was malfunctioning. He couldn't re-enter the house because the door connecting the house and garage locked when he pulled it shut.

The family was on vacation. Mr. Dickson found himself locked in the garage for eight days. He subsisted on a case of Pepsi he found, and a large bag of dry dog food. He sued the homeowner's insurance claiming the situation caused him undue mental anguish. The jury agreed to the tune of half a million dollars.

4. October 1999: Jerry Williams of Little Rock, Arkansas, was awarded $14,500 and medical expenses after being bitten on the buttocks by his next-door neighbor's beagle. The beagle was on a chain in its owner's fenced-in yard. The award was less than sought because the jury felt the dog might have been just a little provoked at the time by Mr. Williams who was shooting it repeatedly with a pellet gun.

5. May 2000: A Philadelphia restaurant was ordered to pay Amber Carson of Lancaster, Pennsylvania $113,500 after she slipped on a soft drink and broke her coccyx. The beverage was on the floor because Ms. Carson threw it at her boyfriend 30 seconds earlier during an argument.

6. December 1997: Kara Walton of Claymont, Delaware, successfully sued the owner of a night club in a neighboring city when she fell from the bathroom window to the floor and knocked out her two front teeth. This occurred while Ms Walton was trying to sneak through the window in the ladies room to avoid paying the $3.50 cover charge. She was awarded $12,000 and dental expenses.

And the winner is: Mr. Merv Grazinski of Oklahoma City.

In November 2000 Mr.Grazinski purchased a brand new 32 foot Winnebago motor home. On his first trip home, having joined the freeway, he set the cruise control at 70 mph and calmly left the drivers seat to go into the back and make himself a cup of coffee. Not surprisingly the Winnie left the freeway, crashed and overturned.

Mr. Grazinski sued Winnebago for not advising him in the handbook that he couldn't actually do this. He was awarded $1,750,000 plus a new Winnie. (Winnebago actually changed their handbooks on the back of this court case, just in case there are any other complete morons
buying their vehicles)

[Taluntain]

Thank You for posting this. I've heard about it and read it in Slovene but couldn't find the source to post it in English. After seeing this, there's not an argument in the world that can convince me the legal system in USA is anywhere near normal, when lawsuits like that are actually won. If anything near that idiotic was filed in a court anywhere in Europe, the moron who filed the suit would be laughed at and put in the newspapers and the lawsuit dismissed. In USA, the jury finds in their favour... Incomprehensible to me, really.

[ November 03, 2002, 11:34: Message edited by: Taluntain ]

[Morgoth]

Lol Ejsmith, you should become judge

[Slappy]

Thanks for the info Laches. I should have considered the media influence as they annoy me so often with the biased over-simplified stance on various subjects (not that I would make the same mistake ).

A couple of other points from your info though. You're right that it is a 'perception' outside the US and perceptions are not always the truth (insert Obiwan's quote here). As to the research you cite, the dates are interesting as the study is only quoted up to 1990 and I wonder if it has become worse since then. If so, has the media contributed to this by highlighting stupid cases and making people think that they should join in? Also the period is from 1975 - 1990 and I think it is fair to say that the UK perception of a mad US legal system has been around for a very long time, back to the 70s at least. Therefore the 'worse or not' comparison is only valid in the sense that the US system has not become worse. It does not indicate if it was a mad system to start with.

That leads me on to my final thought. I agree that the number of silly claims is small, and one would hope that would be the case due to the large number of 'day-to-day' cases. A more interesting comparison though would be the percentage of silly claims per head of population (both in terms of total number of claims and average payout) compared to the percentage in other countries. Or, taking up Tal's point that many of these cases would be laughed out of court in Europe, perhaps a comparison of the percentage of silly cases actually won. That might give a better indication of whether the US deserves its (unfair?) legal reputation.

PS. of course the debate over what constitutes a 'silly case' and a 'fair settlement' would probably highlight some interesting cultural differences.

[Laches]

I'd just like to point out that the "Stella Awards" were named after the woman who received 3rd degree burns to 6% of her body in the McDonald's case. The facts about the case are in the link I gave above. Having read the case, I have to believe that the award was not unreasonable even if you disagree with the result (unreasonable means that a reasonable person couldn't agree with the result; a lot of reasonable people do agree with the result...)

So, since a group made up the "stella awards" referring to a reasonable piece of litigation, shouldn't we wonder if the short one paragraph versions of the cases listed above are accurate? Who here has read those cases and knows all the facts?

I'm not saying that there aren't ridiculous cases. I'm saying there are far fewer than people think and that they are the price we pay for having the most open legal system in the world; where even the poorest member of society can stand a chance against a corporate giant if the case has merit. I liken it to our criminal system in the sense that people like to complain about lawyers "getting a criminal off on a technicality" when the fact is the prosecution wins the overwhelming majority of criminal cases (98% I read at one point, won't research to verify now.) The price you pay for heightened security that the government won't run roughshod over you in a criminal proceeding is that occasionally someone will get off who shouldn't, but this is much more rare than people believe. The price you pay for having the most open legal system in the world is that occasionally there will be a case that there shouldn't, but this is much more rare than people believe.

[ November 03, 2002, 15:48: Message edited by: Laches ]

[Sprite]

Laches, I don't agree that the type of lawsuits that this thread is about is an inevitable result of having a "fair judicial system" (I can't recall exactly how you phrased it). I would say that the situation is caused by having the amount of the award decided by jurors rather than by establishing criteria connecting the prospective award to (a) the amount of actual damage or harm sustained and (b) the degree to which the damage or harm was caused by the defendant. Remember that from the point of view of the plaintiff, the damages are a sentence. I can't imagine why you'd want a one-time jury rather than an experienced and educated judge determining a sentence - think what this would lead to in civil trials!

I'm surprised no one has yet mentioned the case from - I believe, 1995?- in which a famous actor and football player who was actually acquitted of murdering his ex-wife, was successfully sued by her family for her death. A court could not prove him guilty but he nevertheless had to pay for the crime. Where is the justice there? Perhaps all victims' families should be able to sue everyone suspected of guilt. Maybe some families could get damages from more than one suspect for a crime only one of them could possibly have committed! Jackpot! If I was on the jury, I'd give it to them. They seem like nice people and probably need the money.

Here's one- Canada this time. A 95 year old man was stopped at a traffic light on a slight incline. He accidentally lifted his foot off the brake, and the car rolled two feet and gently bumped the car in front. No one was injured and there was no dent in either bumper. Nevertheless the old man got out of the car, apologizing profusely, and unwisely handed several $100 bills from his wallet to the young man driving the car in front to "buy his family a nice lunch". Overwhelmed with guilt, the old man immediately put his car up for sale and tore up his drivers' license. Smelling blood, the next day the young man sued the old man for $2 million on the grounds that he can no longer work for fear that in his absence, some old maniac like my grandfather would kill his family in a traffic accident. The date of the trial was set a year in advance; although we knew that the case would be thrown out of court, my grandfather (previously in perfect health) had to be heavily sedated for anxiety and depression, and he had several minor strokes, so terrified was he that he and his elderly wife would be homeless and thrown out on the streets as a result of this lawsuit. No one can convince him that this type of lawsuit never succeeds in Canada. This is the real "culture of litigation" problem- even when it doesn't result in actual litigation or damages awarded, when good people live in fear that an honest mistake in which no harm resulted can still ruin them, something terrible is going on. Raise hands all those whose first instinctive response was that I should have just given up on the judicial system and shot the plaintiff.

[Nobleman]

where even the poorest member of society can stand a chance against a corporate giant if the case has merit

And that can't be done in a danish or swedish or dutch system? *crips*

The american system could be called the most open system. I prefer the expression the most willing system. Willing to take up anything as a case. emphasis on anything.

[Laches]

Regarding the OJ Simpson case, there are different burdens of proof in a civil case as opposed to a criminal case. Surely you aren't suggesting Sprite that you want the standard to be the same? Don't we want it to be harder to put someone in jail? Shouldn't it be more difficult to execute a man than to win some money from him?

Also, you say that we can have an open judicial system without frivolous cases but you don't say how. You talk about capping damages, but that does not prevent baseless claims, that only limits the amount of the potential award, maybe slightly lessening the incentive. Other nations try to prevent cases without merit by having a "loser pays" system. The problem with that is that there are many cases that are difficult to prove and therefore risky but which are still with a great deal of merit. For example, environmental litigation is often this way. Showing causation in an environmental case is incredibly difficult -- you may be able to prove that a company was dumping hazardous material in violation of RCRA but how do you prove that it was the cause of the disproportionately high number of instances of leukemia in a community? That is incredibly difficult to prove, and costs an incredible amount of money to try to prove. Now, if you're talking about a lower middle class neighborhood without that type of money, and you have a loser pays system, it quickly becomes apparent that the case likely won't be tried. Some nations try these cases exclusively by the government (in the U.S. the government would also bring a civil and or criminal case) but why shouldn't the victims have the opportunity to be made whole?

Also, you say that damages should be tied to the harm done. Well, they are. Those are called compensatory damages. The complaint is typically punitive damages which are designed to punish in hopes of creating a disincentive for the type of behavior mentioned above. Take the McDonald's case, there the jury originally awarded 2.7 million dollars in punitive damages (judge reduced it to 480,000) and people cried how unfair the award was. Well, 2.7 million is the amount that McDonalds makes in two days in coffee sales. I think punitive damages are almost always more rational than than people give them credit for. (If you want to debate the McDonald's case please read the linked post above first.)

People keep coming up with one case here as an example, or one case there. I contend that these case represent the overwhelming minority. The facts show that the types of cases being mentioned compose the smallest fraction of the judicial case load, and that only the barest fraction of those cases are the cases being mentioned as being without merit.

Is a system where on the smallest fraction of cases have unacceptable results broken? Is it a travesty of justice as is the implication of some? I contend it is not. Perception is not reality.

This doesn't mean there can't be real and beneficial change. However, before we seek to change a system, shouldn't we really know the truth about it? The saying is: if it ain't broke don't fix it. Well, if it has a flat tire fix the tire don't get the engine a complete overhaul.

[ November 03, 2002, 19:04: Message edited by: Laches ]

[Rastor]

On the note of extreme measures people go through to prevent lawsuits, there's a notice on the back of my 36" television set. It reads "Not designed for human consumption." i.e. Don't eat it. Did some goofball actually sue them for getting fried after trying to eat the TV, or are they afraid that someone will be stupid enough to?

So, since a group made up the "stella awards" referring to a reasonable piece of litigation, shouldn't we wonder if the short one paragraph versions of the cases listed above are accurate? Who here has read those cases and knows all the facts?

I know that a few of them involved a guy commiting a crime suing his victim. I seriously want to know how these cases went through. Anyone want to bring a suit against the people that approved these cases for being morons?

How far are we going to take this before someone sues God for not programming in sufficient self-control?

I'm make a wager that somebody tries this. A lawsuit against God. I can see the verdict now, "We, the jury, order God to pay this man a dozen virgins to compensate him for your negligence in forgetting to give him inteligence." Please, we shouldn't lower ourselves to stupid suits like that.

[Orkrist the Cleaver]

Laches is right on. We use the law and the courts to solve problems and disputes, and juries give these awards after hearing the facts. The jury may believe or disbelieve even credible evidence, and the defendants in these cases are usually big boys with law firms representing them, too. Which introduces another factor- the plaintiff friendliness of well chosen juries in well chosen venues.

[Viking]

Just a quick definition clarification on the difference between criminal and civil cases in terms of burden of proof:

UK law, but probably similar in the US?

Criminal cases: Beyond reasonable doubt. This is pretty straight forward in the sense that should there be any doubt it must favour the defendant, and a guilty verdict should not be reached. Great! So why do we allow majority verdicts? Who knows.

Civil cases: On the balance of probabilities. Thus the proof only has to show that it is reasonable to assume, likely or any such phrase you like, that the defendant is responsible. There can be doubt, it just has to be the most likely scenario. In the UK though, most civil cases other than libel, are not put to a jury. Judges are very much less likely to award the sort of damages that a jury might hand out.

"Innocent till proven guilty" also does not apply, rightly or wrongly. You may in fact have to prove innocence rather than guilt.

Hence you may indeed be found in a civil case to be responsible for something which a criminal case could not prove. Personally I do not agree with this option since it is in effect "double jeopardy".

[Mathetais]

Latches ... I'm curious ... are you related to Stella (the McDonalds lady???) ... or maybe you were on the legal team that defended her???

No offense meant, I've just never encountered someone so into defending that case!