Lawyers and Lawsuits are easy targets
Brought to you via Digg, a thought provoking piece on litigation in modern American society.
Lawsuits are Turning Our Kids into P*****s.
This piece is facially aimed at the hoi polloi, the average man on the internet. It’s title, its NSFW language, its tone; all are clearly intended to appeal to somewhere near the lowest common denominator.
So why is it worth a post, why do I bang out my commentary? Not because it is on a page with links to puerile pictures, but because it represents the wide-spread understanding of lawsuits. People have been generally convinced that there exists a cabal of lawyers that don’t just chase ambulances, they lurk in the shadows whispering offers of “big cash settlements” to everyone with hurt feelings.
The idea doesn’t hold up to scrutiny. The “expose” claims
The first time a high profile law suit actually reached the masses and had a lasting effect was that McDonald’s hot coffee bitch. This woman, the 79-year-old Stella Liebeck, spilled hot McDonald’s coffee on her lap and (so she claims) received “third-degree burns over 16 percent of her body” (2). She ended up winning $160,000 “compensatory damages” and, wait for it, wait for it…$2.7 million bucks in punitive damages.
That may be true, but it also obscures some crucial facts. Like McDonald’s had refused to pay medical bills, had rejected Liebecks offer of $90,000 settlement, and generally had been obstructionist. But ” . . .Liebecks’ case is frickin’ aggravating because it was the first time (in recent memory at least) where people saw that you could make millions of dollars by playing David and suing Goliath.”
This ignores the fact that the “excessive” damages were punitive. They were handed out to punish McDonald’s for refusing to fix the damage they did.
The article goes on to talk about how fear of lawsuits has led to schools limiting games of tag, outlawing touching, and what not. And admittedly, schools over-react. But they should fear lawsuits, because their negligence can lead to harm. They should be on guard.
The same trend of knee-jerk fear/derision of lawsuits is present in the minor flurry of blog interest in this story, about a lawyer-bride sewing her florist for breach of contract. Apparently, the flowers she got were not what she had asked for, she alleges they were old
She is asking for some $400,000 in damages and restitution, over a some $27,000 in flowers. Although the coverage doesn’t outright say it, we are clearly supposed to marvel at the litigiousness of society, and specifically note the purity of that meme here, where it is a lawyer herself doing the suing.
But that seems to obscure the fact that what she is doing may be necessary. Contracts are fundamental to American society, and they cannot be breached with impunity. The alternative to having lawsuits of this kind is to have criminal penalties to breach of contract, which would be a waste of societal resources and massive over-reaction.
The same can be said of the McDonald’s Coffee case. The huge payment wasn’t necessary to make Liebeck whole, they were necessary to make sure that McDonald’s fixed what they had done wrong and took action to prevent it from happening.
Admittedly, I have a vested interest in this, wanting to be a trial lawyer as a I do. But more then that, I want people to be free to act, without a overarching government watchdog, checking to make sure everything is safe, no one is upset, and nothing can personally harm you. Lawsuits mean that we as a society police each other, and that when we behave unreasonably or negligently, then we are liable.
The alternative is hard and fast rules that don’t take anything into account. And if you don’t believe me, try serving liquor to a minor, in the privacy of your own home, after taking their keys. Or try driving with a blood alcohol content of .03, below the legal limit and without any impairment.
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