Somewhat OT - Law suits and lawyers running the world we live in

I just thought I might throw something out for views and opinions on the matter. Basically, every time I turn on the TV, or do anything business related like introduce a new product, I am constantly bombarded with greedy ass attorneys wanting to sue for something or another. You fall down off your own 2 feet and there is sure to be someone you can sue, even if it is your own mother....

My views

You get in a fender bender - your neck hurts. Driving is risk, it is part of life and if you do not like it, do not drive. No, your 2 weeks of neck pain is NOT worth 20 grand...

You take a prescription drug because you are dying. It helps but causes other problem. If you cannot deal with the side effects, known or unknown, don't take it... Do NOT try to sue the drug co for 50M because now you have other issues...

JA comes into my house trying to rob it. I have rigged it to drop a hammer on the robber's head and it mangles him. You don't want to be mangled? Don't break in....


I can certainly see things like straight out negligence that should be addressed but it sure seems there should be some friggin reigns on these attorneys from just suing anyone for any reason. We have several local scum bags that advertise that if you are EVER in a wreck, call asap so they can screw someone for you. People do NOT realize that attys are the reason for every single price inflation. Health care, insurance, electric rates. Everyone has to plan to get screwed all while the attys get fat. Seems there should have to be a real qualification procedure in place to bring suit against someone...

Maybe I just feel like ranting today...

I hear ya.....how about the woman who went to the McDonalds drive thru, ordered coffee, spilled it on her own lap, and sued McDonalds because the coffee was too hot AND WON!!

Who do you really blame though? The attorneys for bringing forth the suit, or the judges who allow it?

wrustle said:

Who do you really blame though? The attorneys for bringing forth the suit, or the judges who allow it?

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How about blaming the person who has the accident and decides to start the whole process.

AndyF said:

How about blaming the person who has the accident and decides to start the whole process.

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I agree Andy. But Viper was on about the attorney's that's where that came from.

Frivilous lawsuits should never be allowed. Unless it's unprecedented, then perhaps it could be heard, but too many of of them are downright ridiculous, yet over and over again these people win! Why even clog the courts with them, their should be the stupidty clause, you know....."Go home, you're too stupid to be out in public!". Too bad some people get rewarded for just being dumb!

I am not sure how many times I have called the city or county just to hear "oh, you will need to contact your atty". Like, no biggy, they all scam you. Like making 200/hr is not enough, so they LOVE to charge for time they did not even put in. Like those bills for 500 bucks to chat on the phone. Actually, I would like to have record of such discussions. I think we are in day where if we are going to sue anyone, it SHOULD be the friggin lawyers. They have zero conscience, and worst of all, no good governing body to hold them accountable.


Many doctors work their but off to help save lives, then some A hole sues them for NOT doing something quite right. How about this one, take your friggin gun shot wound to WalMart and see if they can help....

I will admit though, I have met some decent lawyers in my day but they are VERY few and far between. I met one on this forum that is a hell of a guy... Just not sure when things started shifting from "looking out for the rights and liberties of the people", to "I'll sue that guy for this much".... The guy we have in town actually does not take any case he cannot easily win, then charges like 1/2 of the settlement but works on a contingent basis.

viper said:

Many doctors work their but off to help save lives, then some A hole sues them for NOT doing something quite right.

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Imagine if we got sued every time we made a mistake?!

I know a very good attorney also, and he's not a jerk........then again he does work for me so I'm partially biased.

My ex-wife thinks he's a jerk though.......can't understand why, he's frickin awesome!!

wrustle said:

I hear ya.....how about the woman who went to the McDonalds drive thru, ordered coffee, spilled it on her own lap, and sued McDonalds because the coffee was too hot AND WON!!

Who do you really blame though? The attorneys for bringing forth the suit, or the judges who allow it?

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Thats one you should actually read up on, its used as the "classic" stupid case, but I think it was actually valid. The blame with that one lies with some stuffed shirt higher up at McDonalds.

Some consultant at McDonalds said that the coffee would maintain its flavor better when it was stored at 195 degrees. It comes out of the brewing machine at around 160, and by the time you get it at most places its somewhere around 145 degrees(Hot, might give a slight burn). Not at McDonalds, you got a nice molten coffee in the 190 degree range, enough to cause severe burns. The lady in question needed some ridiculous amounts of surgeries and skin grafts to reconstruct her privates, and was laid up for many many months.

Besides they had already settled a whole massive ton of cases 2700 comes to mind because of people getting burnt from their coffee. That was unbelievable stupidity on some stuffed shirts at McDonalds, how many cases do you have settle before you figure it out, and to maintain flavor? At McDonalds? If they held their coffee at a sane temperature, like what its brewed at, and served it at a sane temp, there wouldn't have been a suit.

I'm no fan of anykind of civil suit, but McDonalds was asking for that one. That was pure ignorance on their part.

It does sound pathetic, person burns themselves on coffee and sues AND WINS. But there was more too it.

my only input is for everybody to read "liberalism is a mental disorder" by michael savage. That book has a whole section dedicated to lawyers making and winning lawsuits based on things like the font size of TV ads. We are talking about suits that have no clients..... just lawyers making money on the possibilities.....

liberalism is a mental disorder

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You can say that again!

Our country is just about full with people that cannot or will not accept responsibility for ANYTHING. Its disgusting.

This is one of those subjects I'd enjoy the input from other countries. In some places, the frivolous law suits are themselves illegal.

Ninety nine percent of the lawyers give the rest a bad name!

Had some crooks computer generate checks with bank logos on them. They took business names out of the phone book and applied to the check. Lucky me was one of them. I contacted the detective at the police station. He took care of it. Or so I thought. I get a registered letter from "The Consortium of Scumbags Legal Firm". I call and explain that it has been taken care of and referred them to the detective. This idiot lawyer actually said he didn't give a damn about that and that he will proceed with the collection. If I refused to pay they will file suit against me. He then said; "we will make life miserable for you, do I make myself clear?" This went on for over two years and has finally (hopefully) faded away. He was one of the nastiest SOB's I've ever spoken to.

I had a accident in 1983 and sued the guy who caused it, I had 2 broken kegs, broben right wrist and elbow, broken left shoulder, broken pelvis, and 3 crushed vertabrae in my back. I was out of work for 9 months. I lost my business, and my wife divorced me.

About 2 years after that was settled, my attorney sued another attorney, and the judge found it to be a frivolous law suit and awarded the other guy about $3,000,000.00 and my attornty had to go BK on it. See, they do get theirs every now and then.

dewme5 said:

This is one of those subjects I'd enjoy the input from other countries. In some places, the frivolous law suits are themselves illegal.

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Not exactly illegal but if you file suit with a weak cause and lose you can get assessed all the costs. This is something of a deterrent to frivolity.

As an outsider my perception is that part of the problem in the US is the punitive damages aspect; I think this stimulates the lawyers. I can see getting a sensible damages award for injuries sustained but then to also get some ridiculous figure in punitive damages hardly seems justified.

I was involved in a car wreck in 1991. The girl hit me from behind. Within a week I had 6 or 7 letters from lawyers that I had never heard of wanting to represent me. I had to get my attorney to keep the hospital from attacking me for the amount of medical bills.

It solved easily, I didn't get any money, but her insurance paid me for medical and lost wages for 3 weeks.

My attorney said all auto accident records go the the capitol at Little Rock, Ark. In Little Rock, there are attys. that look through the accident reports everyday and send out letters phishing for business.

In the past few years I've had people tell me that you get 20+ letters in the first week after an accident.

Ambulance chasers are what they are.


JAckal

There was a story on 60 Minutes, about this woman ( who was an attorney ) who has filed, as plaintiff, thousands of lawsuits, and all of them for small amounts; like $500.00-$750.00 or so, and had 'settled' a huge proportion of them. Stuff like walking into a tree limb on the sidewalk if front of a business, getting hit by an entry door, when the closer pulled it shut, and so forth. This was her business plan! She had no overhead, no office, no legal assistant, just a stream of nuisance, cheap, sure-to-be-settled law suits. Somehow, they got wind of the scheme, and the Legislature, to their credit, passed a law preventing more then 'X' suits a year, by any one person. Can't remember the number of suits, but it was probably still too many.

Seems like it was Washington state.

jackal said:

Ambulance chasers are what they are.

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I know a couple of those...(personally)

Once I was running a Hitachi-Seiki lathe one night, it appeared to have reached the end of the cycle so I opened the door. I stuck my head in to check the quality of the threads on the part and was suddenly struck in the head by the tool turret changing to a new tool. To the hospital to stitch me up, mandatory drug test, and back to work to file an accident report. Well, come to find out, the tailstock was still retracting and a tool change was next in the que. Upon further investigation, the technicians found out through testing and calls to the manufacturer, that the machine will perform all M-codes regardless if the door is open or not! WTF!

I'm also an avid bicycle racer and 11 years ago I had a tube blow out on me during a race. Broken clavicle, short hospital stay, and out of work for 6 weeks. When we examined the aftermath, it was clear that the blow-out was a defect in the tube since it split the tubes seam perfectly. A teammate of mine, a personal injury attorney-at-large, had a classic response upon seeing this: "Do you need representation?" (How's that for a caring person. Not so much as an "are you OK", or "how are feeling") "$h!t happens" I told him. He couldn't understand that I didn't want to pursue it further...

I've had two valid opportunities in my life to start a law suit. However, I never even once thought about it. I'm not that kind of person.

Ray Behner said:

Ninety nine percent of the lawyers give the rest a bad name!

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I like that ratio.

Hdpg said:

As an outsider my perception is that part of the problem in the US is the punitive damages aspect; I think this stimulates the lawyers. I can see getting a sensible damages award for injuries sustained but then to also get some ridiculous figure in punitive damages hardly seems justified.

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I absolutely agree with this. Understandable compensation seems the responsible thing to do but when it steps over the line where people can sue for walking into a tree limp, yeah, I think we have a problem here. Really about time for new legislation.

One thing that pisses me off is there are SO many things I "need an atty" for... I really think things like filing a lien, obtaining your own police report, etc. You DO NOT need an atty but that is how all the county and state offices like to play it because they do not want to be helpful. They just refer you to an atty.

We are a country "Of the Lawyers, By the Lawyers and For the Lawyers".
They should not be allowed to hold public office or any other position of authority. They are always at the middle of the scams and deceit and too often they slide right out with the money.
A doctor screws up he pays, a lawyer screws up and he gets more money.
And lawyers should not be judges and judges never to be lawyers. That is just too cozy, they always go to the same bars and country clubs. Any other situation and that would be a conflict of interest!