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WOW! When I started this topic yesterday I never expected such response. I have a few comments on tort law. First off I am NOT a lawyer. I ama professional engineer who has been trained (and doing for the last 40 years) to look through the bluster and see the facts. Regarding contingency law suits. If we disallow them the arguement is that the poor (and maybe the middle class) person is denied his day in court. I suggest a modification of the English system where the looser and his lawyer are jointly responsible pays all of the costs incurred by the defendant for the costs if they loose. This will permit the poor person to have his day in court, if he has a true and valid case, but make the lawyer think twice about filing a frivilous suit. He has the pockets and has a lot more to loose. Let me cite a personal experience. I spent seven years on the board of directors of our transit agency. We were having over 100 frivilous cases filed per year for slipping, etc, wherein the plaintiff would settle for 5-10 thousand with the contingency lawyer receiving 40% of the award. Our agency, like all companies, would do a cost-benefit analysis: If we go to court it will cost us atleast $10 thousand to fight the case and there always is the possibility that we may loose. The result was to get a release and sign a check for $5 thousand. Case closed. I had our legal department investigate the cases that came in. If we truly are at fault settle and save our good name. If it is a frivilous suit fight it to the hilt. Yes, we may spent $10-15 thousand where we could have gotten off the hook for a measly $5 thousand. We started fighting these cases. During the first year we spent $150 thousand fighting these cases resulting in 100% win ratio. The word got out on the street that the transit agency is no longer a retirement agency and our frivilous suits dropped significantly. Every year since the first year we have had less than 10 frivilous suits and we fight all of them. Heard some of the lawyers are now on welfare. Too bad. Recently, one of the pharmacutical companies, I think it was Merck, voluntarly withdrew Vioxx from the market. Within 24 hours the ambulance chasing lawyers had advertisements on TV asking all who had ever taken Vioxx to contact them and become party to the class action suit. And we wonder why US drug amkers have withdrawn from the flu vaccine market and we cannot get flu shots this year. If I get the flu should I sue the lawyers? Point to ponder. A lawyer has never awarded a single penny to a client in the history of the country. It is juries who make the awards. Now who brow beats the minds of the juriors?
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