Bush Signs Bill to Curb Class-Action Suits

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LINK:
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&e=2&u=/ap/20050218/ap_on_go_pr_wh/limiting_lawsuits

EXCERPT:
WASHINGTON - President Bush (news - web sites) on Friday signed a bill that he says will curtail multimillion-dollar class action lawsuits against companies and help end "the lawsuit culture in our country."


The legislation aims to discourage class action lawsuits by having federal judges take them away from state courts. It was a victory for conservatives who hope it will lead to other lawsuit limits and for businesses that have complained for decades that state judges and juries have been too generous to plaintiffs.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

I don't know all the details, but I agree with the direction this is taking. I HATE the lawsuit-happy culture the US has grown into over the past couple decades.
 
This doesn't sound like a bad thing on first glance, but its going to have a lot of effects that Bush is hoping that people won't realize: the key one is that by moving essentially all the cases to federal court, it makes it much, much easier for corporations to violate state laws because federal courts almost always refuse to hear cases involving violations of state law. This is a situation that comes up regularly in class-action lawsuits, in that a corporation would violate the laws of, say, 20 states. Previously, it could be settled with a single lawsuit. Now its either going to require 20 different lawsuits or hope and pray that a federal judge will hear the case.

More important than that, though, is that the federal court system is already drastically overworked and underfunded. Civil cases already regularly get put on hold for years because the courts just don't have enough time to hear them. Dumping extra work on them is probably going to cause them to grind to a halt - which is probably the plan.

In all, its sorta a decent idea, but its going to require some changes to federal law (to allow them to rule on state civil cases) and a lot of extra funding for this to be anything other than a big FU to consumers.
 
All that happens now is you will start hearing tales of horrid corporate abuse (as opposed to horrid lawsuit abuse - thank you McDon coffee lady)

Take the number of vehicles in the field, (A), and multiply it by the probable rate of failure, (B),then multiply the result by the average out of court settlement, (C). A times B times C equals X. If X is less than the cost of a recall, we don't do one.

BUSINESS WOMAN: Are there a lot of these kinds of accidents?

Oh, you wouldn't believe.

BUSINESS WOMAN: Which car company do you work for?

A major one.

- Fight Club
Click to expand...
 
Looks like Bush can't file anymore friviluous lawsuits either:

Apparantly in 1998 Jenna Bush was involved in a fender bender that involved an unlicensed driver operating an Enterprise Rent-A-Car vehicle. According to a Daily News report -- entitled Bush Turned Litigious, Targeted Rental Car Firm Over Fender Bender -- no longer on the Internet but available via Lexis-Nexis, no one was hurt and the police were not called to the scene of the crime.

So did George and Laura Bush file the claim with their insurance company and let them haggle it out with Enterprise? No. They used a trial lawyer to file a lawsuit that surely could be described as frivilous since there was no emotional or physical damage to Jenna and her vehicle sustained only mild damage worth less than $2,500.

http://www.patridiots.com/000844.html
 
[quote name='E-Z-B']Looks like Bush can't file anymore friviluous lawsuits either:

Apparantly in 1998 Jenna Bush was involved in a fender bender that involved an unlicensed driver operating an Enterprise Rent-A-Car vehicle. According to a Daily News report -- entitled Bush Turned Litigious, Targeted Rental Car Firm Over Fender Bender -- no longer on the Internet but available via Lexis-Nexis, no one was hurt and the police were not called to the scene of the crime.

So did George and Laura Bush file the claim with their insurance company and let them haggle it out with Enterprise? No. They used a trial lawyer to file a lawsuit that surely could be described as frivilous since there was no emotional or physical damage to Jenna and her vehicle sustained only mild damage worth less than $2,500.

http://www.patridiots.com/000844.html[/quote]

Mild damage? Do you know how hard Bush's father and Grandfather had to work so he could have that $2,500?
 
[quote name='camoor']All that happens now is you will start hearing tales of horrid corporate abuse (as opposed to horrid lawsuit abuse - thank you McDon coffee lady)

Take the number of vehicles in the field, (A), and multiply it by the probable rate of failure, (B),then multiply the result by the average out of court settlement, (C). A times B times C equals X. If X is less than the cost of a recall, we don't do one.

BUSINESS WOMAN: Are there a lot of these kinds of accidents?

Oh, you wouldn't believe.

BUSINESS WOMAN: Which car company do you work for?

A major one.

- Fight Club
Click to expand...
[/quote]

Mcdonalds coffee lady was not a frivolous lawsuit.
 
This could also put a damper on homophobe Rick Santorum tieing up the court systems, getting more than Bush's $250k cap:

Sen. Santorum's wife wins lawsuit

Saturday, December 11, 1999

WASHINGTON -- A Virginia jury last night awarded the wife of Sen. Rick Santorum $350,000 in damages after she charged in a lawsuit that a Virginia chiropracter's negligence caused her permanent back pain.

........She had sought $500,000 against Dr. David Dolberg of Virginia, because of pain from his 1996 treatment of her.

"Mrs. Santorum has been vindicated," said her Pittsburgh attorney Heather Heidelbaugh. "She was injured permanently through the actions of a chiropractor who acted negligently."
snip

.................the senator saying: "The court proceedings are a personal family matter. I will not be offering any further public comments, other than that I am not a party to the suit. But I am fully supportive of my wife."

http://www.valleyskeptic.com/chirosuit.html

Ah, yes. It'll be nice next year when Santorum is on unemployment. \:D/
 
There's a lot of debate about the Stella Libnick, I think, case, and most of it concludes that it was frivolous.
Even if it wasn't [it perhaps was not frivolous, but rather asked for financial reparation far outweighing the impact of the accident], it got national press and is now the 'representative' case.
My biggest complaints about many class action suits are:
* many of them are not based on damages to the plaintiffs;
* the lawyers of course suck up 1/4-1/2 of the judgement, if any;
* many times the judgment doesnt' even go to the plaintiffs, because it's not 'feasible' to send a check for 1.48 to 15 million people [but the law firm gets theirs in cash]
* in many cases, even if the plaintiffs do 'win', they get those bullshit coupons or discounts on future purchases.
* and of course, the company is going to try to recoup that judgment, either by cutting wages/benefits, or by raising prices. So once again the only winners are the lawyers.
 
EZB: Your point? Mrs Santorum isn't allowed to sue for negligence and continuing pain, assuming that's the case? You are saying that someone suing a doctor for giving them a drug, that has in some cases had negative effects, but has not affected the plaintiff *at all*, is the same thing as someone suing someone for messing up a surgery that caused the patient to now be in constant pain? [Assuming those are the facts of the case, which based on the quote you provided, seems to be true.] Or is it okay for Santorum to suffer, since she's married to an evil Republican?
And how does 350k equate to 'multimillion'?
 
My point is that the Republicans are trying to portray the trial lawyers as evil except of course when it benefits them.
 
So there's something not factual about any of these quotes?

"greedy lawyers have taken advantage of the state class action suit system by filing cases in places where they know they can win big-dollar verdicts — while their clients get only small sums or coupons giving them discounts for products of the company they just sued."

Hmm, true.

"a litigation crisis that enables lawyers to reap huge profits while businesses — and thus consumers — are stuck with the bill."

Again, true.

" The bill also would limit lawyers' fees in settlements where plaintiffs get discounts on products instead of financial settlements. The measure links the fees to the coupon's redemption rate or the actual hours spent working on a case."

Sounds more than fair to me.

And, of course:

"class-action suits seeking $5 million or more would be heard in state court only if the primary defendant and more than one-third of the plaintiffs are from the same state. But if fewer than one-third of the plaintiffs are from the same state as the primary defendant, and more than $5 million is at stake, the case would go to federal court."

I don't see 'evil' anywhere in there.

which means your posts in this thread are entirely irrelevant to its topic [assuming in jenna's case they sued for less than 5 million, which I would think is the case.] Based solely on your posts, I don't consider either of those cases frivolous or beyond the pale.
 
We should me making laws against greedy lawyers, and for lawyers that make ridiculous claims like videogames make me kill.

Measures like this only mask the true problem - the corrupt lawyers and lawfirms.
 
Lawyers suck and Bush knows it.

Multi-million dollar rewards for crap should stop. The health care industry needs to stop worrying about being sued so they can help patients. The amount of paperwork now involved in any doctor visit is outstanding. Part of the problem is insurance...but part of insurance is lawsuits and negligence and they are always trying to cover their asses.

My wife is an RN and every year the paperwork gets worse. A nurse shouldn't be doing a ton of peperwork every shift. They should be caring for the patients.
 
[quote name='dtcarson']So there's something not factual about any of these quotes?

"greedy lawyers have taken advantage of the state class action suit system by filing cases in places where they know they can win big-dollar verdicts — while their clients get only small sums or coupons giving them discounts for products of the company they just sued."

Hmm, true.

"a litigation crisis that enables lawyers to reap huge profits while businesses — and thus consumers — are stuck with the bill."

Again, true.

" The bill also would limit lawyers' fees in settlements where plaintiffs get discounts on products instead of financial settlements. The measure links the fees to the coupon's redemption rate or the actual hours spent working on a case."

Sounds more than fair to me.

.[/quote]

Just wonder how YOU would like it if the gov't stepped in a limited how much YOU could make not based on actual hours spent working but some arbitrary numbers.

Still sound fair?

The essential fallacy of your arguement is the companies who get nailed with these suits (and get judgements against them) did something wrong in some way or another. That is why they lost the case. How else can you penalize a business for doing such harm? The gov't isn't going to do it and now lawsuits can't. Businesses can now budget in the max amount of damage and do whatever they want. Plus there is no evidence that less damages lower prices for anything. It hasn't with malpractice insurance. Without litigaion it is just consumers who are stuck with the bill. There is a "cost" of bad product whether a suit is filed or not.

also the superlatives such as "greedy lawyers" and "litigation crisis" are not factual. In fact, Americans today file fewer suits per capita than did their Colonial counterparts.

Granted their are some bad lawyers (and some ridiculous claimes) who are gravy trainers but to impune the whole profession based on a few is immature and intellectually lazy.

defender- A nurse should be doing paperwork to keep track of what the patient has been given and simple charting. This is part of medicine. I know I wouldn't go to a hospital where they simply remembered every order.

for the record...My brother and sister are both lawyers (family-law). My wife is a doctor. My mom and sister are both RNs.
 
the problem with this law is that lawsuits and payouts are not doing anything to raise healthcare costs, and account for only 2 percent of the insurance companies costs.

it sounds good, but it ain't going to do shit to stop rising costs in premiums, and almost every state already has a law on the books that limits the amount paid out.

Also, if they really want to stop the lawsuits, there should be a bill firing bad doctors. on Georgia 3 percent of the doctors were responsible for 40 percent of the lawsuits.


(and yes I just did a paper on this and all of these facts are correct)
 
[quote name='CaseyRyback']the problem with this law is that lawsuits and payouts are not doing anything to raise healthcare costs, and account for only 2 percent of the insurance companies costs.
[/quote]

That's amazing.

People need to start taking better care of themselves. That's the only way America will get ahead of the upcoming health crisis.
 
[quote name='camoor'][quote name='CaseyRyback']the problem with this law is that lawsuits and payouts are not doing anything to raise healthcare costs, and account for only 2 percent of the insurance companies costs.
[/quote]

That's amazing.

People need to start taking better care of themselves. That's the only way America will get ahead of the upcoming health crisis.[/quote]

Or we need to make healthcare cheaper by making doctor's degrees a shorter process, cut down on drug costs, shorten hostpital stays and increase over the counter medications to decrease visits. We could also stop treating those without insurance for free.
 
[quote name='zionoverfire'][quote name='camoor'][quote name='CaseyRyback']the problem with this law is that lawsuits and payouts are not doing anything to raise healthcare costs, and account for only 2 percent of the insurance companies costs.
[/quote]

That's amazing.

People need to start taking better care of themselves. That's the only way America will get ahead of the upcoming health crisis.[/quote]

Or we need to make healthcare cheaper by making doctor's degrees a shorter process, cut down on drug costs, shorten hostpital stays and increase over the counter medications to decrease visits. We could also stop treating those without insurance for free.[/quote]

I agree with all but the treatment thing. Kind of hard to turn away a guy with an arrow in his chest because he has an Aetna card and you only accept Blue Cross Blue Shield.
 
[quote name='camoor'][quote name='zionoverfire'][quote name='camoor'][quote name='CaseyRyback']the problem with this law is that lawsuits and payouts are not doing anything to raise healthcare costs, and account for only 2 percent of the insurance companies costs.
[/quote]

That's amazing.

People need to start taking better care of themselves. That's the only way America will get ahead of the upcoming health crisis.[/quote]

Or we need to make healthcare cheaper by making doctor's degrees a shorter process, cut down on drug costs, shorten hostpital stays and increase over the counter medications to decrease visits. We could also stop treating those without insurance for free.[/quote]

I agree with all but the treatment thing. Kind of hard to turn away a guy with an arrow in his chest because he has an Aetna card and you only accept Blue Cross Blue Shield.[/quote]

Oh I just thought I'd see if I could throw that in there unnoticed. :twisted:
 
[quote name='camoor']I agree with all but the treatment thing. Kind of hard to turn away a guy with an arrow in his chest ...[/quote]
Arrow? Where in the hell do you live, anyway? :p

Class action lawsuits are definitely getting out of control, but they do serve a valuable purpose. Ultimately, it really doesn't matter where the money from class-action lawsuits go to - the lawyers or the people they represent. The most important thing is that they cause the losing company a whole lotta money, and when companies lose money, they tend to stop doing things they shouldn't be doing.

And as was already said, the McDonald's coffee case was NOT an example of a frivolous lawsuit, no matter how many times Jay Leno brings it up. That was actually an example of lawsuits working exactly the way they're supposed to.
 
[quote name='Drocket'][quote name='camoor']I agree with all but the treatment thing. Kind of hard to turn away a guy with an arrow in his chest ...[/quote]
Arrow? Where in the hell do you live, anyway? :p

Class action lawsuits are definitely getting out of control, but they do serve a valuable purpose. Ultimately, it really doesn't matter where the money from class-action lawsuits go to - the lawyers or the people they represent. The most important thing is that they cause the losing company a whole lotta money, and when companies lose money, they tend to stop doing things they shouldn't be doing.

And as was already said, the McDonald's coffee case was NOT an example of a frivolous lawsuit, no matter how many times Jay Leno brings it up. That was actually an example of lawsuits working exactly the way they're supposed to.[/quote]

The problem with class action lawsuits in this regard is it is better for a company to claim innoccence and fight the suit or settle out of court than it is to actual fix the problem. Think about the brdigestone/firestone lawsuit, the company spent years denying it and fighting it in court because the monetary loss was so great. I'd simply like to see some sort of a system that allows for an admitance of guilt in a way that brings about a quicker solution.
 
I would agree. I just don't think this is a step in that direction.

The key thing that I think needs to be done is to give companies limited liability as long as they honestly don't know about the problem (and shouldn't reasonably have known about the problem, for when they pull the 'um, uh, duh - what?' defense.)

The thing is, though, that companies often DO know about problems long before they become public, and far too often don't bother to fix them because its more profitable to ignore the problem, even neglecting the lawsuit side of things. The Bridgestone/Firestone lawsuit was an example of this: well before the public even had a clue about the problem, the company realized they were selling defective products and simply didn't care enough to fix it. They quite rightfully got thier asses handed to them.

This is something that's come up with several prescription medications, too - the companies had evidence of bad side-effects and chose to ignore them. If they would have at least warned consumers about the potential problems as soon as they discovered them, they shouldn't have been liable for any damages. Instead they tried to cover up the damning studies and pretend the problem didn't exist so they could keep their high-flying stock and keep writing massive bonus checks for executives. Again, they should get their assed handed to them for that.

McDonalds made a willful decision to make their coffee several degrees hotter than any other restaurant chain in order to cut down on requests for refills. They knew of well over 100 people in less than 10 years who were burned so severely from their coffee that they required skin grafts (a terrible, painful process), but they considered the cost of settling those lawsuits out-of-court less than making their coffee a reasonable temperature and dealing with refill requests. The most damaging piece of evidence in that case was an internal report from McDonald's HQ analyzing the problem and deciding to ignore it because, hey, they were only causing 10 people/year to go through major surgeries and months of rehabilitation. They settled all those cases out-of-court and would have never had to go through that public lawsuit if they had simply fixed the problem.

The fact is that companies regularly ignore problems for reasons outside of the fear of lawsuits - laziness, not wanting to damage their profitability and/or stock value by admitting to problems, and honestly just not caring about human life is often at the top of the list. Class-action lawsuits are often the only way to fix the problem. It is, actually, a capitalist ideal for fixing problems.
 
[quote name='Drocket']The fact is that companies regularly ignore problems for reasons outside of the fear of lawsuits - laziness, not wanting to damage their profitability and/or stock value by admitting to problems, and honestly just not caring about human life is often at the top of the list. Class-action lawsuits are often the only way to fix the problem. It is, actually, a capitalist ideal for fixing problems.[/quote]

I was listening to a piece by Nader that essentially said the same thing - he even had quotes from ex-CEOs of car and other companies that praised the current system for saving lives and preventing casualties. The fact that companies will now be more wreckless will now push costs to the healthcare and hospital industries of America.

I think the whole "emotional damages" section of these lawsuits should be dropped. People getting 1 million, 2 million for "emotional damages" - what a joke. I see plenty of CAGs getting their hearts ripped out on the off-topic page, and all they get is an ex-gf who stole all their nintendo games and sold them on ebay.

Yeah - and the arrow comment was to see if y'all were paying attention :)
 
[quote name='trytej']Bush may have done something kinda right for the first time[/quote]

:applause: I appluad your use of the difficult post button, although next time you might want to think a bit before you hit it.
 
[quote name='camoor']I think the whole "emotional damages" section of these lawsuits should be dropped. People getting 1 million, 2 million for "emotional damages" - what a joke. I see plenty of CAGs getting their hearts ripped out on the off-topic page, and all they get is an ex-gf who stole all their nintendo games and sold them on ebay.[/quote]
'Emotional damage' is an easy way to punish companies more than the real damages, and its quite necessary. You quite regularly have cases where the cost to a car company to fix a problem would be $50M, but the cost to simply pay off the medical bills of people hurt by the flaw is $20M. Without 'pain and suffering' damages, you have a company that just saved $30M by hurting people - as as long as they make money doing something, most companies are going to keep right on doing it. Throw in 'suffering' damages of another $50M and suddenly its not so profitable anymore, and the behavior of the company WILL change, which is really the most important part of any lawsuit. It worked in the McDonald's case - they spent 10 years paying off plaintiffs because it was more profitable to do so instead of fixing the problem. They got bitchslapped with huge suffering damages and within a month, they fixed all their machines.
 
I have to say here Drocket really knows what's up. I honestly have to say these lawsuits are the balance to companies. LAWYERS are the balance to corporations and we need some of them filing lawsuits.
Seriously my feeling has been Corporations only understand a few things, HURT their profit, i.e. sue them, or pull the choke chain on them by attaching more government regulations. They're like a dog that's almost gone rabid you nearly have to KILL sometimes for them to learn their lesson and the same goes to some people with the money fine, in other words that's the ONLY way they'll learn.
 
[quote name='Drocket'][quote name='camoor']I think the whole "emotional damages" section of these lawsuits should be dropped. People getting 1 million, 2 million for "emotional damages" - what a joke. I see plenty of CAGs getting their hearts ripped out on the off-topic page, and all they get is an ex-gf who stole all their nintendo games and sold them on ebay.[/quote]
'Emotional damage' is an easy way to punish companies more than the real damages, and its quite necessary. You quite regularly have cases where the cost to a car company to fix a problem would be $50M, but the cost to simply pay off the medical bills of people hurt by the flaw is $20M. Without 'pain and suffering' damages, you have a company that just saved $30M by hurting people - as as long as they make money doing something, most companies are going to keep right on doing it. Throw in 'suffering' damages of another $50M and suddenly its not so profitable anymore, and the behavior of the company WILL change, which is really the most important part of any lawsuit. It worked in the McDonald's case - they spent 10 years paying off plaintiffs because it was more profitable to do so instead of fixing the problem. They got bitchslapped with huge suffering damages and within a month, they fixed all their machines.[/quote]

Actually in that infamous McDonald's case the award the jury initally ruled on was later taken down by a judge if I recall. Also, alot of what you describe is talking about punitive (or exemplary) damages. These are what is used to ensure that a defendent doesn't repeat what was done, it's technically not "pain & suffering" which is more general (or compensatory) damages.
 
[quote name='Duo_Maxwell']Actually in that infamous McDonald's case the award the jury initally ruled on was later taken down by a judge if I recall.[/quote]
Quite true - that's usually what happens anyway in these cases, which is quite often why the original damages are so high - everyone knows the company is going to be paying 5-10% of the original judgement, if that. If you want to make the company pay anything, you pretty much have to start out insanely high. More than that, though, it sends the company a message that though they may be able to talk the damages down this time, if they repeat their actions, they may not be able to do so next time. Also, huge damages make the news, and companies don't like that sort of publicity, another incentive for them to change their behavior.

Also, alot of what you describe is talking about punitive (or exemplary) damages. These are what is used to ensure that a defendent doesn't repeat what was done, it's technically not "pain & suffering" which is more general (or compensatory) damages.
Click to expand...
A lot of states don't have punative damages for civil cases, and even in those that do, there's often a lot of restrictions about how they can be applied (often they can only be applied if the defendant willfully injured someone. If, for instance, they deliberately poured the coffee in someone's lap in order to burn them instead of simply not caring about it happening, even if they knew it would.) In states that permit punative damages for those sort of cases, I think that's what laywers usually go after, but in a lot of cases, that option simply isn't available so they file it under the vague 'pain and suffering' column.
 
[quote name='Drocket'][quote name='Duo_Maxwell']Actually in that infamous McDonald's case the award the jury initally ruled on was later taken down by a judge if I recall.[/quote]
Quite true - that's usually what happens anyway in these cases, which is quite often why the original damages are so high - everyone knows the company is going to be paying 5-10% of the original judgement, if that. If you want to make the company pay anything, you pretty much have to start out insanely high. More than that, though, it sends the company a message that though they may be able to talk the damages down this time, if they repeat their actions, they may not be able to do so next time. Also, huge damages make the news, and companies don't like that sort of publicity, another incentive for them to change their behavior.[/quote]

Actually there's no need start insanely high, punitive damages awarded by juries are almost overly excessive. The US Supreme Court even said so publically like two years and by now at least 15 or so states have set limits on punitive damages so they are not overly excessive, and there was a bill in the year 2000 mvoing to limit damages in certain lawsuits, so obviously alot of legal experts thought there was a problem here.

[quote name='Drocket']
Also, alot of what you describe is talking about punitive (or exemplary) damages. These are what is used to ensure that a defendent doesn't repeat what was done, it's technically not "pain & suffering" which is more general (or compensatory) damages.
Click to expand...
A lot of states don't have punative damages for civil cases, and even in those that do, there's often a lot of restrictions about how they can be applied (often they can only be applied if the defendant willfully injured someone. If, for instance, they deliberately poured the coffee in someone's lap in order to burn them instead of simply not caring about it happening, even if they knew it would.) In states that permit punative damages for those sort of cases, I think that's what laywers usually go after, but in a lot of cases, that option simply isn't available so they file it under the vague 'pain and suffering' column.[/quote]

Last I checked there was like 7 or 8 not allowing the punitive damages, that's not really alot and it's available in most cases across the US, just limited or restricted. It's either taken away or restricted because they are often excessive, just like "pain and suffering" which is the main reason why both are brougth down by a judge. So in short, both punitive damages and "pain & suffering" are actually totally unnecessary in the legal due process. If anything they hurt it. Sure they look bad in the press, which lasts for about a week, then we usually forget about it unless it becomes fodder for late night comedy shows. Then in the end nobody really remembers what the compnay did wrong so much as they remember they had to pay somebody an extreme amount of money. This is why a number people initially think that the infamous McDonald's coffee case was so friviolous. Nobody in the media bothered to focus on what the company really did wrong. They don't really help anyting and serve no purpose other than to try and line people's pockets more, which is more or less the real reason most lawyers seek them in the beginning (though sometimes juries randomly award them on their own). Bad press is easy for many companies to overcome and if the company really did something so wrong, it will come about regardless of the damages awarded.
 
[quote name='Duo_Maxwell']Actually there's no need start insanely high[/quote]
If you start low, they get reduced anyway to virtually nothing. If you start high, they wind up low, right where they should be. Its like negotiating with a used car dealer: you never start out with what you think the true value should be.

punitive damages awarded by juries are almost overly excessive. The US Supreme Court even said so publically like two years and by now at least 15 or so states have set limits on punitive damages so they are not overly excessive, and there was a bill in the year 2000 mvoing to limit damages in certain lawsuits, so obviously alot of legal experts thought there was a problem here.
Click to expand...
And a lot of corporations who support limiting punative and 'pain and suffering' damages. Wonder why...

Last I checked there was like 7 or 8 not allowing the punitive damages, that's not really alot and it's available in most cases across the US, just limited or restricted. It's either taken away or restricted because they are often excessive, just like "pain and suffering" which is the main reason why both are brougth down by a judge. So in short, both punitive damages and "pain & suffering" are actually totally unnecessary in the legal due process.
Click to expand...
And you're right back to the point where its simply cheaper to hurt people than to fix problems. Punative damages/"pain and suffering" are absolutely necessary to correct corporate behavior.

Nobody in the media bothered to focus on what the company really did wrong. They don't really help anyting and serve no purpose other than to try and line people's pockets more
Click to expand...
Never-the-less, the outcome of that lawsuit caused McDonald's to change their policies, something that they DIDN'T do in the 10 years in which they settled more than 100 cases in which their coffee caused skin-graft-level burns, massive pain, and permanent disfiguration. One case with huge pain and suffering damages (which were reduced to almost nothing, in the end) had more of an effect than 100 cases without. That's a plain and simple fact that demonstrates the effectiveness of large judgements.
 
[quote name='camoor']All that happens now is you will start hearing tales of horrid corporate abuse (as opposed to horrid lawsuit abuse - thank you McDon coffee lady)

Take the number of vehicles in the field, (A), and multiply it by the probable rate of failure, (B),then multiply the result by the average out of court settlement, (C). A times B times C equals X. If X is less than the cost of a recall, we don't do one.

BUSINESS WOMAN: Are there a lot of these kinds of accidents?

Oh, you wouldn't believe.

BUSINESS WOMAN: Which car company do you work for?

A major one.

- Fight Club
Click to expand...
[/quote]

There's a Fight Club quote for everything. :D
 
[quote name='sblymnlcrymnl'][quote name='camoor']All that happens now is you will start hearing tales of horrid corporate abuse (as opposed to horrid lawsuit abuse - thank you McDon coffee lady)

Take the number of vehicles in the field, (A), and multiply it by the probable rate of failure, (B),then multiply the result by the average out of court settlement, (C). A times B times C equals X. If X is less than the cost of a recall, we don't do one.

BUSINESS WOMAN: Are there a lot of these kinds of accidents?

Oh, you wouldn't believe.

BUSINESS WOMAN: Which car company do you work for?

A major one.

- Fight Club
Click to expand...
[/quote]

There's a Fight Club quote for everything. :D[/quote]

And what Fight Club missed, you can always get a backup Simpsons quote. :D :D
 
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