On The When I do Something Wrong Account

Blubs of Verbs, Commentary Comments (1)

Discourage litigation. Persuade your neighbors to compromise whenever you can. – Abraham Lincoln

Back when i was younger i passed a UPS truck on the street and a meeter maid writing it a ticket. I also noticed that the truck driver seemed unconcerned. When i asked, i was told (true or not) UPS had a fund for paying the parking tickets, because they couldn’t really find a spot on any given day to park correctly. IT was cheaper just to put the tickets into cost of operations.

I thought that made sense then.

It still makes sense now, but this operating fund is not the only fund companies have. Punitive Damages, aka, Litigation is really sometimes a scourge on the American front.  Many Litigations are now a lack of responsibility and are just meant to be a revenge tactic, (especially in criminal trials) or often times a means to “get rich” . Insurance for doctors is high because the Doctor will (yes will) be sued. In America, any corporation knows it’s not if you get sued, it’s when.

I’ve never been a fan of being proven innocent by a court and jury of my peers and then, being sued out of existence in civil court. The problem is the scale and the purpose of punitive damage has been corrupted.

One of the best explanations came from a German Supreme Court decision in 1992, which said the concept had four main purposes: to punish the offender for “uncivilized conduct,” to deter the offender and others from doing similar things, to reward the plaintiff for enforcing the law and so improve “general law and order,” and to supplement inadequate compensatory damages.
Nytimes, Foreign Courts Wary of U.S Damages

This makes sense to me; and i don’t mind compensation. What i mind is that it’s compensation outside of actual punishment. People also rarely are aware that the damages are eliminated or reduced on appeal. What we see is “pay day!”

Take for instance this quote from a Times Article. This greeving mother’s quote.

“I bought Kurt a helmet that was supposed to be the best,” Ms. Glebosky said. “It did not perform, and I lost Kurt.”
“A million-dollar award is really nothing,” she said. “It’s really not enough to punish any large company in this day and age, and it certainly does not bring back Kurt.”

Many of us can see the point of her statment…, but if 1M is so small as to be so little notice then why do it? Why not 100,000? Not enough of an impact? well, what about 10 million? Too much? Is it even right? If i have a safety saw and it cuts off a hand, then I would like to think I can sue for Compensentory damages as well as lost income from working. But it’s that extra… punishment clause that always gets me.

We’ve gotten to the point of nearly punishing people or coorporations for accidents and acts of God. Get into an accident and the airbar fails to deploy and you sue the car manufacture and the airbag manufauture. Everyone says the same thing. “it’s not about the money.”  Well, apparently it is.

I say make them pay thur the nose if there is evedenced they know the bags were faulty, or test showed their was a more than acceptale range of failure, or they ignored design specs , etc… Actual Fault or criminal FAULT! Then award damages on that.  Hiding things and actually harm is clearly evidenced with big tabbaco and their punitive damages are punishments. Clear evidence they knew what and how they were doing comes up every day.

Class action suits are also a pain in the ass.  Who gets anything out of 2milion shared between 400,000 people -after lawyer fees- which usually run to up to 40% of the settlement. (If you do the math we all just got $3.00).  However I support class action suits of wrong doing and consciousness of criminal act.

I honestly don’t know yet how to solve this. Loser pays seems to be just a method of screwing over the consumer, who can’t take on an army of Corporate lawyers, but Ambulance chaser lawyers need to be cut down.  As far as i can see, the Bar rules may need to be changed, but those are a hodgepodge per state.

Don’t worry, i’m thinking thou.  I’m thinking.  You should be too.

OceansOfThought @ June 12, 2008