Robin1953 wrote:
gbopp wrote:
BB_TX wrote:
Unfortunate sign of our times.
Says it all. And it's probably only going to get worse. ๐
And would anyone like to speculate as to why this becoming the norm? Think whiplash judgements back in the 60's as a history lesson.
I'll speculate. In my opinion this is brought about by the fact that defending a lawsuit is incredibly expensive. Lawyers know this, so they sue for frivolous reasons knowing that the party being sued is going to settle for a relatively small amount rather than spend the money going to court. Since this country has not embraced the "loser pays" civil proceedings that exist in many other countries, suing someone over nothing is a nothing to lose proposition. A binding arbitration agreement eliminates this.
I would love to see a system where the Judge/Jury could make determinations on who has to pay. My dream system would start with the party that is suing putting up a bond equal to the amount they are suing for. (it wouldn't be that expensive, since the bond company would review the facts of the case and decide it there was merit, it there wasn't any merit, they wouldn't issue the bond). At court the judge/jury could award like usual when the plaintiff wins, but if they lose, the Judge/jury would have three basic choices. They could say "this is a difficult matter and both sides had merit, therefore each side pays it's own fees", or they could say the defendant had no responsibility in the matter so the plaintiff must pay the defendants reasonable legal fees, or they make a third ruling which would be the case was frivolous and award damages to the defendant in an amount up to the amount the plaintiff was suing for. Any monies awarded the defendant would be paid from the bond, so they wouldn't have to go to court to collect. My plan would put an end to almost all the frivolous lawsuits from day one.
