Frivilous Lawsuits...?

Question

Do you feel that frivilous lawsuits are out of control in this country?

Trevor C: sorry, the US.

Answer 1

Yes I do. While I'm sure that some do have merrit, the bulk of them or frivioulous. Who pays for these frivilous lawsuits? We, the tax payers. These people have nothing better to do than bring forth these suits.

From http://www.dklaw.com/SAB_Reducing_Jail_Liability.htm

In 1996, Congress enacted the Prison Litigation Reform Act (hereinafter "PLRA"), to "curtail the ability of
prisoners to bring frivolous and malicious lawsuits."1 The sponsors of the bill submitted a "top
ten" list, entitled "Top 10 Frivolous Inmate Lawsuits Nationally". Those included:

(10) Inmate sued, claiming $1 million in damages because his ice cream had melted;

(9) Inmate sued, alleging that being forced to listen to his unit manager's country and western music constituted cruel and unusual punishment;

(8) Inmate sued, claiming that his piece of cake was "hacked up";

(7) Inmate sued because he was served chunky instead of smooth peanut butter;

(6) Two inmates sued because the prison would not pay for their sex change operations;

(5) Inmate sued, alleging that he made only $21.00 during a three month period but had been told he would make $29.40;

(4) Inmate sued because he was forced to send packages via UPS rather than U.S. mail;

(3) Inmate sued, demanding L.A. Gear or Reebok shoes instead of Converse;

(2) Inmate sued, alleging that the prison physicians had implanted an electronic device in his head which broadcast his thoughts over the prison public address system; and

(1) Inmate sued prison officials for taking away his Gameboy electronic game.2

Answer 2

As a lawyer who defends a lot of corporations, and has litigated many cases, I would say no. Only a very small percentage are frivolous. While someone who has been sued may believe the suit is frivolous, the person injured does not.
Insurance companies and corporate America do a good job of convincing people that lawsuits are out of control. This is simply not true. The amount of suits and verdicts has declined over the years.
Most of the crazy cases you hear about either didn't happen, or the facts are misrepresented. If you think about it, corporate America and the insurance industry are getting the ordinary person to fight the people they injure. If you ask most people, they will say that lawsuit abuse is out of hand. Its not true, but the more you hear it, the more you believe it. When you get hurt by some company or have to sue your own insurance company, then you begin to realize what's really going on. By then, its too late because the legislature has acted on their "concern" for lawsuit abuse and enacted legislation limiting their ability to be made whole. For the corporations, its great to have the person they injured eliminate their own ability to be made whole.

Answer 3

No, I feel that the media doesn't properly explain the lawsuits. Unless you've actually read the complaint on file, you have no idea what the case is about because news reports severely water down what the case is actually about. A fantastic example of this is the McDonald's coffee spilling incident; that case was far from frivolous, and yet everyone seems to think it's the most worthless case in the history of the world. If an educated member of the public would actually do a little research, I think they'd feel otherwise. Truly frivolous lawsuits will be thrown out of court before they ever reach trial.

Answer 4

I have been trying to find this quote I read in undergrad. A politician complaining about all the lawyers, and how they were constantly filing frivolous lawsuits, and ruining the society. Of course, it was spoken by a Roman politician about 2000 years ago. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Answer 5

Definitely Yes. 90% of the lawsuits never are made public because they arent worth reporting. These lawsuits are usually for less than $100,00.00 which is chicken feed for most companies and these companies like McDonalds dont want the negative publicity. The only way most of these little fivilious lawsuits make it to the papers is the cmpany wont settle for the amount some attorney is asking and under thrat he reports it to the papers to raise the ante paid to his client. So for the most part,these companies just pay the amount and then hope the plaintiff just disappears into the sunset and the problems just die. But then we are aproduct of our own society and as long as we let these things happen,they willcontinue to do so and the attys get richer. Happy Holidays

Answer 6

What country?

Answer 7

Yes, just read some warning labels.

Answer 8

no.