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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LindyBill who wrote (23022)	1/6/2004 12:12:33 PM
From: Ilaine	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793671

Opponents of the current system should read "opponents in the current system," in other words, the people on the other set of counsel tables, the ones who work for the insurance companies and corporations and governments with really deep pockets and unlimited ability to fund defense counsel, defense experts and costs. The alternative to independent plaintiff's counsel is socialism. If an individual is injured by a corporation or a government, right now he can find a lawyer willing to take the case on a contingency basis. Given the expense of litigation - a personal injury case for a person with severe injuries costs the plaintiff's $20K to $40K in costs before you get to the jury - plaintiff's counsel can't afford to take on crappy cases. Otherwise, you're hemorrhaging money and you won't last long. So all the talk about lottery style litigation is just that, talk. It may happen but it's not the norm. You can't do it more than once or twice without being ruined. Take a disabled plaintiff, maybe paralyzed for life, living on Social Security. Or take the widow and minor children of someone who died a wrongful death. How are they going to come up with $20K - $40K for litigation? There already exists mechanisms to sanction plaintiffs for frivolous litigation. What you're wishing for is to end personal injury litigation entirely. Which means that the injured person will turn to the state for support, and the insurance companies get to keep the premiums, and the responsible person walks away scot-free.

To: LindyBill who wrote (23022)	1/6/2004 3:22:54 PM
From: Ilaine	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793671

Ugh - even worse - in Britain, "loser pays" means that the government funds litigation for poor people, which means, as we all know, it's funded by the taxpayers. Oh, man, that really sucks. In the US, at least personal injury litigation is on a contingency fee basis, so if the plaintiff loses, there are no legal fees, just costs. spiked-online.com Yes, we do have legal aid in the US, but mostly volunteer lawyers. I handle several legal aid cases a year, not to mention a lot of informal pro bono, not to mention writing off stuff that's too much trouble to collect. Tell you what, connect me to the government tit and I won't do any more contigency fee cases. ;^)