Frivolous lawsuits ????

[CAJUNLAWYER]

I have to at least partially disagree.
I have a close relative that has worked for an international law firm for many years that has seen many questionable rulings from eccentric judges and biased ( racial and non-racial ) juries.

Read the last paragraph in my answer. Also I suggest that he might have been on the short end of the otherwise questionable rulings to which he complains!
Ours is an adversarial system which is why we have third parties making the ultimate decision. Can't trust an advocate for either side to be unbiased-that is not how it works. And if the fact finder gets it wrong, we have appeals courts.
It ain't perfect but I challenge you to come up with a better system!!

 

[Absalom]

For most Americans, frivolous lawsuits are always the ones filed by other people.

Just like most Americans hate lawyers, right up until the moment they feel themselves wronged; then they're the most litigious people on Earth and want to sue everybody and their ancestors back to Adam & Eve.

As in any free country, our justice system is heavily skewed in favor of the corporations, the rich and powerful; that's unavoidable when the quality of the lawyers you can afford more often than not decides how your case fares in court, criminal as well as civil.

But within those parameters, our system does pretty well and the little guy actually scores here or there. By and large, as Cajunlawyer says, juries and judges do their best. Just because some people don't agree with a decision doesn't mean it's questionable; it usually just means they didn't like it.

 

[LoboGunLeather]

Read the last paragraph in my answer. Also I suggest that he might have been on the short end of the otherwise questionable rulings to which he complains!
Ours is an adversarial system which is why we have third parties making the ultimate decision. Can't trust an advocate for either side to be unbiased-that is not how it works. And if the fact finder gets it wrong, we have appeals courts.
It ain't perfect but I challenge you to come up with a better system!!

Mike Rosen, syndicated columnist, once opined that the American justice system was not perfect, but it is the best system ever developed by humans. The only major problem seems to be finding twelve people who don't know anything and can't read.

 

[hittman77]

The lesson to take away from this is ….. if you're gonna drink coffee …… black will do.

 

[biku324]

I'm just not sure why we feel the need to denigrate our institutions, juries being only one example.

 

[Golphin]

That's great but there are plenty of frivolous lawsuit's and here in Florida they are invited with the laws in favor of the attorneys. Sure many are warranted but many are not. Florida has a LOT of attorneys and many are ambulance chasers. All you need to do is listen to the adds where they brag about how big they are and the billboards that say "Dan got me millions" and Morgan and Morgan's 10 thousand commercials a day on shows like Jerry Springer. They encourage people to fake claims and help them by feeding them to chiropractors that will make the soft tissue case for them.

 

[biku324]

Back in the late '80s, it became clear after a landmark SCOTUS case (Garcia v San Antonio) that public agencies had to obey labor laws. My agency simply ignored the decision and dared officers to sue. They did, won, and the agency was dragged (kicking and screaming) into grudging compliance with the Fair Labor Standards Act.

A number of folks in management tried to convince everyone who would listen that this lawsuit (actually 3 of them, representing several hundred people) was frivolous. The Federal Distruct Court was unimpressed by that argument.

 

[31FordA]

The media does not do a very good job of accurately relating what goes on in court. I have sat thru trials that when I read the paper the next day I questioned if the reporter and I were in the same courtroom.

My Dad did not like hearing people second guess juries based on what they saw on TV or read in the paper. He was emphatic that if you didn't hear all the evidence you shouldn't be too quick to
criticize the jury. He was on a jury once that the papers criticized for acquitting a defendant in a criminal case. Dad said the news stories left out half the evidence that was presented, and spun the rest to suit their narrative.

 

[HOUSTON RICK]

English common law principles still survive: "People who work for a living or rent property are scum that deserve nothing" from their betters.

 

[S-W4EVER]

There is no such thing as frivolous lawsuits...

Yes, there are frivolous lawsuits. I was sued after I retired for a shoplifting arrest I never made (I never even laid eyes on the suspect). I filed a report with the County Prosecutor and he issued a warrant that was quashed at my request (as I wasn't confident the Loss Prevention Officer had made a proper identification of the suspect). Ultimately the LPO's attorney got his client dumped from the case so it was only me & the PD. I gave a deposition (on my own time) and ultimately the case was dismissed.

The suspect/"victim" was never even contacted by LE (I left my business card but she refused to call me) so how could it be false arrest? I guess the Court agreed because the case was dismissed (& the letter from the judge said we did nothing wrong).

IMHO this was a frivolous lawsuit (I'm thinking the defense attorney though that since I was retired I wouldn't care enough about my good name to show up for the deposition and they'd win by default. I really didn't care much about the department I left but I did care about my legacy in LE).