Do you remember the lawsuit about the woman who ordered the McDonald’s coffee and spilled it in her lap and sued McDonald’s because it did not have a warning label on it? What about the woman who fell in the fountain at the mall while texting and wants to sue the mall? These lawsuits may seem fairly farfetched. They fall into the category called frivolous.
Black’s Law Dictionary defines frivolous as lacking a legal basis or legal merit; not serious; not reasonably purposeful (Garner, 2006). When people pursue such lawsuits as these it costs money. “The civil justice system is plagued by high ‘transaction costs,’ meaning that it is both expensive and time consuming to use the courts to resolve disputes” (Ruschmann, 2006, p. 60). Frivolous lawsuits should not be taken seriously. People should not be awarded money for things that they caused themselves, and they should not cost courts and consumer’s time and/or money.
There are many steps to go through once you decide to file a lawsuit. Many Americans suffer from injuries but only a small percentage of them file a lawsuit because many of them have valid claims but they have little money. Sometimes when plaintiffs, the person filing the lawsuit, go to trial there is a lot of money that has to be spent up-front. “Taking a large case on a contingency fee and advancing all the out-of-pocket cost is a very expensive proposition” (Bourhis, 2005, p. 76). Lawyers have created the contingent-fee arrangement. This is where “a lawyer agrees to take a case without any money up front and without requiring the client to pay an hourly or flat fee. In return, the lawyer is entitled to receive a percentage of the actual amount of money collected, generally 33 percent, but sometimes 40 percent if ...
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...ceived potential for a large payout. Three percent of product liability trials involved toxic substances, including tobacco. Three tobacco product liability trials were disposed of a national sample in 2005. All three of these trials were decided by juries that ruled in favor of the defendants. Toxic substances were linked as 346 of the 354 product liability trials (Cohen, 2009).
Tort reformers believe that courts must reduce the ability of defendants’ liability in order to avoid economic decline. In the years to come, the proposals likely to generate the biggest dispute include malpractice and class-action reform, limits on noneconomic and punitive damages, and a legislative solution to asbestos legation (Rushmann, 2006). There are many lawsuits. But the frivolous lawsuits should not be taken seriously and not cost our courts and citizens time and/or money.
Damages are a fundamental principle in the American legal system. However, a number of recent cases in the United States have sparked a debate on the issue, the most famous one being the “hot coffee lawsuit”1. In 1994, Stella Liebeck bought coffee at a McDonald’s restaurant, spilt it, and was severely burnt. She sued the McDonald’s company, received $160,000 in compensatory damages, and $2.9 million in punitive damages. A judge then reduced the punitive damages to $480,000. The final out-of-court settlement was of approximately $500,000. For many, this case is frivolous (meaning that the plaintiff’s prospects of being successful were low or inexistent), but it really highlights the question of excessive punitive damages compared to the damage suffered and its causes.
The refinement of this definition has significant legal implications, as it broadens the scope of those who can sue within blameless accidents. Prior to this, such victims would also face being labelled with “fault”. Supporting the findings of Axiak, by establishing non-tortious conduct as separate from “fault”, similar, future cases are more likely to proceed despite the plaintiff’s contributory
The plaintiffs, Bosse and Griffin, sued Chili’s for negligence seeking compensatory damages claiming a patron who pursued them following their skipping out on a restaurant bill was acting as agent for Chili’s at the time the patron caused the plaintiff’s car accident and that Chili’s was, therefore, responsible for the crash.
In December 2006 after a long drawn out case. The Florida Supreme Court put new life into the case against the tobacco companies. The court case has been ongoing since 1994. The supreme court up held a landmark jury verdict holding the Big Tobacco accountable for smoking related injuries and deaths. In the trial the tobacco companies were found guilty on numerous accounts. And was fine 145 billion dollars in punitive damages.
Medical malpractice lawsuits are an extremely serious topic and have affected numerous patients, doctors, and hospitals across the country. Medical malpractice is defined as “improper, unskilled or negligent treatment of a patient by a physician, dentist, nurse, pharmacist, or other health care professional” (Medical malpractice, n.d.). If a doctor acts negligent and causes harm to a patient, malpractice lawsuits arise. Negligence is the concept of the liability concerning claims of medical malpractice, making this type of litigation part of tort law. Tort law provides that one person may litigate negligence to recover damages for personal injury. Negligence laws are designed to deter careless behavior and also to compensate victims for any negligence.
The movie “A Civil Action” released on January 8, 1999 provides viewers with an extraordinary story of the nightmare that occurred in Woburn Massachusetts in the late 1970’s. The people of this small town at the time had no idea what was going on until there were various cases of Leukemia in small children that ultimately resulted in the early passing of them. The people eventually had gone to find out that the drinking water in this small town was contaminated and there were many women that stepped in to get answers. This movie is a tremendously jaw dropping, eye opening account of a heartbreaking true story incident. There are various elements of negligence in this movie including, duty, legal cause, proximate cause and damages.
Tort reform is very controversial issue. From the plaintiff’s perspective, tort reforms seems to take liability away from places such as insurance companies and hospitals which could at times leave the plaintiff without defense. From the defendant’s perspective, tort reform provides a defense from extremely large punitive damage awards. There seems to be no median between the two. Neither side will be satisfied. With the help of affiliations such as the American Tort Reform Association and Citizens Against Lawsuit Abuse, many businesses and corporations are working to change the current tort system to stop these high cash awards.
However, these lawsuits also require that jurisdictions put in a lot of money that they may never get
Medical malpractice cases are difficult for the families who have lost their loved one or have suffered from severe injuries. No one truly wins in complicated court hearings that consist of a team of litigation attorneys for both the defendant and plaintiff(s). During the trial, evidence supporting malpractice allegations have to be presented so that the court can make a decision if the physician was negligent resulting in malpractice, or if the injury was unavoidable due to the circumstances. In these types of tort cases, the physician is usually a defendant on trial trying to prove that he or she is innocent of the medical error, delay of treatment or procedure that caused the injury. The perfect example of being at fault for medical malpractice as a result of delaying a procedure is the case of Waverly family versus John Hopkins Health System Corporation. The victims were not compensated enough for the loss of their child’s normal life. Pozgar (2012) explained….
Tort, one of the crucial subjects of study when analyzing common law jurisdictions. Tort, is an action which causes another person or party to suffer harm or loss []. The person who has committed a tortious act is called the tortfeasor while the person who suffered harm or loss from such act is called the injured party or the victim. Although crimes may be torts, torts may not be crimes [] simply because a tort may not have broken a law. In fact, one must understand that the key idea of tort is not to punish the tortfeasor(s) but rather to compensate the victim(s).
... impressed in the time, cost, and emotional expense that went into such a case. Because of the reluctance for government entities to get involved, as well as the lies being told, Jan was left holding the bag. It was easy to see that Jan's ego, coupled with his big spending habit, didn't help his end result. However, I can also see the most frugal plaintiff's attorney end up in bankruptcy if he or she became just as passionate about a case.
Before the jury decides a verdict, the last step in the trial process is the closing arguments. There were no closing arguments because the parties had to settle on nine million dollars. They did this because the plaintiff’s attorneys went bankrupt due to this case and they couldn’t afford to invest any more money into the case. Beatrice Foods ended up being not liable for the deaths of children so they were allowed to leave the case. Due to this, only W.R. Grace had to settle with the plaintiff. Later on in 1988, Jan Schlichtmann brought this case to the EPA’s attention and the EPA decided to bring lawsuits against the companies. W.R. Grace and Beatrice Foods ended up having to pay for their huge mistake. They had to pay for the largest chemical cleanup in the Northeastern which cost sixty- four million dollars.
We learned from Lau and Johnson (2014) text “strict liability torts require neither intent nor carelessness (p. 152).” Upon viewing Susan Saladoff’s movie documentary the Hot Coffee Movie Trailer link, I was intrigued to learn more about the case. I, too, was an individual who did not have all of the facts about the case. Let’s explore four questions for this week’s discussion which is all about the tort reform.
On the other hand, the punitive damages may be unlimited if the malpractice is proven to be done on purpose and full intent (Medical Malpractice,
Tort is a word developed to describe in general the different types of claims that are normally imposing economic and financial losses that are because of some kind of misbehavior, apart from breach of contract. The term is used to refer to this type of claims, false presentations, fraud, breach of contract, encouragement, unfair competition, trade name and trademark infringement and interference with business relationships (Emanuel, S.