Leaving aside various other aspects of the church abuse issue, I’m curious about this particular aspect.
ISTM that this circumstance is highly unusual if not completely unique. Someone/something is legally liable for some purported tort, but there is zero evidence other than the word of the plaintiff themselves, not because other evidence is not credible but since it doesn’t exist. The defendants themselves have no way of knowing whether they are liable.
Are there any possible legal defenses possible in such a circumstance? Are there any other situations which share this same characteristic, or is this unique?
It’s more common in criminal cases than civil cases to have the case rely solely on the testimony of one person. I could imagine it happening in discrimination and harassment cases, however. In fact, I saw one employment harassment case recently where the alleged harasser couldn’t be found and the only evidence about the conduct would have to come from the plaintiff. (he was later located and it became a he said/she said type of case)
In the case of the church and remote allegations of abuse, the defendant could certainly argue that the plaintiff’s word alone is insufficient, that he or she never said a word about this in 26 years to anyone, that there is no counseling records that mention the abuse, and that the plaintiff has a strong motive to make this up. A jury could find the plaintiff has not met their burden of proof.
If the accused is dead, isn’t there some presumption - absent any other evidence - that the person would rebut with a complete denial. This would turn the case into a simple “I said - you said” and absent any extra evidence to push the “preponderance of evidence” past 50% then no win? As Procrustus remarks, any evidence pointing to facts one way or the other might tip the balance - evidence that this was a pattern of behaviour of the accused, evidence that the victim had ongoing problems needing help, or that the victim told someone long before this, etc.
Changing tort law to make the loser pay both sides legal costs, as is the case in some other countries where the criminal code is based on the English common law, might help.
In legal parlance, this would go to the “weight, but not the admissibility” of the evidence.
Meaning, there is no ‘legal’ defense to a claim that is supported solely by the victim. Instead, the counter-argument is that it is very weak evidence which is not corroborated, and therefore should not be trusted.
Ultimately, the finder of fact will simply have to decide whether the witness is compelling enough to be believed. It would help, from the perspective of the defense, if they were caught in a few lies or had a clear motivation to fabricate the truth.
Believe it or not, our legal system accepts that a cross-section of the community, picked by both sides, with no preconceived notion about the facts or the parties, can collectively decide whether people are telling the truth or not. No additional ‘proof’ is necessarily needed.
Loser pays does not tend to be very effective in discouraging lawsuits. Most plaintiffs can’t pay and would avoid a judgment by bankruptcy if the defendant tried. (Alaska has a version of “loser pays” and it is most often used against defendants.)
It is a very rare person who would elect to be a plaintiff in a lawsuit if they didn’t actually believe they had a case. In fact, some legitimate cases are never filed because litigation is a pain in the ass.
Are these suits against the individual, or against the Church? If the latter, doesn’t the case depend on showing that the Church had knowledge of the abuse but did nothing to stop it? That’s something against which the Church should be able to defend, if it’s untrue (and of course, if it is true, then a lack of defense is the system working as it should).
Loser pays as a general rule seems to be very effective in reducing frivolous lawsuits in Canada. But along with it goes discouraging unusually large “pain and suffering” judgements, i.e. being paid for nothing in particular rather than a specific loss. Another damper on lawsuits is that medical expenses are all paid by the provincial health plans, so the usual major expense to litigate over simply does not exist.
Another problem is that bankruptcy is not a trivial exercise. A person with a decent income may find themselves relegated to “orderly payment of debt” process, where their income for several years may be garnisheed to pay off a proportion of the debt.
I believe in Canada (perhaps a real lawyer could help out here) the judge has the discretion to dismiss the case if the plaintiff cannot provide evidence they have a reasonable chance of winning or have the ability to pay should they lose. I do recall one recent attempt to register a Canadian class action lawsuit that was in the news, where the suit was denied because the “class” could not provide a bond or some other guarantee they could afford to pay should they lose.
I have seen no evidence that frivolous lawsuits are a problem in the U.S. Frivolous defenses, on the other hand, are common.
Agreed. But defendants in the U.S. rarely go after plaintiffs. Usually a deal can be struck such as “we won’t appeal the loss if you don’t come after us for fees and costs.”
Have you googled “patent troll” lately? Or maybe Prenda Law, who, when the scam ran out “pay us or we take you to court for downloading and you won’t be able to afford the legal fees” - they switched to calling small businesses using a similar shakedown over compliance with the ADA. Companies have been sued because websites don’t provide for blind people to use them. Some states have SLAPP laws, some actually effective, specifically to try to limit frivolous lawsuits.
When people in Canada talk about frivolous lawsuits, there are no end of examples from the news of Americans with too many slimy lawyers going crazy in court.
The epitome of the frivolous lawsuit is the McDonalds hot coffee case. The lady put a foam cup of coffee made from boiling water between her legs to pry the lid off and sued when she spilled it on herself causing 3rd degree burns. He case that McD was negligent consisted of pointing out how many other equally stupid people had made the same careless mistake mishandling a scalding liquid in a soft container. (Hint, coffee is till server in the 190ºF range; yes, you will burn your lips and tongue on fresh Starbucks coffee, for example. You cannot make coffee at a safe temperature).
I note too that in Canada, she would have had her $20,000 in medical bills fully covered and have almost nothing to sue about.
Well, it turns out that the case wasn’t frivolous at all. (and she would have settle for the amount of her medical bills, but McDonald’s refused)
see the movie, Hot Coffee
The case of Liebeck v. McDonalds’ brought to the attention of the foodservice industry the fact that coffee and other hot food items could cause significant scald injuries. In this case the coffee as held at a company-standard temperature of 185° + 5° F and the plaintiff suffered third-degree burns. There were approximately 700 previous cases against McDonalds’ for excessively hot coffee in the 10 years preceding this case and that the foodservice industry continues to be sued for injuries from spilled hot beverages.
One article researched the preferred temperature for beverage service. Participants in an experiment tasted coffee at seven different temperatures. The preferred temperature for beverage service was in the range of 145°-155° F. Coffee served at 175° F was rated as “somewhat too hot” for consumption and coffee at 185° F was judged too hot for consumption. (Carl P. Borchgrevink, Alex M. Susskind, John M. Tarras, Consumer preferred hot beverage temperatures, Food Quality and Preference, 10 (1999), pgs. 117-121.)
See also: Dan Cox’s Handling Hot Coffee, Preventing Spills, Burns, and Lawsuits. Included in this book is research on consumer preferences of coffee temperatures. The data in this report indicated a preference for coffee at 139.6° F. It also acknowledged that third degree burns can be caused by a hot liquid at 156° F in less than one second. (Dan Cox, Handling Hot Coffee, Preventing Spills, Burns, and Lawsuits, Red Barn Books, Shelburne, VT, 2013.)
I deal with civil lawsuits every day in jurisdictions all over the United States. Sometimes the plaintiff wins, sometimes the plaintiff loses. I’ve seen a hell of a lot more valid cases lose because a judge doesn’t believe in the 7th amendment or the jury has been contaminated by “tort reformers,” than I have seen cases that could fairly be described as “frivolous.”
I don’t know anything about patent trolls, so maybe that is a problem.
Of all the bad examples to base your opinion on, the McDonalds coffee case is about the worst you could have brought up. Liebeck v. McDonald’s Restaurants.
The lawsuits are against the Church (the specific Diocese).
So, from the perspective of the Plaintiff, all they know is that they were abused by a Priest a long time ago. Often, they’ve told friends, family, or therapist at some point prior to the lawsuit. But not always.
Being able to bring a lawsuit helps the Plaintiff get a look at the Church’s records for the reasons you state, for reasons the Plaintiff would know nothing prior to filing the lawsuit. Was there a coverup? Did Priest get transferred around with suspicious timing (near the timing of the alleged abuse)? Was there other allegations of abuse the Church was aware of? Etc. Or, did the Priest serve a long career with no allegations and nothing to indicate any wrongdoing.
The deep pocket is the Church. From what I’ve seen in some of the other cases, is that sometimes a priest was moved to another church because he did something inappropriate to/with an altar boy & sometimes they were moved to another church because of routine reasons (another priest retired, promotion, closer to where they lived, etc.) Given how old some of these cases are I wonder if records still exist.
I wonder how many of these cases may be won on a stereotype; we know that some priests molested kids but not all did. Without any evidence either way, I wonder what juries will do.
I’ve read fairly detailed discussions of the case, and even on this board it’s been discussed ad nauseum - but to reiterate…
700 claims from 300 million people over how long - presumably 10 years or so. This wasn’t Crown Vics or Pintos with a rare peculiar configuration of accident needed; this was spilling what was in your cup. With a lid on to protect you.
Coffee and tea are made with boiling water and held at high temperatures. The 150º in your quote is far below what most places recommend (and would probably cool off to even worse before it was all drank.) Everyone knows the liquid is dangerously hot and they should be careful. It’s as elementary as not sticking a fork in a toaster or not smoking while filling your gas tank.
In the land of frivolous lawsuits, it is also well known that juries have a tendency to sympathize with the victim (especially a little old lady with severe injuries) against the deep pockets of big business despite the facts of the case. (It is also well known that many cases big companies will often settle regardless of the merits due to the cost of litigation and the risk of sympathetic juries)
…but of course, you have your viewpoint and I have mine and we will continue to disagree on this.
When defendants destroy and/or hide evidence and help the perpetrator avoid prosecution and/or outside investigation and do their best to delay any lawsuit or investigation of the cover up, it takes an incredible amount of chutzpah for them to turn around and complain that there is now not a lot of evidence. It’s not that uncommon for defendants to not have or refuse to turn over evidence, or for the current operators of a corporate entity to have difficulty tracking down something previous operators wished to cover up.