Bill are you deliberately not understanding? THe point of the first scene is that in ANY trial, it is possible for either side to win. The fact that they win does NOT necessarily mean they were in the right. I suggested to you that to make the loser pay would add yet another burden to some one who, though ** right **, lost the case.
spare me. yes, I knew that. What you propose is that in addition to punitive damages, you want the fact that the jury found for one side over the other to ALSO mean additional costs as well. MY POINT IS. EITHER you think juries are reasonable folk and will make a fair decision OR you think (as you STATED) that jurors are “flakes”.
Originally posted by * Wildest Bill *
**
Frankly nothing I’ve heard you say would hold up to even the remotest definition of common sense. And, in great debates, is not considered to be proof.
and as far as MY experience in court:
go back and read my resume. I spent the better part of the last 20+ years working with convicts. I have been called for jury duty several times, I have been a witness in court dozens of times (for both the prosecution AND the defense), I have been a consultant on a couple of criminal cases (read, criminal, not civil). I have worked with my company’s attorney to AVOID a lawsuit for wrongful termination (something your attorney probably has suggested).
No, you may not. My friends can kid around with me. You, sir, are not a friend. You made accusations, and are continuing them here that if I dare to disagree with you it MUST be that I have a financial motive. Frankly that’s insulting. I disagree with you because you’re stubborn, and wrong. You make these accusations, not once, not even twice, but now three times. You are NOT my friend.
And finally:
No, it’s foolish to continue to argue with some one who’s own sites fail to prove their argument (your site listed “10 bizzare cases for 1999” - t-e-n. not “most” not “nearly all” not “frequent” t-e-n).
Let’s face it I am not going to change your mind and your not going to change mine. That is called a diffence of opinion. We have done beat the horse so hard we made glue. IT just doesn’t matter.
But tell you what I will try to get my congressman to change this law that is wrong and that will matter. Wish me luck this will be hard he probably is an attorney.
You have totally motivated me to take this on where it really counts. Thanks. Have a good weekend I’m gone.
I hate to intrude on this intriguing chain of diatribes with something as innocuous as facts, but I thought at least some of the debaters might be interested in knowing how the “loser pay” approach is actually implemented in common law jurisdictions outside the U.S.
The English courts have customarily awarded “court costs” to the winning party in a civil suit, to be paid by the losing party (note: not the losing party’s counsel, as WB advocates). From my conversations with lawyers from other Commonwealth jurisdictions (admittedly a limited sample; would be pleased to hear from anyone who knows more), I believe that court costs of this nature are used in most common law jurisdictions outside the U.S. I have no idea why the U.S. courts are an exception and do not usually award costs.
The reason for court costs is to make it clear to both the plaintiff and the defendent that there is both an upside and a downside to litigation. It should not be a purely speculative exercise, as can be the case where a plaintiff’s lawyer takes it solely on contingency. The plaintiff has to think seriously about instituting a lawsuit, because it can have a negative financial impact.
As for how the amount of the costs is determined, in my jurisdiction there is a tariff of costs, set by the trial court, which cross-references particular steps in the process (examination for discovery, preparation of brief, chambers appearence, etc.) with the amount in issue. If the monetary amount is low, the court costs will be low; if the parties are dickering about a lot of money, the tariff is higher. Costs based on the tariff (called “Party and party costs”) can be substantial, but do not usually cover the entire amount the winning party has to pay his/her lawyer.
The courts have recognized the concerns that have been raised on this thread, that court costs might prevent someone from litigating. Thus, costs are always in the discretion of the courts. They can in some cases deny costs to the winning party, in light of the circumstances of the losing party and the nature of the case. As well, in some cases, the court may even award costs to the losing party, if the court thinks that the issue was a matter of substantial importance that was properly raised, even if the party was unsuccessful. This is particularly the case in lawsuits involving the governmet as a defendant. (For example, I once helped to defend a government sucessfully from a lawsuit that raised important issues of public law. The court awarded costs against the government, in light of the importance of the issues.)
As well, the courts can use the court costs as a means of regulating the litigation process. For example, in some cases the court may decide that a higher award of costs is warranted, because of unreasonable conduct on the part of the losing party. Instead of ordering “party and party costs,” based on the tariff, they can order “solicitor and client costs,” which means that the losing party is required to pay the winning party’s entire legal bill. This is rare, but it provides a salutary way for the courts to discipline egregious conduct.
Costs can also be used to recognize that a small litigant may get dragged up the appellate ladder by a larger litigant, such as a government, because of the importance of legal issues, not just the merits of that particular cases. The appellate courts can use costs to compensate the smaller litigant. For example, the Supreme Court of Canada sometimes grants leave to a government to appeal a case, but as a condition of granting leave (equivalent to “cert” in the USSC), it requires the government to pay the individual litigant’s costs, regardless of the outcome of the case. This balances off the uneven resources and interests of the parties.
The courts can also use the discretion to award costs in less obtrusive ways. If they think that a particular motion was frivolous, they can order the losing party to pay costs of the motion “in any event of the cause,” i.e. - regardless how the main trial comes out. Other times, they can deny costs to the winning party.
Costs can also be used to encourage settlements. Most Canadian jurisdictions have rules of court which say that if A makes a reasonable offer, B refuses and goes to trial, and B recovers less than A offered, A doesn’t have to pay costs.
And finally, in some Canadian provinces, such as Ontario, the rules of court provide that if a lawyer brings forward a case that was completely without merit, the costs award can be made against the lawyer personally, not against the lawyer’s client.
Hope this rather lengthy account may provide some assistance to debaters - carry on.
What Bill lacks (besides a grasp of the English language and factual information to back up his wild claims) is an understanding that a lot of what you describe above is also available at the discretion of judges in the United States, and it has been my understanding that courts are more and more moving toward doing much of what you discuss, what other court systems are doing.
Bill, however, seems to think that it should be a hard-and-fast, black-and-white rule - what you describe makes a lot more sense, i.e., the merits of the case and the litigants dictates the circumstances of awards and costs.
Thank you for some civilized, intelligent insight.
“Available as the discretion of judges” hmmm. That would seem fair except do you know exprix who contributes to most Judges election campaigns? Well… I do that is part of the game you know. One time I was talked into hiring another attorney as co-council just because he was a big contributer to a judges election campaign to offset the plaintiff attorney campaign contributions to the same judge. Is that sorry state of fairs or what?
Also I have found another cite that actually mentions the idea of loser pays. Here it is http://www.readersdigest.com/rdmagazine/specfeat/archives/trial.htm The article gives more background information and examples of what is wrong with the system the way it stands now.
Also does it bother you that trial lawyers are one of the biggest contributers to political campaigns? I mean they are up there with tobacco companies and we all know how much they care about the general welfare of society.
Here are some things that would probably happen if loser pays was implemented.
There would be less bogus claims in the court system that hinder legitimate claims from getting a speedy resolution. Do you think it is fair for someone really wronged to have to wait a year or two to get restitution?
Prices of products would come down saving everybody money even you esprix.
There would be more innovative product development that could save and help peoples lives. This would also create more jobs.
More people would save money on insurance premiums. Because insurance companies wouldn’t be so quick to settle bogus claims do to litigation expense. They do this now big time and all they do is pass the losses on to you and me and everybody on this board. I for one don’t like it. Maybe you do.
Life would be more enjoyable not having to worry about being sued for something stupid and unfair.
It would break the back of scum bucket attorneys that abuse the system. The cream (good attorneys that actually care about justice being served) would rise to the top and still fight for justice.
It would entice less people to enter law school because of easy money therefore more people would enter productive segments of society therefore stimulating our economy instead of crippling it. Do you really think that this country needs as many lawyers as we have now? Answer this truthfully? I mean there is alot of intellegent people that are attorneys just because of how lucrative the profession is. Those same smart intellegent people might be doctors, engineers and business owners that would employ more people.
Anyway, I hope I have listed more valid arguments for my position. Reasons that everybody could enjoy instead of just a few people making money out of the court system.
Also no matter what you say I think I am entitled to my opinion. I don’t understand why everybody is so upset with me just because I don’t agree with what some of ya’ll said.
Believe me I am a fair person if I feel that I am proven wrong I will concede . But so far ya’ll haven’t convince to do so. Maybe this is a no win topic like abortion or the death penalty. It all boils down to what your opinion is on the subject. Kinda like what my Grandfather use to tell me…"you know opinions are like assholes everybodys got one.
Wildest Bill, I’m picking myself up off the floor - that was the best-written post I have seen from you. Thank you!
I believe that all of your claims of advantages for your system basically stem from the elimination of frivolous lawsuits, which you feel are inadequately deterred by the current system. I believe that the reasons that others of us on this thread differ from you is that we disagree about the severity of the problem of frivolous lawsuits, and therefore we believe that the disadvantages of your system outweigh the advantages. In particular, we have pointed out the chilling effect that the system could have on small plaintiffs who have been legitimately wronged by large corporations.
I see frivolous litigation as much less of a problem in large part because judges do have discretion to award attorneys’ fees in proper cases under the U.S. system, as has been pointed out. I would be willing to change my belief if real data were brought to my attention suggesting that there really is a widespread problem with truly frivolous litigation, but I decline to change it solely based on your own characterization of your own lawsuits. This is not because I think you are lying, but because issues look very different from the different sides of the fence, and because you are only one person. I will sympathize with you if you get screwed by the system, but I will not support changes that I see as having significant negative effects unless I think that the problems are sufficiently widespread that the positive effects will outweigh the negative effects.
You are in good company in the belief that popular election of judges leads to inequities and inappropriate use of discretion in some cases. This is yet another very interesting issue that probably deserves its own thread, and frankly, I don’t know how to solve it.
{SIGH} Prove that lawyers are the largest contributors to judges’ election campaigns - sounds like a WAG to me.
Lovely - someone else agrees with you, but it doesn’t prove that yours and their arguments (or, more accurately, the results of your arguments, i.e., less frivolous lawsuits) are accurate. Gotta come up with something more than Reader’s Digest (like, say, a law expert’s opinion, or statistics from other countries who have instituted similar plans to what you are suggesting). Hey, it’s your idea - if you’re so dead-on, shouldn’t be too hard to find stats to back up your claims, no?
Another outrageous and unsubstantiated claim. Prove it or prove yourself foolish for even suggesting it.
Key word here being “probably,” and since you’re hardly a law expert, I can only assume you mean “probably” to mean “my own WAG.” But let’s plod ahead anyway…
And do you think it is fair for someone really wronged, when they lose the lawsuit anyway, to have to pay the winner’s expenses on top of their having been wronged?
It has already been pointed out that more safe product development has come from the fear of lawsuits than from independent, right-minded businessnessmen caring about their consumers, as is evidenced by the sub-par products produced in countries with less legal redress for such inadequacies, plus the entire history of consumerism before modern-day causality lawsuits started to shape the law.
This (and, frankly, your whole list) are all misdirected leaps of illogic based on your premise that all the lawsuits you would deem unnecessary suddenly vanished.
Litigation claims still outweigh settlements by a large margin - why do you think they settle in the first place?
Who said life was fair? I’d rather let someone else sue me, right or wrong, as long as it guarantees me the right to sue someone else when I am egregiously wronged by them. I, for one, hold that the truth will out in most matters of law. And you again seem to be dancing two sides of the issue - do people in the right win all the time, or lose? You keep waffling back and forth on this.
And again, you seem to think that the majority of plaintiff attorneys out there are scum, when they are not. Was your attorney scum when he advised you on your lawsuits? Nope. In fact, I seem to recall you were pissed because he didn’t do enough. Sharks are bad… unless they’re on your side?
That’s nice - less incentive for people who love the law to actually go into it. Then we just get more incompetent lawyers.
All of your ideas (and that’s all they are) have merit, but you’re not backing any of this up other than, “This is what I think will happen.” Give us some bite to your arguments and maybe we’ll be swayed, but as it stands, you’re just shoveling so much hot air.
Once again, please - it’s not that you’re not entitled to your opinion, but if you’re going to make an argument, it needs to be more than, “This is what I think and nothing you can say will change my mind no matter how much sense it makes.”
I will wisely refrain from comment on your last sentence as certain moderators would have my head, but so far your points have been addressed, one by one, and even when you concede some points (“OK, maybe not all lawyers are scum”), you still persist that your argument has complete validity, when it clearly does not, as proven by others’ arguments.
I’m taking others’ advice and going to stop posting to this thread, as it’s a waste of time. I will simply end by saying that your revolutionary idea has some serious flaws that would need to be addressed, and until they were, I stand by the current system as being the best there is, warts and all.
I gotta know what does WAG mean? See I can listen and learn(wondering to myself if I did the bold thing right.)
Also I know what you mean about that last line of my post. Believe me I thought of several good ones out of that line too but refrained.
Enugent,
You’re more than welcome. And thanks for noticing. I proofed that sucker a few times before I hit submit reply icon.
Also. I want to thank everybody for putting up with me for being hardheaded on this issue.(I know I was) It is a real emotional charged issue for me and when you are emotional you are probably not going to debate rationally.
In retrospect I probably should have just threw the issue on the table to see what kind of reaction it would have received instead of the way I did it. Oh well as Bond would say, “Live and let Die.” I am sorry esprix I just couldn’t resist.
Ohhhh…ok got to remember that abbreviation(that one can come in very handy). Proving lawyers make the largest contributions to judges can be done without cites by the ole fashion process of elimination. Just who other than lawyers(the only people that make money in court room besides judges on a regular basis) would contribute money to some guy that sits on a bench in a black dress and plays like he/she is a god?
maybe some one who believes in the concept of justice?
** Bill ** on the subject of form. when some one asks you for substance to support your allegation (hereinafter referred to as WAG), “old fashion process of elimination” followed by yet another WAG is not considered to be sufficient.
