Sinergy
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Joined: 4/26/2004
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quote:
ORIGINAL: luckydog1
Nope sinergy that does not fly at all. Now if Walmart had an accident and started flinging crates into a nearby neighborhood, one of which landed on your kid in a park, it would certainly be a legitimate case. Kid playing in your yard, killed by a crate falling from the sky. That in no way compares to your kid going past the no tresspassing/employees only/hard hats required signs, and playing where a crate could fall on him. Which in no way compares to sleeping in your home and being hurt by a chemical leak. Does the distinction confuse you? One requires that the victim break the law and endanger themselves. Because it is an important part of the logic I am using here.
It does not confuse me, luckydog1.
I can use other examples. A construction company doesnt put a fence around their construction site and my kid gets run over by a forklift, falls off a 3rd floor scaffolding, gets a hammer dropped on them, whatever. I decide to sue the construction company since they wont return my phone calls or pay the medical for my child, claiming my kid should not have been there. Attractive nuisance. Under mercnbeth's law, I could sue, but it is not financially worthwhile for an attorney to take on the case considering the forces arrayed against us.
The Sam's Club employee forgets to put up the signs, flashing lights, hard hats, or pushes a crate from the opposite side (where all the flashing lights and stuff are in place to warn people) off the stack, causing the one on the side my kid and I are walking to fall on my kid. So this happens, and I could sue Sam's Club. Same issue, I am dealing with a multinational corporation with teams of attorneys who can spend all their time sitting around and thinking up new ways to waste our time and resources and energy.
I am not sure what you mean about sleeping in my house and poison gas. I think I have the right to not inhale toxic fumes from a screw-up at a gas refinery near my own home. If you disagree that I have that right, then we are just going to have to agree to disagree. So this happens, and I sue Chevron for releasing toxic gas. Of course, it might be difficult to find an attorney willing to devote the time and energy and resources to litigate.
I used to work with attorneys engaged in product litigation. The easiest thing for a big spender to do is simply bury the litigants and their attorneys under a vast volume of crap until they give up and go away. Trial attorneys have a "war chest," which is an amount of money to keep their office running, pay for research, pay their expert witnesses, etc., while they are engaged in litigation. For an attorney to take on a case, they need sufficient money in their "war chest" to stay the course of the lawsuit or they wont take it on, regardless of the merits of the case.
The only thing that the law mercnbeth are proposing will change is that when everybody gives up, starves, dies, is smashed to death by interrogatories, or whatever, the company can turn around and sue them for all their time and effort put in to burying the claimants and their attorneys. Corporations have been pushing this crap in the media for years. I find it amusing as hell that people believe these sorts of media blitzes. On a similar note, in 2002 my union was locked out of the harbor by the shipping companies to try to break it. The shipping companies engaged in an enormous media blitz to claim it was a response to a strike. 6 years later, I still run in to people who think our union went on strike in 2002. I suppose it is a lot easier for people to simply assume what a commercial, talking head on the radio, or newspaper article tells them without actually thinking about it in depth or doing their own research on the matter.
Ignorance and fear.
Ignorance because people dont bother to really research things.
Fear used to convince the ignorant they have to do something NOW or BAD THINGS are bound to happen.
What I find more astonishing are people who (seemingly) honestly believe that large companies, who can afford to pay for these media blitzes to trash trial attorneys, are honest, forthright, ethical, and are doing it out of the average person's best interest.
I find the idea that a corporation is going to run out with their checkbook and pay the costs of their negligence to be somewhat utopian. Sure, my car gets dented in the parking lot the company might. I spill coffee on myself in te lunch room or need a band-aid, it probably will pay up. Did Exxon run right out with checkbook in hand to clean up Prince William Sound? Will they pay all the medical costs for the 30,000 people affected by toxic gas in Bhopal? Did organizations enact safety laws, figure out repetitive stress disorders and start enacting ways to help prevent these, start up safety methodologies in the workplace to prevent accidents, etc., on their own? Were they forced to do so by those damn trial attorneys, class action lawsuits, and government agencies created in response to the demand of the citizenry of the United States.
While it would be lovely to assume that corporations are honorable and ethical and forthright, the reason we have such a litigious society in the United States is not the fault of attorneys and lawsuits. Attorneys came about because people tried to screw over other people, not vice versa.
Free your mind, Neo.
Sinergy
edited to mention that the attorneys I used to work with represented Corporations, not the "little guy."
< Message edited by Sinergy -- 5/4/2007 1:39:58 PM >
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