Tort Reform

[markz]

Man you guys in the USA got royally screwed!
I just watched a Netflix movie on it. What a sad state of affairs.

Example #1 was a birth of twin boys, doctor messed up huge and has done previously as well. The boy needs major help for the rest of his life. Jury awarded $6M, parents only got $1M due to the cap in that state.

The classic McDonalds spilled coffee that started it all, she supposedly got $2.1M well she ended up only getting $500k and she has never been the same since. She was severely burned, needing multiple skin grafs. She worked up until the incident but the coffee was way over the store policy temp and the store had 700 reported incidences of their coffee being too hot.

 

[Dauntless]

The classic McDonalds spilled coffee that started it all, she supposedly got $2.1M well she ended up only getting $500k and she has never been the same since. She was severely burned, needing multiple skin grafs. She worked up until the incident but the coffee was way over the store policy temp and the store had 700 reported incidences of their coffee being too hot.

Oh no no, that didn't start it all, going on long before that. But if you really believe that coffee could burn her like that (1/6th of her body) without melting that cup, you'd probably award that same $2.86 million to the gamblers who sued the losing team in the Superbowl for their gross negligence. Imagine the punitive damages the Broncos would have had to pay a few years ago.

So we already had the law in California where you can't sue when you're at fault, such as driving with a cup of coffee between your legs and pulling the lid off. What went wrong in this trial?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stella_Awards

 

[DanGT86]

She was not driving. She was in the passenger seat and the car was parked. McDonalds had free refills and had directly disobeyed food safety regulations to make the coffee so hot that the average customer would not be able to drink it during the normal duration of the meal thus allowing them to honor less free refills. Stella also only wanted to be reimbursed for her medical bills but the jury decided to award way more than she asked for. The only thing that went wrong in the trial is the public smear campaign that haunted that lady for the rest of her life.

Most corporate law cases involve a gag order as part of the settlement or award. This keeps people from being able to present all the facts and makes it really easy for special interest groups to misrepresent the facts perpetuating the false narrative of the "lawsuit lottery" in popular culture. People love complaining about frivolous lawsuits but these are often distorted facts and the things urban legends are made of. There was no lady that crashed an RV because she thought cruise control meant self driving. There was also no lady that tried to use a microwave to dry her poodle. The thief that fell through the skylight and sued the homeowner is also a myth. Those are the first 3 that come to mind but there are countless others that usually get kicked around in the form of emails from people's uncles. I remember growing up in the 90s a this was a really hot topic. I feel like people were always talking about tort reform. I feel like its died down in popularity as a major issue. I guess the companies found it more useful to just pour money into judicial elections instead of trying to influence the electorate. That seems to be the trend now.

There is also a commonly perpetuated myth that doctors' malpractice insurance rates are high because of frivolous lawsuits. This myth is spread by those seeking to cap damages on lawsuits for political reasons. The data doesn't support this myth at all. There is no relationship between the the cost of malpractice insurance relative to states that have capped damages from lawsuits. Damage caps only prevent real victims from getting properly compensated. Someone still has to actually win the court case to get a large reward. Capping damages to prevent frivolous lawsuits is like saying guilt or innocence should be based on the severity of the sentence. It just doesn't make sense to cap them. Judges throw out frivolous cases anyway. The awards are granted to victims by juries or judges for specific reasons not a giant prize wheel or slot machine.

Markz, you are correct in that we are pretty well screwed when it comes to fighting large companies in court. Most of our user agreements and contracts come with mediation clauses where you wave your right to a trial in exchange for corporate mediation. The real sham is that the corporations get to pick the mediators. Its silly. Lucky for us though, information spreads so quickly through social media that its still in a company's best interest to not screw over, injure, or kill too many customers.