Sad story from the Walker family

Understood, and I certainly respect your point of view. And I don’t argue against the fact that there are extortionist lawyers out there- there is a guy in LA who finds serial plaintiffs to sue landlords for not complying with the American With Disabiliites Act in parking lots by not having the required 47" setback between handicapped parking spaces. For $5,500 he he goes away. If you sue 1,000 landlords…

Perhaps there is a middle ground that can be found that prevents that kind of thing from happening But allows the little guy the right to sue.

Agreed, but if the “little guy’s” case has enough merit, I think that maybe a conscience attorney might just take it on because it’s the right thing to do and will earn them an honest fee in the end, not because he/she expects to buy a condo in Hawaii afterwards.

I seldom wade into anything on this forum because of the ignorance contained herein. It’s funny how others have the cure for everyone else’s problems Or evils. The world is only exactly just how they view it. There’s no gray, just black and white.

I come one to this forum for aviation talk, views and information. Not to hear people’s ignorant rants about things/issues about which they haven’t a clue. Just amazing.

Perhaps I should make the same post using “arrogant” instead of “ignorant.”

Yes Gordon, perhaps You are correct. A fine example of arrogance, offering one’s opinion as fact about something one has little information or understating about. Nothing better than an opinion from someone who is well informed on a issue. Nothing worse that an opinion from someone who is clueless.

Well it’s not quite that simple. An attorney may have what appears to be a great case, but the system is full of risks that make nothing a sure bet. Let me splain:

First, an attorney takes a case and spends a substantial amount of time investigating a case based on what the client tells him. Shockingly, more often than not the facts don’t quite work out the way the client said it and oftentimes the lawyer has spent a lot of time and money in reliance on facts that dont prove out to be true.

Second, despite hyndreds of years of jurisprudence, the facts and law intermix means that most cases involve nuanced legal issues that rail an otherwise promising case. These always can’t be foreseen at the beginning of a case.

Third, there are independent third parties, namely the judge and jury, that decide the facts and law, whether the claim is actionable and if so how much are the damages. See my post above about ways to avoid a lot of the crazy litigation by having these matters decided by panels of experts.

Fourth, doing all of the above can take several years and cost literally millions of dollars, especially if you’re up against s well funded defendant that defends on a scorched earth mentality. It’s not just he plaintiffs atrorney that are to blame here.

That is why things like arbitration and mediation have come to the forefront as a way to ferret out the lousy cases and reduce the cost of litigation.

I run into the attitude you evoke quite a bit- complete frustration with a legal system you view as full of corrupt and greedy lawyers. I have found though that people who share your views are among the first to run to their lawyer to right the perceived wrongs in their lives. And remember, there was a reason Hamlet said to kill the lawyers first- he knew they would be the first and last defenders of Liberty.

Again, I’m not a plaintiff’s lawyer and I share your view that there are some greedy bastards out there. But there are also some pretty big risk takers who take on cases for injured an defrauded souls whom fight the fight against corporations with the sole legal strategy of spending the plaintiff’s attorney out of existence In an effort to hide sons form of corporate malfeasance. And those plaintiffs lawyers have saved lots of lives and deserve to be paid very well for what they do.

In your ever so humble opinion, obviously.

I rest my case.

What may be worst about this case is that Roger Rodas was driving, and without doubt recklessly. He caused the accident by losing control of the car at twice the speed limit, and his estate should be sued. Had he alone survived he’d face criminal charges. Even if the casual viewer thinks Porsche has some liability, Porsche couldn’t have contributed nearly the negligence Rodas did.

Now imagine if Porsche (think Avidyne) required indemnification before they would repair a failed dashboard…

Thanks Bill, you made some excellent points there that I can’t disagree with. I apologize if my post sounded I as if I think all lawyers are dishonest and greedy. NOTHING, could be further from the truth. Some of my most admired business associates, friends and acquaintances are members of the legal profession. Good people every one. Many right here on COPA! [:)]

But in the legal profession, as with any profession, there are some bad apples and I’ve had some very unpleasant experiences with a few of those too. My complaint is not with the people in the system, it’s with the system itself. I don’t buy the platitudes like “well it has it’s problems but it’s still the best legal system in the world” or "if you change the rules the underprivileged will suffer so it’s best to leave it alone and ignore the inequities ".

I think our system is broken and needs to be fixed. I think that some checks and balances or rule changes need to be made to protect the public from those few bad apples that exploit the system for their own benefit. I like some of your ideas but I still think we need some regulations on what appropriate attorney compensation should be.

The additional expense the legal system adds to our everyday lives is yet again another reason the Chinese will swallow us like a noodle. Manufacturing that made our country great is bogged down by our legal system. How many countless ideas are not pursued because there is risk of an opportunistic attorney just waiting to take advantage, all while having to pay for ever more insurance premiums to cover ourselves.

Yeah. About that, I disagree. IMO that is ideology, not truth.

I’m not suggesting you should care that I disagree. I’m merely establishing the fact that your opinions are not universally accepted.

I don’t believe we will be swallowed like a noodle. If you have ideas you are not pursuing, that’s on you. I pursue my ideas, thank you very much.

Thanks Ron, I like a civilized discussion such as this where the focus is on the issues. And I think your premise that our legal system is broken can be supported at many levels and there are lots of thinga that need to be fixed.

However when you say “we need some regulations on what appropriate attorney compensation should be” I kind of shudder. What you are saying is that we should interpose government regulations to avoid attorneys from making to much momey in situations where we believe that they have received a windfall.

First, please note that there are tons of regulations which regulate attorney fee agreements as well as several ethical rules which if violated put an attorneys license at jeopardy. In addition, awards of attorneys awards in class actions, bankruptcy cases and many other types of litigation must be approved by the court.

But what you are getting at is the case where the attorney just hits it out of the park and makes a bizillion dollars for what you consider out of relation to the effort put in. Ok. Fair enough. But let’s apply that rule across the board. Should we limit the compensation of CEO’s when they make millions (or billions) without extraordinary effort. What about the guys that make billions on IPO’s whom pocket the money only to then see the market value collapse after they have monetized a good portion of their stock offerings. Is that fair? If we are going to start having third parties weigh in on what two parties can contractually agree on then what’s good for the goose…

Again, no argument from me that we have some issues in our legal system. But I think we have a lot of controls in place to dress the attorney client relationship and more regulation would not be a good thing.

Actually, in the UK, we now have any number of law firms that offer “no win, no fee” for any accident no matter how trivial. As a result, our TV ads are stuffed with ambulance chasers and we get random text messages on our phones offering to recover damages for accidents we have never had and so on.

There’s also a crime called “crash for cash” where someone will set up an accident by jamming on their brakes unexpectedly and then all the people in their car will claim they have a whiplash injury. It became so common that the police even set up something called “Operation Catcher” specially to deal with it; and many people now drive with a dash camera to record anything that happens.

I’m all for a system that provides just access to the law regardless of ability to pay; but IMHO there should be a provision that sets aside the protection afforded by No Win No Fee agreements in the event of a case deemed frivolous or speculative by the judge.

John Zarno**:**
Actually, in the UK, we now have any number of law firms that offer “no win, no fee” for any accident no matter how trivial.

We have those in Australia too but the big difference between our ambulance chasers and those in the US is that ours are not permitted to take a percentage of the award - they can only charge the client a fee based on the amount of work they actually did. While this doesn’t eliminate predatory PI lawyers it does contain them somewhat. I’m sure this is one of the factors that make the legal system work better here, which means we can easily get meaningful levels of liability cover.

via COPAme

Yeah, I agree that that is a very slippery slope and such an approach could lead us into a regulatory tangle that no one wants. I guess the “fee” arrangement that I dislike most is the percentage fee. I think that results in a “lottery or jackpot” mentality among some attorneys and law firms and I don’t think that’s a good thing for our society.

The more I think about it, the more I like your idea for juries of experts on technical liability issues. That could be very helpful in returning more meaningful, well reasoned outcomes, especially if they had some say in what would be an appropriate award. Plaintiff attorneys frequently use the juries emotions to get the verdict they want from juries rather than facts. Maybe experts in the field could be more objective and discerning than an average person. You could actually make a pretty good case that experts in the field fit the “jury of peers” ideal better than a jury of average people off of the street.

Wow Jeremy, you must have an incredible body of knowledge since you know everyone else on this forum is making "ignorant rants about things/issues about which they haven’t a clue". To make such a statement, you clearly know everything about everything. Sounds like you don’t even need COPA!

This is an approach that I really like! [Y][Y]

I am also interested in learning more about how PI and other liability cases are handled in New Zealand. I was told by a native New Zealander that they have some sort of a government board that sets limits on the awards but I don’t know the details or anything about how well it actually works in practice.

We have none of that here in Germany, all that is illegal. And I tell you, while there’s many things I miss in Germany (like better weather), … that’s one thing I don’t miss. You cannot even sue McDonalds here if you spill hot coffee over your leg! (You can only go home and wash your pants ;-))

The supreme court is taking a class action suit challenge this term, so that should be interesting to follow. The question they may decide is, should all class participants have actually suffered harm. Imagine that.

While I do believe that there is need here for some tort reform, I think you’re picking a bad example. The Wall Street Journal (a pretty conservative publication) did a long story on this some time ago, and the conclusion was that there was in fact pretty bad negligence on McDonald’s part on this, and that the ultimate conclusion was reasonable. It does make for a good poke at us, though :-))

Andy