I'm telling you...we need to have the laws like the Europeans. You lose, you pay the winner's legal fees. That will solve all of these problems, including the medical malpractice suits as well.

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my experience on X5world when I spend too much
time posting in political threads in the lounge...

explain, please

I fully agree with that.

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An unwavering defender of those I see worth protecting.

"promote the general welfare, not provide the general welfare"

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

They do. Depends on the suit and allegation.

I do too, what I didn't understand was his implication that all med. malpractice suits are BS.

What makes it easy to sue someone in this country is these ambulance chaser lawyers who advertise that you don't have to pay them anything and that they will get paid only if you do. These lawyers do not have any intention of taking 99% of these cases to court. They know that the insurance companies will settle out of court because of the huge legal fees that would be involved in defending such a case -- it is less expensive to just settle these cases. If the law stated that the winner had to pay the loser's legal fees, then the insurance companies would not look to settle any case that did not have merrit, and these lawyers would be much more picky about which cases they would take on, since a losing case would mean they had to pay the insurance company's legal fees. The end result is that it would eliminate almost all the bogus cases.

Keep in mind this is NOT what is referred to as Tort Reform. Tort reform puts limits on how much a jury can award in such a case. I am definately not in favor of tort reform. While many of these cases are bogus, there are cases where people are seriously injured and a company or medical facility is 100% responsible, and it should be up to a jury how much money to award for each individual case. There should not be a "one size fits all" chart that determins how much money should be awarded to someone who is injured.

This sort of thing would also be good for corporate law. I am a small business owner, and a few years ago my company was sued by a large music corporation (one that all of you are familiar with) over something that was complete BS. While they were suing for over $100k, they offered to settle for less than $10k, and my lawyer advised me to settle even though he thought we were in the right, since it would cost much more than $10k to defend the case. I ended up being forced to pay them even though I did nothing wrong. If I knew that the winner would have to pay the loser's legal fees, you can bet that I would have taken this one to court.

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my experience on X5world when I spend too much
time posting in political threads in the lounge...

ok,now i get your point

The ability to recover court costs and attorney's fees is limited to certain cases for a reason, i.e. redhibition and breach of contract. To allow the recovery of such fees in all cases where a plaintiff (or defendant) looses would retard the judicial process. People with legitimate claims would be discouraged from filing suit in fear of loosing and paying those fees, defendants would be pressured to settle quickly to avoid those costs. Then you have punitive damages, which is a whole-nother ball of wax.

If it is truly a frivolous claim, it should be dismissed with little to no fuss.

Totally!

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