Outrageous

[ePilot22]

The "venemous culture of litigation" is not new, nor is anything else under the sun.

The wright brothers were locked in bitter dispute with Curtis Wright from the earliest days of powered flight, and even their own credit as the first in powered flight bought legitimacy through the Smithsonian only by means of threat of litigation, and extortion by the Wrights.

Litigation as we know it today, the civil transference of paper and funds upon supplication of a magistrate, is a far cry improvement over the ancient methods of settling minor disputes through maiming and bloodshed. Indeed I have lived in parts of the world where a simple traffic incident is likely to end in murder on site. To whine over tort (or the reform thereof) in our own polite society, or to label it as something new, is indeed naive, and nothing short of inaccurate.

Your neck must be made from some type of steel reinforced concrete and your head an elastic ball of bone to support a brain as large as yours.

Or are you more like a large brain with little arms and legs. This should be your avatar








eP.

 

[Paradoxus]

The "venemous culture of litigation" is not new, nor is anything else under the sun.

The wright brothers were locked in bitter dispute with Curtis Wright from the earliest days of powered flight, and even their own credit as the first in powered flight bought legitimacy through the Smithsonian only by means of threat of litigation, and extortion by the Wrights.

Litigation as we know it today, the civil transference of paper and funds upon supplication of a magistrate, is a far cry improvement over the ancient methods of settling minor disputes through maiming and bloodshed. Indeed I have lived in parts of the world where a simple traffic incident is likely to end in murder on site. To whine over tort (or the reform thereof) in our own polite society, or to label it as something new, is indeed naive, and nothing short of inaccurate.

A gross oversimplification of the matter. Litigation, fundamentally so, is at this point in the history of dispute resolution decidedly not new under the sun, no challenge. Further, it is indeed a function of human progress that it exists. I rather think that issue is as irrelevant as it is evident.

What is rather unprecedented, however, is the very visible, very venomous culture/industry that has been built to take advantage of this process. To deny that the puerile pursuit of litigation for any and every possible offense taken by individuals (real or imagined, legitimate or frivolous, plaintiff-induced or not, beneficial to society or destructive, etc.) has become legion where it was not before is emphatically naive.

To wit:
Lawsuits levied against gun manufacturers for suicides and murder, fast food restaurants for boiling beverage accidents, aircraft producers for aircraft lost by anything but mechanical failure, automotive factories for reckless driving, city managers for street crime, police for subduing dangerous violators, pharma for the unknowable consequences of drugs, etc...etc....etc...

To look upon these abortions of justice and casually label those who question the direction taken by the modern litigation cartels as "whiners" and "naive" is to forfeit any and all intellectual honesty in the matter. The afore mentioned calls for suit are as categorically absurd as they are unprecedented. Yes, the legal system has offered a more "benevolent" alternative to the ancient methods of dispute resolution, but like the vast myriad of other enlightened institutions of modern civilization, it suffers from an epic level of abuse.

That is the undeniable truth of the matter. My libertarian alignment and sensibilities prohibit me in good faith from promoting any sort of government interference in the matter. Thus given, I blame only the failings of our culture itself for the gross distortions of what might be recognizable as justice and fair compensation.

Addendum:

You mentioned:

...in our own polite society

A catastrophic misconstruction of the factual reality of the situation. I wouldn't consider the legally-enforced razing of one's wealth, property, and often livelihood to be particularly "polite." Ranking in conjunction therewith, I'd judge the afore mentioned consequences befalling a rescue worker at the tentacles of a trial attorney representing a life saved to be unequivocally impolite.

These are best-case scenarios for the impetuous unrestraint the system of civil justice now "enjoys." Damage done to industry by as much, directly impacting the progression of society, is now incalculable. Polite?

You see, the destruction that one can levy without the usage of marshall force, that is to say, through the abuse of an institution, (also not new under the sun) is markedly significant, sometimes even eclipsing more intemperate methods.

 

[RockyMnt1]

Thanks to the previous posters. My vocabulary has just doubled in size. I am also taking notes relating to sentence construction......Very informative.

Can we get a poetry thread going soon???

 

[TMMT]

http://www.badgerbadgerbadger.com/

 

[A Squared]

Counter suits are nearly inevitable. One should always plan on it.

It's intersting to note that this *is* a countersuit. According to the article the helicopter operator and the owner sued Altman's estate first.