They weren’t even my lawyers. They were our insurance company’s lawyers. And I’m sure they were trying to milk it for all it was worth on their side, too.
We had a dumb judge and a scumbag plaintiff and plaintiff’s attorney.
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We had a dumb judge and a scumbag plaintiff and plaintiff’s attorney.
I would disagree. I think the system puts the expense and risk on the plaintiff in that works. Insured defense still maintains that advantages, burdens, and practical
They settled bc the cost of defense and risk of a larger verdict made it a smart biz decision.
And I don’t know. Many insurance defense firms get paid a flat fee. Maybe you had an hourly one. I don’t know. I’d rather run my arm through a defective auger on a loop every day for the remaining days of my life than be an insurance defense lawyer
In a just world, a guy working for someone else, loses his arm doing that work and gets nothing?
You want him to starve on the street? His family?
You need to read The Iron Heel.
If you’re serious, that’s a bit contradictory to your salt-of-the-earth identity.
We need to have higher standards for merit and better ways to keep shakedown suits out of the system. And I think that figuring out ways to penalize the attorneys who bring them would go a long way towards doing that.
Make them the gatekeepers.
It would weed out nearly all PI cases. We’ve had this kind of system before—and it sucked.
We’re going to have to disagree. I don’t think there are many shakedown pi lawsuits. Not worth the P lawyer’s time and money. Damn sure in med mal there aren’t shakedowns
If it was his own negligence, sure. That’s why we have disability.
It wasn’t his employer’s fault he did what he did. Not even in the slightest, from what I know.
If it could be demonstrated that it was, different deal.
Then figure out a better way to weed out the weeds. I’m open to ideas.
But what we have right now is a travesty.
In the pi world, which includes products and med mal, I’ve never seen a shakedown. And I’m not being a dick. I just haven’t seen it. Too expensive. Too risky. Too many ways to lose and get nothing.
I should add that I think a Loser Pays law should have strong safeguards against a high-dollar defendant just being able to make the pricetag ridiculously high. Because I’m sure that’s what they’d want to do.
I’m not trying to make it cost them millions. I’m trying to make the opening ante high enough so as to make them think hard about whether or not to take a case up…looking for nuisance settlements and the like.
There are caps and in many places that’s what an offer of judgement does. If the verdict comes back lower or you get summaried out you’re on the hook for D fees for whatever germane time
It’s common enough that “nuisance settlement” is a fairly commonly known term. Even you said “Oh…you won!”
I didn’t win. I got shaken down. Or my insurance company did. Was it a ton of money? No. Did the plaintiff deserve a penny? Also no.
Hopefully the lawyer who brought this suit lost his ass on it. He deserved to.
It’s not perfect. Lots of things could be improved. But it’s not a travesty, I don’t think, and I’ve never heard of a reasonable overhaul.
But I’ve got skin in the game and 25 years in the game or close to it, so I might not be able to think outside the box anymore. And I think a lot of plaintiffs attorneys are assholes and untrustworthy.
Listen my entire fam is in construction. Roofers. Asphalt. Tough rough people. I get it. They HATE this shit. But the guy lost his arm. Guy with no arm comes into his office and says the shithouse company had a fckd up auger and now I have to live the rest of my life without an arm. Think of all the shit you can’t do without an arm. The P lawyer has to file to be able to do discovery. It’s the only way he can vet shit as to whether to try the case. Spends his money on experts. Devotes his time. Time he’d rather spend watching Messi. But he does it. And through discovery learns there’s not much there. So settles for a loss. A loss covered by your insurance. That’s not a shakedown in my view
Wouldn’t matter. Poor people can’t afford it. It’s already hard enough on the contingency side. You make a loser pays, 75% of the bar leaves.
We need greater access to justice and the courts in this country, not less.
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I’ve spent a 100k on divorce shit. That’s where access is really fckd
Getting rid of the crap I’m talking about would give greater access to justice. Crap doesn’t stop being crap when we fool ourselves into thinking it’s justice.
And I think some people also have a tendency to view justice through the lens of who has more money.
I’m sorry the guy lost his arm. I am. But the idea that it was Justice that he got money for it - from his employer, from the rest of us - is plainly absurd.
He did it to himself. It’s not Justice to make somebody else pay for our mistakes.
2 years ain't shit man. My wife works commercial insurance defense.... A lot of environmental like asbestos... But a bunch of other random commercial liability. She's had files open for over a decade.
The asbestos stuff is crazy ... Trying to trace back policies from the 50s and 60s to see who is actually on the hook.
Settling is 95% of the game. Going to trials is when things go bananas. Nobody wants to eat a 7 figure verdict.... And they happen.
If I was a PI lawyer he brought that case to, I’d have wished him luck somewhere else.
Because I have scruples. And I have no interest in trying to get money out of people who did nothing wrong in order to split it with a guy who did.
Workers comp is no fault. That’s what it’s for. I would argue $15k to “discover” whether negligence occurred, negligence that was potentially visited upon this guy, and may PREVENT future injuries is justice. But as brad said I might not see things objectively anymore
You don’t know that at that point. That’s what disco is for
Did the company properly train him? Give him paid time on the job to review safety standards? Have periodic safety reviews? Expect work to get done at a reasonable rate, or at a very high, unsafe one?
Tons of fact questions you’d have to investigate in order to say this issue was all the employee’s fault.
And even if it were, have you heard of no fault insurance? It makes a lot of sense and is cheaper than litigating everything.
I know it’s no fault.
I’m saying that it should be. Cripes man, we have people who literally look for ways to get “hurt” on the job. It’s an open secret in my world. And most foremen in the trades know who the guys are who do that.
I do think there needs to be a better fast tracking of cases, in general.
I’d be willing to bet this guy didn’t try to lose his arm on purpose.
Not saying we should litigate everything.
Saying we need better gatekeepers to get rid of the people gaming the system. I’m not saying this guy did it deliberately. I seriously doubt that (although it does happen).
But it is clear he was trying to get paid for his own screw-up.
I know. My dad worked at a co where the guys new exactly what a finger was worth. And some would abuse it. Cameras.
Not saying he did.
I am saying that, once he did, he was looking to get money from people who had money, but had no fault in his dumb decision to stick his arm in a machine.
And there is that in the PI world. Contributory and comparative fault. Depends on the state. Some if you are 51 percent at fault you get nothing
Reread my questions. Might not have been all his own screw up.
Anyway. The plaintiff lawyer funds the cases. If he loses he gets nothing. From burdens, to summary judgments, to comparative/contributory, to expert requirements, to offers of judgments, to caps the obstacles are plentiful to assist defense. We’re going to have to agree to disagree. I don’t think in the pi world there’s much abuse. But who knows maybe I drank the Kool aid for too long.
Delay benefits the defendants, almost exclusively. Contingency lawyers want quick turnarounds. Defendants slow roll everything.
