05/20/2004: 
Criminally Absurd
Litigation Nation
from Newsweek
The onslaught of litigation is nothing new-nor all bad. Starting in the 1960s, crusading judges and well-meaning social reformers began opening the way for the powerless and the dispossessed to assert their rights by going to court. Large corporations and authority figures were held responsible for their carelessness or callousness. Manufacturers were forced to pay more attention to the safety of their workers and consumers, and public officials were held more accountable to the people they served.
But Americans don't just sue big corporations or bad people. They sue doctors over misfortunes that no doctor could prevent. They sue their school officials for disciplining their children for cheating. They sue their local governments when they slip and fall on the sidewalk, get hit by drunken drivers, get struck by lightning on city golf courses-and even when they get attacked by a goose in a park (that one brought the injured plaintiff $10,000). They sue their ministers for failing to prevent suicides. They sue their Little League coaches for not putting their children on the all-star team. They sue their wardens when they get hurt playing basketball in prison. They sue when their injuries are severe but self-inflicted, when their hurts are trivial and when they have not suffered at all.
The cost to society cannot be measured just in money, though the bill is enormous, an estimated $200 billion a year, more than half of it for legal fees and costs that could be used to hire more police or firefighters or teachers. Our society has been changed in a subtler, sadder way. We have been hardened and made more fearful. Friends and neighbors are more wary now. Almost anyone has to ask: if I say or do something that might be taken wrong, will I wind up in court? Mentors and teachers are restrained from offering either comfort or discipline-might that touch be misconstrued, those stern words somehow made "actionable"?
An excellent article detailing the rampant abuse of the legal system that is crippling the ability of those in the medical, educational, religious, and law enforcement fields from effectively doing their jobs. The authors cite many accounts of frivolous lawsuits, and other legal shenanigans, as well as discussing the efforts of the legal reformers who are trying to make a difference. For past articles on the subject, "more" below.
More
- Slave descendants file $1 billion suit against corporations
- Greenville Man Sues for Alleged Scalding
- Top 5 Ridiculous Lawsuits of 2003
- I have been scarred by a Jackson, who is, surprisingly not Michael
- RIAA Files 532 Music-Sharing Lawsuits
- I got free cable for four years and it made my family fat and lazy. I'm suing.
- Woman Files $10M Suit Vs. Starbucks
- Model, 2, Seeks Lost Wages in Mishap
- I am calling Shenanigans on the RIAA
- The PC Police are at it again
- A 12-year-old Arkansas boy has been has been convicted of a felony terrorist act for shooting the windows of three school buses.
3 Annotations Submitted
Thursday the 20th of May, awiggins noted:
What perfect timing. Here are a couple more examples for you.
Thursday the 20th of May, The St. Louis Post-Dispatch noted:
Mother of accused serial killer sues over death in jail
The federal suit claims that the civil rights of Maury Travis - who authorities believe killed as many as 20 people - were violated by negligence and building flaws.
The mother of accused serial killer Maury Travis, whose bizarre hanging death in the St. Louis County Justice Center was ruled a suicide, filed a suit Friday against the county, the architects who designed the jail and the contractors who built it.
The federal suit by Sandra Travis Harden claims her son's civil rights were violated by negligence and building flaws while he was supposed to be on a suicide watch after his arrest in June 2002 on federal charges involving two kidnappings.
Authorities say they believe that Travis, 36, was responsible for as many as 20 murders across the area, including one that he videotaped in the basement of his home in Ferguson. All the known victims were drug-addicted prostitutes. Almost a dozen bodies have been found, mainly along roadsides. Some have never been identified.
Harden's suit says that even though U.S. marshals had warned that Travis was suicidal, jail officials failed to check on him for as long as two hours at a time, and relied on fellow inmates to act as "suicide prevention monitors."
After Travis was found hanging by the neck from a strip of bedsheet tied to an air vent, authorities discovered a note in his cell, in which he apologized to his mother, said he was "sick in the head" and declared he was killing himself.
Travis was alone in the locked cell. Officials said he had managed to put a pillowcase over his head, toilet paper in his nostrils, a washcloth in his mouth and to bind his hands behind him.
Harden's suit also claims her son was held in a cell that architects designed - and builders put together - with blind spots in cells and an air vent that should not have accommodated a hanging.
The suit, in U.S. District Court at St. Louis, seeks $75,000 in burial costs, plus costs of the litigation.
Thursday the 20th of May, WPVI Philadelphia noted:
Strip Bar Patron Claims Fraud
An insurance company executive is claiming some financial hanky-panky occurred during a visit to an upscale strip club that left him out $28,000.
Mitchell Blaser, 54, filed a lawsuit Wednesday claiming he was stripped of the money through bogus credit card charges after a night out with two friends at the Manhattan topless club Scores.
A Scores spokesman denied the accusation, saying Blaser was spending "like a rock star" and the club's paperwork proves it. The tab for the evening included $16,000 for five bottles of top-of-the-line Champagne and $7,000 for lap dances.
Blaser, CFO for the American division of Swiss Reinsurance Co., said when he complained that the bill was wrong, club employees told him to sign or he would not get his credit card back.
Scores spokesman Lonnie Hanover said club employees checked with American Express several times during the night while Blaser was there to make sure that his line of credit permitted the kind of spending he was doing.
Hanover said American Express investigated Blaser's complaints in January. He said the credit card company sent Scores a letter dated Jan. 22 confirming that the charges were legitimate.
