"Dudley Henriques" wrote in message
...
Matt W. Barrow wrote:
Jose wrote:
It should also be noted that one of the purposes of the tort system is
to act as a brake against corporations taking unfair advantage of their
size by making our lives more risky to the benefit of their bottom
line. To that end, it is quite reasonable to take the corporation's
attitude into account when deciding on a verdict.

His grasp of the tort system is about on par with his other knowledge.

And this guy's a teacher?





The statement is true but not complete, as are all such statements made to
push a position.

There's nothing wrong with the concept that proposes protection for the
"average citizen" from a corporation's bottom line, but the statement is
deceiving if not completed as it actually exists in today's legal system.

Actually there is something wrong with it. Consider:

1) Outside of theft, fraud/misrepresetation, or negligence (no, not
where they need to be imniscient) what damage could a corporation cause that
should be illegal or civil tort?
2) Laws exist for EVERYONE, not just the "average citizen". If
everyone's rights, even just Bill Gates and his peers, then YOUR rights are
not secure. To wit:

"He that would make his own liberty secure,
must guard even his enemy from oppression;
for if he violates this duty, he establishes
a precedent that will reach to himself." -- Thomas Paine

3) A companies bottom line is their ultimate profit after expenses are
deducted from revenues. Unless those revenues are gotten illegally (a
stretch right there, nowadays), what interest does anyone have outside an
"arms length" trade?


What's missing from the statement, and unfortunately deliberately so in
many cases, is that if the system is used as it was MEANT to be used, the
citizen has to SEEK OUT the lawyer for protection instead of the other way
around.

When lawyers seek clients to initiate litigation against large
corporations, the formula changes, or at least has a tremendous ability to
change, into a corrupt attempt to initiate lawsuits against corporations
for a profit motive instead of a protection motive.

The kicker in all this are the lawyers. The problem is that if the citizen
is dishonest, it is supposed to be incumbent on the lawyer to act as a
shield between an honest corporation and the dishonest citizen.
A HUGE percentage of the lawyers unfortunately for the country, have
chosen NOT to act as this ethical buffer and instead BENEFIT from the
dishonest citizen seeking litigation against corporations. The result of
this has been a large enough swing from honesty and ethics among lawyers
to influence the balance of the legal system away from ethics and into a
large amount of dishonesty and unethical practice by lawyers that has
literally turned the system into a business for profit.

Add to this the dishonest lawyers THEMSELVES initiating action against
corporations based completely on their personal dishonest and unethical
practice and you have the present legal system of the United States.

There are of course lawyers out here who are honest and ethical. You can
spot them in 5 seconds. They are poor by the standard of living used to
present the average income of lawyers in the United States. I actually
can't think of 1 single lawyer (and I know many) known to me personally
who is honest and ethical as I would define these terms, who I would
consider in the top income level of the legal profession.

I agree with all that; but your very premises are steps 4-17 and 1-3 have
been deleted.

You assert that the "average American" is entitled to more protection that
others. That's a "gang" mentality. No one accrues more rights or entitlement
to protections by being a member of a group. That's a major facet of
collectivism.

You might consider this a major factor in how we got to this problem in the
first place.