There certainly are good ideas out there for changing our civil
liability system, but doing anything about punitive damages is not
likely to change anything. Punitive damages are awarded in less than
5% of the cases where plaintiff wins (which means it's an even smaller
percentage of all cases) and the median punitive damage award is
$50,000. Hardly "enormous". Do you wonder why large punitive
damages are so newsworthy? It's because they are so rare.

I do think some modification of the second part of your idea would be
a good thing.


On Sun, 09 May 2004 16:55:31 GMT, David Megginson
wrote:

zip wrote:

Do you know why ultralight piilots are flying Rotax two strokes? Because the
company that makes them has NO assets in the USA, liniting the damage that
can be done to them by silly lawsuits. Same with motorcycle helmets, there
are NO manufacturers wuth assets in the U.S. Want to save american jobs?
Stop frivolous profit oriented lawsuits.

It's an easy problem to fix, if you American voters cared enough to make it
an election issue: just revise the law so that punitive damages in a law
suite go to the government instead of the plaintiff. For example, if I get
injured by someone, and the judge and jury determine that my injuries are
worth 500K plus legal costs, then I get 500K plus legal costs. If they also
decide to award 50M punitive damages to teach the defendant a lesson, that
money should go to the government like any other fine would. If lawyers
cannot hope for a cut of the (enormous) punitive damages, they'll be less
likely to take on trivial litigation.

Another alternative is the system that we have here in Canada (and, I think,
in the U.K. and other Commonwealth countries, though I'm not sure). The
loser in a civil case normally pays the winner's costs, so I'm not about to
go out and sue Lycoming or Piper unless I'm pretty sure I'll win: otherwise,
they might send me a bill for millions in legal expenses. That one might
not go over so well, though, since it discourages people from suing even
when they do have a legitimate case.


All the best,


David