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The root cause of this is the "American rule" of costs. It's no where near as viable to troll when you have to pay their costs when you lose (especially given t
by epicgiga 7y ago
The root cause of this is the "American rule" of costs. It's no where near as viable to troll when you have to pay their costs when you lose (especially given that frequently the plaintiffs are lawyers themselves, so aren't actually spending any legal fees to troll).
The case portrayed in the TV show "Silicon Valley" was illustrative: "best just to settle because it'll cost us less", because the mere act of suing itself financially damages the victim, often severely, given lawyers' typical rates.
But not so under the "English rule": it costs you nothing if they lose.
- t0mas88 7y agoIndeed, most of Europe has a form of the "English rule", it results in relatively low cost lawsuit insurance (for lack of a better translation) and not nearly as much frivolous lawsuits. Basically if you get sued your insurance company will send their in-house lawyers, and in the end send a large bill to whoever filed the frivolous lawsuit. Very bad economical model to go and sue large groups of you're not going to win, because the defendant's legal costs will quickly bankrupt you.
- pbhjpbhj 7y agoI can't understand for the life of me why USA don't make awards of costs to successful defendants, is there a logic to it that I'm missing?
- patentatt 7y agoThe benefit is that it lowers barriers to entry to the legal system.
- epicgiga 7y agoThat's not a benefit. "Entering the legal system" is just as often someone suing you (including BS reasons like in the OP) as it is suing someone else, and if you can't "enter the legal system" because you know you'll lose and have to pay for it, that's a good thing.
- steveeq1 7y agobecause lawyers make more money that way.
- epicgiga 7y agoThis. This and this alone.