4 ms·

There's too many lawyers, it wouldn't be a problem if law school was cheaper but the fact that so many of them have big student loan debts means they have to fi

There's too many lawyers, it wouldn't be a problem if law school was cheaper but the fact that so many of them have big student loan debts means they have to find reasons to sue people in order to pay of those bills.

dane-pgp 5y ago
Yes, it's those evil schools making all the lawyers greedy, when lawyers would otherwise just sit around hoping that no one would need their services.
ModernMech 5y ago
This isn't happening because of a glut of lawyers. This is happening because some people wanted to make an end-run around settled precedent, SCOTUS decided to humor them for some reason, and now all manner of nonsense is being attempted, because why not? Apparently it's okay to make a law that completely nullifies people's constitutional rights, and SCOTUS will let that just sit on the books while they take their time with their review. This is a huge loophole in the law and the justice system. Apparently there is some set of laws such that if written the right way, they can be completely and blatantly unconstitutional yet still remain in effect. This is effectively a backdoor around the constitution, and the question right now is: which laws will SCOTUS refuse to stay? And how much damage can we do in the interim period when the law has been challenged but neither overturned nor stayed? How much can we get away with?
- WillPostForFood 5y ago
  This has nothing to do with SCOTUS or avoiding legal review. California has been doing this for over a decade, since they past the Private Attorneys General Act. It is a bad way to outsource bad policy to private citizens, and is a big handout to a powerful interest group, trial lawyers. https://www.dir.ca.gov/Private-Attorneys-General-Act/Private-Attorneys-General-Act.html https://www.dir.ca.gov/Private-Attorneys-General-Act/Private...
- kmeisthax 5y ago
  The dirty secret is that civil lawsuits and common law are a constitutional blind spot. So much of the constitution only really applies to state actors[0], which means that private litigants are relatively unrestrained[1] in their ability to wield state power against other private litigants. In other words, the constitution doesn't care about your rights until and unless it means you being put behind bars. The reason why SCOTUS is humoring Texas is because actually stopping their legal shenaniganery requires legislating a whole new tort reform regime from the bench. 'Cause that's the only thing that would really work to stop Texas: ending or severely curtailing "private AG"[2] causes of action in the law. But that also means rolling back a lot of legal liability that corporations otherwise would have for their actions. Balancing this properly would be difficult - it's something that Congress really should be doing, not the Supreme Court... but they never did, so now here we are. [0] "State actors" means all levels of government plus private corporations acting in the role of a government. [1] For starters, the 5th Amendment does not apply to civil litigation. If the government wants to throw you in jail for 10 years for making counterfeit Mickey Mouse merch, you are allowed to refuse to testify and the court cannot assume your guilt from a refusal to testify. However, if Disney sued you for $10,000,000 for the same tort, you can be forced to testify against yourself and refusal to do so will result in an "adverse inference" being placed upon you. [2] Laws which allow private individuals to bring class action lawsuits on behalf of some public interest, in lieu of the US government prosecuting them. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_attorney_general https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_attorney_general

dane-pgp 5y ago

Yes, it's those evil schools making all the lawyers greedy, when lawyers would otherwise just sit around hoping that no one would need their services.

ModernMech 5y ago

This isn't happening because of a glut of lawyers. This is happening because some people wanted to make an end-run around settled precedent, SCOTUS decided to humor them for some reason, and now all manner of nonsense is being attempted, because why not? Apparently it's okay to make a law that completely nullifies people's constitutional rights, and SCOTUS will let that just sit on the books while they take their time with their review. This is a huge loophole in the law and the justice system. Apparently there is some set of laws such that if written the right way, they can be completely and blatantly unconstitutional yet still remain in effect. This is effectively a backdoor around the constitution, and the question right now is: which laws will SCOTUS refuse to stay? And how much damage can we do in the interim period when the law has been challenged but neither overturned nor stayed? How much can we get away with?

WillPostForFood 5y ago
This has nothing to do with SCOTUS or avoiding legal review. California has been doing this for over a decade, since they past the Private Attorneys General Act. It is a bad way to outsource bad policy to private citizens, and is a big handout to a powerful interest group, trial lawyers. https://www.dir.ca.gov/Private-Attorneys-General-Act/Private-Attorneys-General-Act.html https://www.dir.ca.gov/Private-Attorneys-General-Act/Private...
kmeisthax 5y ago
The dirty secret is that civil lawsuits and common law are a constitutional blind spot. So much of the constitution only really applies to state actors[0], which means that private litigants are relatively unrestrained[1] in their ability to wield state power against other private litigants. In other words, the constitution doesn't care about your rights until and unless it means you being put behind bars. The reason why SCOTUS is humoring Texas is because actually stopping their legal shenaniganery requires legislating a whole new tort reform regime from the bench. 'Cause that's the only thing that would really work to stop Texas: ending or severely curtailing "private AG"[2] causes of action in the law. But that also means rolling back a lot of legal liability that corporations otherwise would have for their actions. Balancing this properly would be difficult - it's something that Congress really should be doing, not the Supreme Court... but they never did, so now here we are. [0] "State actors" means all levels of government plus private corporations acting in the role of a government. [1] For starters, the 5th Amendment does not apply to civil litigation. If the government wants to throw you in jail for 10 years for making counterfeit Mickey Mouse merch, you are allowed to refuse to testify and the court cannot assume your guilt from a refusal to testify. However, if Disney sued you for $10,000,000 for the same tort, you can be forced to testify against yourself and refusal to do so will result in an "adverse inference" being placed upon you. [2] Laws which allow private individuals to bring class action lawsuits on behalf of some public interest, in lieu of the US government prosecuting them. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_attorney_general https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_attorney_general