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How do you know this to be true? From a cursory search it looks like 95% of lawsuits for personal injury never make it to trial, so the judiciary is never invol

by Kranar 4y ago

How do you know this to be true? From a cursory search it looks like 95% of lawsuits for personal injury never make it to trial, so the judiciary is never involved in the vast majority of cases. Of the 5% that do make it to trial, only 56% of them result in any award for the plaintiff and if you look at the breakdown [1], that's because of auto accidents which can hardly be said to be a case of "blame is laid on the person who has money", especially when you look at how much money is awarded in such claims. Premises injuries has only a 39% success rate. Product liability has a 38% success rate. Medical malpractice has only a 19% success rate. What do you know about the judiciary that leads you to your claim? [1] https://www.cloudlex.com/tips-and-tricks/personal-injury-cases-to-trial/ https://www.cloudlex.com/tips-and-tricks/personal-injury-cas...

WalterBright 4y ago
How about the playground equipment at schools has all been wussified due to lawsuits? Or kids' chemistry sets that went in the 1960s from an advanced chemistry course to little more than kitchen recipes? All the result of lawsuits. Then there was a painter who fell off his own ladder while painting Steve Ballmer's mansion, who successfully sued Ballmer for zillions. And people in general who carry millions of dollars in liability insurance. As for "not making it to trial", people often settle out of fear of what would happen in court, not because the lawsuits wouldn't get traction in court.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- Kranar 4y ago
  I think you're just making things up based on an unfounded and certainly unsubstantiated perception of reality. Do you have any reference for your claim about Steve Ballmer? I tried numerous different ways of searching for it and none of them produce any kind of result. I also tried Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, and some other rich tech CEOs but nothing comes up. Once again, you may have heard some kind of anecdotes or stories and mixed things up in your mind to create an image of what you think is real, but the actual statistics and facts do not back up your bold assertions. For example, it's not lawsuits that put an end to the chemistry sets of the 1960s, it's the Toxic Substances Control Act together with the The Toy Safety Act that removed the use of lead, poisons, acids and other toxic chemicals from chemistry sets that were marketing towards kids. Had nothing to do with lawsuits but rather due to legislation. If you want actually want to blame something for the decline of the modern chemistry set, it has more to do with policymakers concerns about their use in illegal drug manufacturing than it does with any kind of lawsuit.
  - HWR_14 4y ago
    > it's the Toxic Substances Control Act together with the The Toy Safety Act I think it's good to note in cases like this that both were bipartisan (in passage if not in origination), lest one side or the other think this was an ideological issue.
  - WalterBright 4y ago
    > Do you have any reference for your claim about Steve Ballmer? It was some years ago in the Seattle Times. Sorry I didn't keep a clipping. I was also injured once in a car accident, being hit by a garbage truck. The ambulance people told me I hit the jackpot. People came out of the woodwork recommending personal injury lawyers who could set me up for life. People at work all told me I had the million dollar injury. People were coaching (unasked) me on how to pretend I was much more injured than I was. All I asked for was to pay the medical bills and lost time at work and my car. The opposition lawyer was aghast, and was certainly eager to sign that deal. But I'm just imagining things, right? I could be wrong about the chemistry set emasculation. But just a couple weeks ago on HN there was a long thread about the wussification of school playgrounds.
    - Kranar 4y ago
      >It was some years ago in the Seattle Times. Sorry I didn't keep a clipping. The Seattle Times has a searchable archive of all their articles going back 30 years. Searches for "Ballmer lawsuit", "Ballmer painter", "Ballmer ladder" all turn up nothing. It looks like you made this story up; not in an intentionally deceptive manner mind you, but the same way old wives make up stories by mixing together pieces of different stories taken out of context together to fit a narrative. Your anecdote about getting into an accident is tragic, but has nothing to do to support your claim that, and I quote: "it's never the injured person who is at fault, it's always somebody nearby who has money." Finally your point about wussification of school playgrounds is precisely what I wish to avoid. There was basically a conversation on HN where people parroted opinions about how playgrounds are wussified, and just like with this discussion it probably had no facts or evidence to substantiate the claim but you accepted the claims made in that discussion simply on the basis that it appeals to your belief system. Do not believe everything you read on this site. You can be mindful that people on this site have opinions on certain topics, but do not take those opinions and then reassert them as if they are facts. This site is just as full of misinformation and biases as any other, where people pretend to be experts and assert categorical statements on subjects they have no expertise in because it appeals to their beliefs. Yes this place is more civil about spreading misinformation, but misinformation is no more factual just because the people spreading it do so politely.
- ridgeguy 4y ago
  I have fond memories of my Gilbert chemistry set, circa 1964. It allowed me to learn chemistry and get in slightly serious trouble if I didn't pay attention. Totally excellent. Not long ago, I checked out buying a chem set for my grand-niece. Completely uninspiring. Color changes. Baking soda/vinegar fizzes. I bought her good archery equipment. I'll take care of the chemistry inspiration with my own curriculum.
  - WalterBright 4y ago
    My Gilbert chemistry set was the last one before they were emasculated. Had a lot of fun with it, but didn't learn much chemistry :-) I was smart enough not to eat the copper sulfate.
majormajor 4y ago
Let's assume that all the successful "awards for plaintiff" claims were 100% justified. That's 56% of 5% of total lawsuits. So that suggests that 97.2% of those lawsuits are unsuccessful. From WalterBright's comments my guess is that his position would be something like "a ton of money and time is wasted lawyers and other legal stuff due to a system that accepts so many frivolous suits." But another person could interpret that as "there are a lot of legitimate claims in that 97.2% that end up being unsuccessful because the US system is unfriendly to you if you don't have $$$ to pursue a case." Close to the complete opposite. In terms of "how good the US judicial system for these sorts of liability cases," I'm not sure that actually matters much, though! In either case, there's a lot of waste and a lot of failures in the system. A system that relied less on adversarial procedures and each side retaining their own council and more on judges with independent fact-finders or arbitrators seems very preferable! If you're of the "it's rigged against the plaintiff" view, this system could be much harder to drown in paperwork and spurious procedural stuff like a large corporation can do to a small plaintiff today. And if you're in the "most of this shouldn't even get this far, it's too easy to file nuisance suits" camp, this system could toss out ridiculous things sooner. This sort of "inquisitorial" or "nonadversarial" system is used in a few places in the US (like traffic court) and much more extensively in some countries.
- Kranar 4y ago
  I interpreted WalterBright's comment as an ignorant way of saying that people today don't take responsibility for their own actions and instead try to find someone rich enough to pin the blame on, especially as a means of enriching themselves. The statistics do not support that claim. If you wish to make a more nuanced claim and discuss it, then by all means feel free to do so directly, without speculating about what WalterBright meant. It would be nice to do it on the basis of some kind of evidence though.
  - majormajor 4y ago
    " The US judiciary is far too friendly to personal injury lawsuits." from WalterBright is a quite different claim than simply "people don't take responsibility." It's about who the system pushes responsibility onto, plaintiffs or defendants. My own position was in my second to last paragraph: the US system sucks regardless of if you think it favors plaintiffs or defendants.
jjav 4y ago
> From a cursory search it looks like 95% of lawsuits for personal injury never make it to trial, so the judiciary is never involved in the vast majority of cases. These decisions don't happen in a vacuum, they happen in an environment where the companies (their lawyers) know that settling nearly every unreasonable lawuit is still cheaper than risking going to a trial.

by Kranar 4y ago

WalterBright 4y ago

How about the playground equipment at schools has all been wussified due to lawsuits? Or kids' chemistry sets that went in the 1960s from an advanced chemistry course to little more than kitchen recipes? All the result of lawsuits. Then there was a painter who fell off his own ladder while painting Steve Ballmer's mansion, who successfully sued Ballmer for zillions. And people in general who carry millions of dollars in liability insurance. As for "not making it to trial", people often settle out of fear of what would happen in court, not because the lawsuits wouldn't get traction in court.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
Kranar 4y ago
I think you're just making things up based on an unfounded and certainly unsubstantiated perception of reality. Do you have any reference for your claim about Steve Ballmer? I tried numerous different ways of searching for it and none of them produce any kind of result. I also tried Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, and some other rich tech CEOs but nothing comes up. Once again, you may have heard some kind of anecdotes or stories and mixed things up in your mind to create an image of what you think is real, but the actual statistics and facts do not back up your bold assertions. For example, it's not lawsuits that put an end to the chemistry sets of the 1960s, it's the Toxic Substances Control Act together with the The Toy Safety Act that removed the use of lead, poisons, acids and other toxic chemicals from chemistry sets that were marketing towards kids. Had nothing to do with lawsuits but rather due to legislation. If you want actually want to blame something for the decline of the modern chemistry set, it has more to do with policymakers concerns about their use in illegal drug manufacturing than it does with any kind of lawsuit.
- HWR_14 4y ago
  > it's the Toxic Substances Control Act together with the The Toy Safety Act I think it's good to note in cases like this that both were bipartisan (in passage if not in origination), lest one side or the other think this was an ideological issue.
- WalterBright 4y ago
  > Do you have any reference for your claim about Steve Ballmer? It was some years ago in the Seattle Times. Sorry I didn't keep a clipping. I was also injured once in a car accident, being hit by a garbage truck. The ambulance people told me I hit the jackpot. People came out of the woodwork recommending personal injury lawyers who could set me up for life. People at work all told me I had the million dollar injury. People were coaching (unasked) me on how to pretend I was much more injured than I was. All I asked for was to pay the medical bills and lost time at work and my car. The opposition lawyer was aghast, and was certainly eager to sign that deal. But I'm just imagining things, right? I could be wrong about the chemistry set emasculation. But just a couple weeks ago on HN there was a long thread about the wussification of school playgrounds.
  - Kranar 4y ago
    >It was some years ago in the Seattle Times. Sorry I didn't keep a clipping. The Seattle Times has a searchable archive of all their articles going back 30 years. Searches for "Ballmer lawsuit", "Ballmer painter", "Ballmer ladder" all turn up nothing. It looks like you made this story up; not in an intentionally deceptive manner mind you, but the same way old wives make up stories by mixing together pieces of different stories taken out of context together to fit a narrative. Your anecdote about getting into an accident is tragic, but has nothing to do to support your claim that, and I quote: "it's never the injured person who is at fault, it's always somebody nearby who has money." Finally your point about wussification of school playgrounds is precisely what I wish to avoid. There was basically a conversation on HN where people parroted opinions about how playgrounds are wussified, and just like with this discussion it probably had no facts or evidence to substantiate the claim but you accepted the claims made in that discussion simply on the basis that it appeals to your belief system. Do not believe everything you read on this site. You can be mindful that people on this site have opinions on certain topics, but do not take those opinions and then reassert them as if they are facts. This site is just as full of misinformation and biases as any other, where people pretend to be experts and assert categorical statements on subjects they have no expertise in because it appeals to their beliefs. Yes this place is more civil about spreading misinformation, but misinformation is no more factual just because the people spreading it do so politely.
ridgeguy 4y ago
I have fond memories of my Gilbert chemistry set, circa 1964. It allowed me to learn chemistry and get in slightly serious trouble if I didn't pay attention. Totally excellent. Not long ago, I checked out buying a chem set for my grand-niece. Completely uninspiring. Color changes. Baking soda/vinegar fizzes. I bought her good archery equipment. I'll take care of the chemistry inspiration with my own curriculum.
- WalterBright 4y ago
  My Gilbert chemistry set was the last one before they were emasculated. Had a lot of fun with it, but didn't learn much chemistry :-) I was smart enough not to eat the copper sulfate.

majormajor 4y ago

Let's assume that all the successful "awards for plaintiff" claims were 100% justified. That's 56% of 5% of total lawsuits. So that suggests that 97.2% of those lawsuits are unsuccessful. From WalterBright's comments my guess is that his position would be something like "a ton of money and time is wasted lawyers and other legal stuff due to a system that accepts so many frivolous suits." But another person could interpret that as "there are a lot of legitimate claims in that 97.2% that end up being unsuccessful because the US system is unfriendly to you if you don't have $$$ to pursue a case." Close to the complete opposite. In terms of "how good the US judicial system for these sorts of liability cases," I'm not sure that actually matters much, though! In either case, there's a lot of waste and a lot of failures in the system. A system that relied less on adversarial procedures and each side retaining their own council and more on judges with independent fact-finders or arbitrators seems very preferable! If you're of the "it's rigged against the plaintiff" view, this system could be much harder to drown in paperwork and spurious procedural stuff like a large corporation can do to a small plaintiff today. And if you're in the "most of this shouldn't even get this far, it's too easy to file nuisance suits" camp, this system could toss out ridiculous things sooner. This sort of "inquisitorial" or "nonadversarial" system is used in a few places in the US (like traffic court) and much more extensively in some countries.

Kranar 4y ago
I interpreted WalterBright's comment as an ignorant way of saying that people today don't take responsibility for their own actions and instead try to find someone rich enough to pin the blame on, especially as a means of enriching themselves. The statistics do not support that claim. If you wish to make a more nuanced claim and discuss it, then by all means feel free to do so directly, without speculating about what WalterBright meant. It would be nice to do it on the basis of some kind of evidence though.
- majormajor 4y ago
  " The US judiciary is far too friendly to personal injury lawsuits." from WalterBright is a quite different claim than simply "people don't take responsibility." It's about who the system pushes responsibility onto, plaintiffs or defendants. My own position was in my second to last paragraph: the US system sucks regardless of if you think it favors plaintiffs or defendants.

jjav 4y ago

> From a cursory search it looks like 95% of lawsuits for personal injury never make it to trial, so the judiciary is never involved in the vast majority of cases. These decisions don't happen in a vacuum, they happen in an environment where the companies (their lawyers) know that settling nearly every unreasonable lawuit is still cheaper than risking going to a trial.