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The USA is extremely litigious, rules are decided not by the legislature usually but instead by people suing each other to establish case law, and anyone with a

The USA is extremely litigious, rules are decided not by the legislature usually but instead by people suing each other to establish case law, and anyone with a bone to pick could sink you in legal fees and proceedings at a whim. So probably people who don’t like the idea of adult content can use the courts to make payment processors’ lives painful and they decide to just forgo that business. US courts are too easy to use as a tool of abuse.

dahart 1y ago
This is an oft-repeated misconception. Germany is almost twice as litigious as the US. Sweden and Austria are also more litigious than the US. > anyone with a bone to pick could sink you in legal fees and proceedings at a whim This is FUD, not reality. While it’s “possible” for anyone in any country to try to sue, it simply doesn’t happen in the US more often than elsewhere. The relatively high number of US lawsuits are filled with corporate litigation, contract disputes, bankruptcy filings, car accidents, and appeals, among many other things, and not people suing each other for minor grievances. “Coffee spills, Pokemon class actions, tobacco settlements. American courts have made a name for themselves as a wild lottery and a money machine for lucky few lawyers. At least in part, however, the reputation is unfounded. American courts seem to handle routine contract and tort disputes as well as their peers in other wealthy democracies. “More generally, Americans do not file an unusually high number of law suits. They do not employ large numbers of judges or lawyers. They do not pay more than people in comparable countries to enforce contracts. And they do not pay unusually high prices for insurance against routine torts. “Instead, American courts have made the bad name for themselves by mishandling a few peculiar categories of law suits. In this article, we use securities class actions and mass torts to illustrate the phenomenon, but anyone who reads a newspaper could suggest alternatives. “The implications for reform are straightforward: focus not on the litigation as a whole; focus on the specifically mishandled types of suits.” http://www.law.harvard.edu/programs/olin_center/papers/pdf/Ramseyer_681.pdf http://www.law.harvard.edu/programs/olin_center/papers/pdf/R...
- presentation 1y ago
  I can also pull out numbers and statistics that make it sound like the US is more litigous than other nations, like how it spends way more than any country as a fraction of GDP on litigation [1] as well as how litigation is used frivolously to prevent projects by weaponizing environmental regulation like NEPA and CEQA, to prevent the construction of practically anything in the USA. But all that aside, taking that Harvard law article at face value, there are specifically mishandled types of suits, and those include those that are intended to inflict cost on payments processors to get them to reject customers that otherwise aren't doing anything illegal, but just operate in an industry that those suing don't like. [1] https://instituteforlegalreform.com/wp-content/uploads/media/ILR_NERA_Study_International_Liability_Costs-update.pdf#:~:text=%E2%80%A2%20The%20U,Belgium%2C%20the%20Netherlands%20and%20Portugal https://instituteforlegalreform.com/wp-content/uploads/media...
  - dahart 1y ago
    What point are you trying to make now? This has little to do with citizens suing each other, and doesn’t demonstrate that US litigation is either frivolous nor widely abused. The cost of litigation doesn’t prove the US is more litigious, it only demonstrates litigation is expensive in the US. The fact that Germany is the most litigious and that multiple other countries are more litigious than the US is extremely easy for you to verify. The Institute for Legal Reform is a group that historically denied climate change, and they are funded by and run entirely in the interests of the US’s largest corporations. Personally, I like clean air and water, and US corporations don’t have a great track record of telling the truth about their impacts on the environment. Forgive me if I don’t readily put a lot of stock in their complaints. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Chamber_of_Commerce#Climate_change https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Chamber_of_Comme...

dahart 1y ago

This is an oft-repeated misconception. Germany is almost twice as litigious as the US. Sweden and Austria are also more litigious than the US. > anyone with a bone to pick could sink you in legal fees and proceedings at a whim This is FUD, not reality. While it’s “possible” for anyone in any country to try to sue, it simply doesn’t happen in the US more often than elsewhere. The relatively high number of US lawsuits are filled with corporate litigation, contract disputes, bankruptcy filings, car accidents, and appeals, among many other things, and not people suing each other for minor grievances. “Coffee spills, Pokemon class actions, tobacco settlements. American courts have made a name for themselves as a wild lottery and a money machine for lucky few lawyers. At least in part, however, the reputation is unfounded. American courts seem to handle routine contract and tort disputes as well as their peers in other wealthy democracies. “More generally, Americans do not file an unusually high number of law suits. They do not employ large numbers of judges or lawyers. They do not pay more than people in comparable countries to enforce contracts. And they do not pay unusually high prices for insurance against routine torts. “Instead, American courts have made the bad name for themselves by mishandling a few peculiar categories of law suits. In this article, we use securities class actions and mass torts to illustrate the phenomenon, but anyone who reads a newspaper could suggest alternatives. “The implications for reform are straightforward: focus not on the litigation as a whole; focus on the specifically mishandled types of suits.” http://www.law.harvard.edu/programs/olin_center/papers/pdf/Ramseyer_681.pdf http://www.law.harvard.edu/programs/olin_center/papers/pdf/R...

presentation 1y ago
I can also pull out numbers and statistics that make it sound like the US is more litigous than other nations, like how it spends way more than any country as a fraction of GDP on litigation [1] as well as how litigation is used frivolously to prevent projects by weaponizing environmental regulation like NEPA and CEQA, to prevent the construction of practically anything in the USA. But all that aside, taking that Harvard law article at face value, there are specifically mishandled types of suits, and those include those that are intended to inflict cost on payments processors to get them to reject customers that otherwise aren't doing anything illegal, but just operate in an industry that those suing don't like. [1] https://instituteforlegalreform.com/wp-content/uploads/media/ILR_NERA_Study_International_Liability_Costs-update.pdf#:~:text=%E2%80%A2%20The%20U,Belgium%2C%20the%20Netherlands%20and%20Portugal https://instituteforlegalreform.com/wp-content/uploads/media...
- dahart 1y ago
  What point are you trying to make now? This has little to do with citizens suing each other, and doesn’t demonstrate that US litigation is either frivolous nor widely abused. The cost of litigation doesn’t prove the US is more litigious, it only demonstrates litigation is expensive in the US. The fact that Germany is the most litigious and that multiple other countries are more litigious than the US is extremely easy for you to verify. The Institute for Legal Reform is a group that historically denied climate change, and they are funded by and run entirely in the interests of the US’s largest corporations. Personally, I like clean air and water, and US corporations don’t have a great track record of telling the truth about their impacts on the environment. Forgive me if I don’t readily put a lot of stock in their complaints. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Chamber_of_Commerce#Climate_change https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Chamber_of_Comme...