• Quick note - the problem with Youtube videos not embedding on the forum appears to have been fixed, thanks to ZiprHead. If you do still see problems let me know.

Lawsuit Abuse Documentary: Nice Try

Roadtoad

Bufo Caminus Inedibilis
Roadtoad
Joined
Nov 27, 2002
Messages
15,468
Location
Citrus Heights, CA
You can read the review here...

Hot Coffee’s director, Susan Saladoff, is a former medical malpractice attorney and long-time activist in trial-lawyer groups fighting to head off legal reforms that would rein in runaway juries that award nut-ball sums in personal-injury cases. And her film is studded with interviews from supposedly disinterested legal experts from groups with noble-sounding names like the Center for Justice and Democracy that are actually political front groups for trial attorneys opposing reforms.

Hot Coffee takes its name from a 1992 case that convinced many Americans that their civil-justice system had gone seriously off the rails. A 79-year-old New Mexico woman named Stella Liebeck was sitting in her car, trying to take the lid off a cup of coffee as she held it between her knees. It spilled, scalding Liebeck and triggering a lawsuit against McDonald’s that won her $2.9 million.

The case was lampooned in everything from a Crazy Al Yankovic song to a Seinfeld episode. (Looney Kramer sues a theater after parboiling his manhood while trying to sneak a cup of coffee into a movie.) But Hot Coffee argues that Liebeck and her case have gotten a bad rap.

Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/06/26/2282999/a-documentary-about-lawyers-this.html#ixzz1QsSiw65d
Click to expand...
 
It was an okay movie, her point is a good one, whee someone receives a third degree burn and it is established that the company knew that there was a problem.

I usggest you watch it, it is much better than many similar movies. It is biased but not too terrible. She certainly gives the 'other side' their space.
 
That review was wrong from the very first sentence. The documentary wasn't about frivolous lawsuits. It was about how recent legislation in tort reform heavily favors corporations over individuals.
 
I know it's from the article in The Herald, but who's this Crazy Al? Is he related to Weird Al? Or to Crazy Eddie?


I haven't seen the docu - it's not been on over here, yet - but if she really only interviewed lawyer mouthpiece groups, it's a shame. This is one of the issues that really does have two sides to it (not just Stella's story - the entire issue of tort reform/abuse). I tend to side with the anti-reformers, but I waiver a lot, frankly.
 
Saw the show.

The hot coffee case still suffers from two things: first, it conflates issues of liability with issues of damages (which many courts hold are legally separate considerations); and second, it plays upon emotions rather than reason.

Having said that, the show did accurately point out that some actions that purport to be tort reform are unjust and can be great comfort to wrongdoers. Limits on damages without regard to circumstance, and stealth arbitration "agreements" are highly questionable from both a standpoint of good policy and from a standpoint of economics.

There are other things that could be done that may result in genuine reform of the fault-based legal system. I've written at length about this before (e.g., this thread, this thread and this thread).
 
Last edited:
Here's a brainstorm for corporations:

Clean up your act, do the right thing, and don't be stupid/greedy/etc.

Then you won't get sued so much.

Look at Wal Mart, for example: sued over and over and over again for the SAME thing: wage/hour violations, discrimination, etc. How many times must they be convicted and/or found liable for the same violations before someone puts two and two together and sees that it is DELIBERATE behavior on their part.

Many companies operate on that basis. They do a cost/benefit analysis and if the benefits of doing wrong and "paying for it afterwards" are greater than those of doing the right thing all along, then they will chose to do wrong.
 
Muldur said:
Here's a brainstorm for corporations:

Clean up your act, do the right thing, and don't be stupid/greedy/etc.

Then you won't get sued so much.

Look at Wal Mart, for example: sued over and over and over again for the SAME thing: wage/hour violations, discrimination, etc. How many times must they be convicted and/or found liable for the same violations before someone puts two and two together and sees that it is DELIBERATE behavior on their part.

Many companies operate on that basis. They do a cost/benefit analysis and if the benefits of doing wrong and "paying for it afterwards" are greater than those of doing the right thing all along, then they will chose to do wrong.
Click to expand...

Sounds like the Pinto. Ford actually ran the analysis, and discovered it was cheaper to pay what might come out of lawsuits than to build a safe car.
 
Last edited:
Let us not forget the consequence of settling out of court, the corporation pay big big money and then there is a binding no talk agreement. The consequence, a company that has marmed many people can claim "We have never been found liable in a court of law."

I think that the main point of Hot Coffee was to say that it is a great right in the US to sue, regardless of who you are.
 
Roadtoad said:
Sounds like the Pinto. Ford actually ran the analysis, and discovered it was cheaper to pay what might come out of lawsuits than to build a safe car.
Click to expand...

You are entirely correct. The Pinto is the most infamous example of such behavior.

Which is why I say that punitive damages (the part that the corp lawyers most want to limit) are only a fraction of what they SHOULD be.

Punitive damages by definition are meant to punish, to make the wrongdoer hurt as an incentive not to do wrong in the future. As they stand, punitive damage awards are not much more than the proverbial petty cash to corporations, and are factored in as a cost of doing business.

Turn that punitive damage award from a (relatively small) fixed amount to a set percentage of say, the quarterly profit (and I'd set it at at least 30%), and THAT will hurt. It'll hurt even more when the shareholders go to the CEO demanding to know what the frak happened to their dividend checks that quarter.
 
Muldur said:
You are entirely correct. The Pinto is the most infamous example of such behavior.

Which is why I say that punitive damages (the part that the corp lawyers most want to limit) are only a fraction of what they SHOULD be.

Punitive damages by definition are meant to punish, to make the wrongdoer hurt as an incentive not to do wrong in the future. As they stand, punitive damage awards are not much more than the proverbial petty cash to corporations, and are factored in as a cost of doing business.

Turn that punitive damage award from a (relatively small) fixed amount to a set percentage of say, the quarterly profit (and I'd set it at at least 30%), and THAT will hurt. It'll hurt even more when the shareholders go to the CEO demanding to know what the frak happened to their dividend checks that quarter.
Click to expand...

That might make more sense, rather than multi-million dollar settlements that make no sense, particularly for minor infractions. Frankly, had Ford been forced into that situation, (and I'm fuzzy about the details, though their business practices tend to reveal a company with it's head firmly between butt-cheeks), that might have made some changes sooner, including the removal of Henry the Deuce.
 
Ultimately, any CEO or corporate board member who would agree with such a calculation should be tried for criminal negligence at the least on top of any civil penalties.
 
Roadtoad said:
Sounds like the Pinto. Ford actually ran the analysis, and discovered it was cheaper to pay what might come out of lawsuits than to build a safe recall the car.
Click to expand...

FTFY. The fault wasn't noticed untill after the vehicle had been sold to the general public and that's when Ford did the calculation.
 
Stacko said:
FTFY. The fault wasn't noticed untill after the vehicle had been sold to the general public and that's when Ford did the calculation.
Click to expand...

Either way, it was a premeditated act of wrongdoing. Someone should have done jail time for it.
 
BenBurch said:
And they did not stop making them like that.
Click to expand...
No, but they fixed the problem. It was vastly overblown* anyway. I owned a Pinto that was totalled in a rear-end collision and there was no damage other than what would have been expected in such a collision.

*(Perhaps a bad choice of words.)
 
Tricky said:
I owned a Pinto that was totalled in a rear-end collision ....
Click to expand...
Considering that to "total" a car is to do damage that would cost more to fix than the car is worth, then the damage to the Pinto might not have been all that devastating.

Of course, back in those days, it was easy to find parts for a Pinto. All you had to do was look along the side of the highway.
 
Dancing David said:
Let us not forget the consequence of settling out of court, the corporation pay big big money and then there is a binding no talk agreement. The consequence, a company that has marmed many people can claim "We have never been found liable in a court of law."
Click to expand...

I saw one of the best examples of this the other day. A gentleman came into my office with a letter from a major mortgage lender. He thought he was being sued, but it was actually a class-action settlement offer (yes, amazing that someone who couldn't tell the difference between being sued and being offered a settlement found himself involved in the mortgage mess*).

The opening of the letter detailed the grounds on which the settlement was justifed: hidden fees, improper procedure...etc. It was pretty impressive.

Then there was a paragraph that said (paraphrase): ______ admits no fault and believes this lawsuit to be without a legal basis. It is frivolous and completely without merit...etc.

So, here's a bunch of money for this list of things we did wrong, BUT WE DIDN'T DO ANYTHING WRONG AT ALL AND IF ANYONE ASKS THIS IS WITHOUT MERIT!!!! but here's your check, shut up about this.

I'm often stunned at the bizarre world of legalities we've created.

*I allocate the blame for these mortgage deals 90% to the banks, 10% to dupes. To begin, the really dangerous stuff (the leveraging, the credit default swaps...) didn't involve the people taking out the mortgages in the least, that was just malfeasance by the finance community, and as we see with Greece, it wasn't limited to subprime lending. Furthermore, financial advisors hold themselves out to the community as experts, like doctors or lawyers. People trust their advice, so when they lie to clients to make money, I find them to be much more responsible than people who don't read the fine print. I could easily talk my clients into all kinds of terrible decisions (and I've seen other lawyers do just that), but I'm ethically bound to do what's in their best interests, not mine. Understanding that power differential, the coercive influence of financial folks trying to bilk people out of their money is intense.

That being said, a lot of people were taken advantage of because they behaved stupidly.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom