[Kranar]

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-cas...

[WalterBright]

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.

[ridgeguy]

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]

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.

[Kranar]

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.

[WalterBright]

> 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]

>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.

[WalterBright]

> It looks like you made this story up

I understand that it is not in the ST archives, and because of that, you do not believe it. That's a perfectly reasonable position for you to take. I did not make it up, though. But I'll still withdraw it pending finding citable evidence.

As for playgrounds:

https://www.facesoflawsuitabuse.org/2018/06/lawsuits-take-sc...

https://www.paloaltoonline.com/news/2020/09/25/elementary-st...

[WalterBright]

> 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."

The intended target of the lawsuit was the company that operated the truck that hit me, not the operator. The reason is simple, the truck driver didn't have any money, and the company did.

I hope you carry liability insurance, because if someone trips in your yard and breaks an arm and your house looks expensive, they're going to sue you.

[Kranar]

>The reason is simple, the truck driver didn't have any money, and the company did.

The reason is simple, but has nothing to do with what you think it does. The legal principle is known as vicarious liability which means that employers are vicariously liable for accidents arising as a result of the actions of their employees during the scope and course of employment.

You were advised to sue the company because the company was the only entity who could possibly be liable for the accident you suffered.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vicarious_liability

[HWR_14]

> 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.

[majormajor]

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]

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]

" 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.

[Kranar]

The original post is literally two sentences and you omit the sentence that is pertinent to my point. I think that alone says all it needs to about the manner by which you are evaluating this topic.

All the best to you.

[majormajor]

You keep saying you'd prefer to engage with a more specific claim about the legal system rather than argue about what WalterBright meant, yet you keep avoiding engaging with that part in favor of debating that meaning!

Rather, you're now narrowing the debate to whether or not their "The prevailing atmosphere" is refering to "The US judiciary" - the subject of the previous sentence - or society at large. Which I read differently than you, but also doesn't matter.

Sooooo if you want to engage with my actual position, do so! What are your thoughts on adversarial legalism? Or if you want to keep playing debate cop instead, have fun, but... why?

[HWR_14]

> So that suggests that 97.2% of those lawsuits are unsuccessful.

If you assume the 95% of lawsuits that settle were 0% justified. On the other hand, I'll just assume that the guilt was so apparent there was no point of putting up a defense and wasting the money. So that means that a shocking 97.8% of personal injury claims are valid.

The rest of your post relies on your assumption being valid, which I vehemently disagree with. I don't really think it's 100%, but I do think it's closer to 100% than 0%.

[majormajor]

The rest of my post is actually saying the system sucks regardless of who's getting the short stick today.

I didn't interpret "don't make it to trial" as "100% settle" - my initial assumption was that they got thrown out instead. Probably it's a mix, that's a fair point.

Cases being settled, to me, though, still suggest that we would do better in a system where "bothering to fight it" isn't a question of deep pockets, and buying people off isn't an option, and things actually end up in front of judges. For transparency alone, vs confidential settlements.

[HWR_14]

> I didn't interpret "don't make it to trial" as "100% settle" - my initial assumption was that they got thrown out instead.

According to the source the OP cited, the vast majority settle (according to the source's source, it seems like 10-20% are thrown out.)

They list the primary reason that cases settle isn't a question of deep pockets. It's that the plaintiff's attorney makes a case for the jury amount to be $X-$Y dollars and Y-X is a small enough spread that everyone would rather just settle the case than go through a jury trial when they are 90%+ (I made up that percentage) in agreement. That is, when they agree the defendant owes $XXX +/- 5%. Why waste the time on the last few thousand when they can split the difference and go home?

Meanwhile, if you're considered about regulatory capture, a jury and not a bench trial seem better. For what it's worth, the US system totally lets the judge decide the entire matter if both sides agree to waive the jury. It seems like that's the case in ~25-33% of cases that make their way to trial.

[jjav]

> 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.