Connecticut's Democratic Governor Gives Up on Tax Increases


Burner said:

And the government should bring a racketeering case against tort lawyers for collusion and price fixing. 

Or, since they are worse than ISIS, kill them all.


Yes, Shakespeare saw it a long time ago. 


Kill is a bit extreme. But I think we should shut down about 90% of law schools to reduce supply.



Burner said:

My reform would cut the maximum contingent payout to 10% or $200 per hour spent whichever is lower. And make a plaintiff's lawyer pay the other party's legal fees if the case is lost.

I pressed "like" when I meant to press "quote".

Anyway no lawyer would ever take a case under that system. 

How about if the case is won the defendant's lawyer pays the plaintiff's lawyer's fee so it does not have to come from the money going to the plaintiff? You are being absurd.



Burner said:

And the government should bring a racketeering case against tort lawyers for collusion and price fixing. 

Right after they bring that type of case against the insurance companies.

And by the way the "price" is set, at least in New Jersey, by the Supreme Court of New Jersey.



Burner said:

Yes, Shakespeare saw it a long time ago. 

No surprise that you get that reference exactly wrong.



Burner
said:

My reform would cut the maximum contingent payout to 10% or $200 per hour spent whichever is lower. And make a plaintiff's lawyer pay the other party's legal fees if the case is lost.

Well, that's certainly a free-market, anti-regulation approach.  Also, it's a great way to deprive victims of injury their day in court.

Burner said:

And the government should bring a racketeering case against tort lawyers for collusion and price fixing. 

On this, you may have a point (though, I believe, in NJ, the state sets the maximum contingency fee).


@Runner_Guy

I don't know enough about what CT has done to opine, but my point has always been invest in the infrastructure.  Use additional tax revenues to pay for investment to help grow out of the hole.  Simply doing more of same (cutting taxes and cutting services) does not work.  Even keeping taxes the same and cutting services to pay down the debt is not likely to work as the infrastructure would crumble (and, I include education within the government's infrastructure) and the deferred maintenance would result in greater costs down the road.


Is "Burner" the person who, under a different name, advocated that there be no such thing as civil courts?



LOST said:



Burner said:

My reform would cut the maximum contingent payout to 10% or $200 per hour spent whichever is lower. And make a plaintiff's lawyer pay the other party's legal fees if the case is lost.

I pressed "like" when I meant to press "quote".

Anyway no lawyer would ever take a case under that system. 

How about if the case is won the defendant's lawyer pays the plaintiff's lawyer's fee so it does not have to come from the money going to the plaintiff? You are being absurd.

Loser pays in general would be fair. At $200 per hour max.



LOST
said:

Is "Burner" the person who, under a different name, advocated that there be no such thing as civil courts?

Yes, Zoinks, ZombieZoinks, and countless other incarnations.



Burner
said:

Loser pays in general would be fair. At $200 per hour max.

Price controls?  Why for legal services and not anything else?



LOST said:



Burner said:

And the government should bring a racketeering case against tort lawyers for collusion and price fixing. 

Right after they bring that type of case against the insurance companies.

And by the way the "price" is set, at least in New Jersey, by the Supreme Court of New Jersey.

Yes. The legislature is bought and paid for by the tort bar and of course judges will help their friends and many made their fortune as tort lawyers and thus can "afford" to be judges.


Civil court judges should not be allowed to be or ever have been lawyers. It is just too incestuous. 


Burner is saying that if your kid gets seriously injured by a defective toy, you can sue the manufacturer but if you lose (and you probably will), you have to pay the for the manufacturer's lawyers (whose hourly rate is not capped).


Not exactly. I would cap that lawyer at $200 per hour too.



Burner said:

Civil court judges should not be allowed to be or ever have been lawyers. It is just too incestuous. 




Burner said:

Not exactly. I would cap that lawyer at $200 per hour too.

Because installing price controls has never backfired, right?



Steve said:



LOST
said:

Is "Burner" the person who, under a different name, advocated that there be no such thing as civil courts?

Yes, Zoinks, ZombieZoinks, and countless other incarnations.

burner is his troll persona.



ml1
said:



Steve said:



LOST
said:

Is "Burner" the person who, under a different name, advocated that there be no such thing as civil courts?

Yes, Zoinks, ZombieZoinks, and countless other incarnations.

burner is his troll persona.

#notapersona

eta:  only login used that hasn't been banned (yet)


Just amazed how people who want tort reform are basically saying big corporations (Hopsitals, drug companies, etc) should be protected from losses due to negligence.  and people seem to have no problem with a CEO making hundreds of millions of dollars but those same people want to limit how much an attorney can make.  

Tort reform = corporate welfare.  


Old person story alert. 

I took a pretty typical intro to law-type elective in college. One day the professor listed off the facts of 3 or 4 cases and asked the class to vote one way or the other. I was basically the only person who consistently chose to side with the plaintiff. 

My personal favorite was someone who used an adhesive-type product that said “use in a well ventilated area.” Guy opened all the windows in his house and put a fan in the window nearest to him. Within a few minutes, he exploded. This company basically sold the guy a bomb but everyone in the class was like “guess you shouldn’t have turned on that fan.”

I guess what I’m trying to say is, there’s not a lot of empathy going around - and there never was. 


I think stories like the one where the lady sued McDonalds because the coffee was too hot is the kind of case that makes everyone's blood boil.  But the reality is Tort reform is a license for large corporations to get away with murder (more so than same of them already do).  There is also no evidence that tort reform lowers the costs of products or services.  And yes, there are probably some shady attorneys who take cases that should never get to trial (or even a settlement) but that is a small cost to have a legal remedy against shabby products.  



mikescott said:

I think stories like the one where the lady sued McDonalds because the coffee was too hot is the kind of case that makes everyone's blood boil. 

that's because it was misrepresented by people with an ax to grind against lawyers.  McDonald's had been warned repeatedly and had a huge number of complaints about burns from their coffee.  And yet they continued to sell a product that was dangerous even when used properly.  People spill coffee on themselves all the time.  And they shouldn't be scalded if they do.  The settlement that woman got, given McDonald's arrogance and negligence regarding the beverages they sold was justified.

here's one of the key facts of the case:

McDonald's admitted that it has known about the risk of serious burns from its scalding hot coffee for more than 10 years -- the risk was brought to its attention through numerous other claims and suits, to no avail

https://centerjd.org/content/faq-about-mcdonald%E2%80%99s-coffee-case-and-use-fabricated-anecdotes


My contribution to the drift, before I read the report this weekend:

If you haven’t been involved in a personal injury case, you may not realize that the contingency fee covers only the lawyer’s hours. Plaintiffs pay for the other costs of their case — expert witnesses, depositions, tests on evidence, etc. — win or lose. And while the lawyer may carry some of those costs until a settlement or verdict, he probably needs at least some income from you along the way. It can get expensive, and is something of a built-in deterrent to us gold-diggers.



Burner said:

Civil court judges should not be allowed to be or ever have been lawyers. It is just too incestuous. 

So who should be tapped for judgeships, if not lawyers?



DaveSchmidt said:

My contribution to the drift, before I read the report this weekend:

If you haven’t been involved in a personal injury case, you may not realize that the contingency fee covers only the lawyer’s hours. Plaintiffs pay for the other costs of their case — expert witnesses, depositions, tests on evidence, etc. — win or lose. And while the lawyer may carry some of those costs until a settlement or verdict, he probably needs at least some income from you along the way. It can get expensive, and is something of a built-in deterrent to us gold-diggers.

The real deterrent is not against gold diggers. 

The deterrent is to Joe Citizen's who needs litigate against a business and often can't afford to trial against corporations that have ample resources to defend. Whereas, large businesses can easily sue Jane Citizen who usually has difficulty affording an expensive defense.

That's why class action suits that share litigation costs over large pools are useful. To prohibit class actions many consumer contracts now specify mediation.



BG9 said:

That's why class action suits that share litigation costs over large pools are useful. To prohibit class actions many consumer contracts now specify mediation.

For the record: arbitration, which is different from mediation.


Tort lawyers have turned the ordinary risks of life, and minor mistakes into profit making opportunities for themselves.

We all have gotten notification of class action suites that are essentially nuisance suites that get resolved with everyone getting a couple of dollars or maybe a coupon and the lawyers walking away with millions.

The tort bar is deeply corrupt and exploitative.  



Burner said:

Tort lawyers have turned the ordinary risks of life, and minor mistakes into profit making opportunities for themselves.

Capitalism.


Burner said:

We all have gotten notification of class action suites that are essentially nuisance suites that get resolved with everyone getting a couple of dollars or maybe a coupon and the lawyers walking away with millions.


That is very different from routine personal injury actions and the lawyers who file those are a small subset of personal injury lawyers.


But you like to post about things that you have no knowledge of.


In order to add a comment – you must Join this community – Click here to do so.