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Fundamental Legal Principles - Complaint #107
by Q I firmly believe that the US legal system (in particular, though probably not uniquely) have a few fundamental flaws which really need to be addressed to further avoid abuse and to further promote justice. Let me make it clear, I'm not a lawyer nor do I aspire to be one, I'm just an ordinary guy with an ordinary interest in and concern for my rights and the consequences of the laws which we everyday agree agree to abide by (through our tacit approval of them).
Today I'm going to suggest a reform for the outrageous judgements seemingly routinely awarded in big civil trials which seems to turn the court system into some sort of lottery. The solution is so simple I don't understand why it's not been discussed, let alone put into law. The civil courts seem fundamentally based on the notion that where a wrong was committed the injured party must be made "whole". (Now, by whole the courts do not mean that a victim's arm torn off by a badly designed washing machine is magically re-attached, but it seeks to compensate them for their pain/suffering/lost income/future related problems/losses.) Why then do we award "punitive damages" to the victim? That makes no sense at all. By rewarding punitive damages to the victim we make them more than whole. Further, most of these big-award cases are ones undertaken by lawyers working on a percentage. The bigger the award the victim receives, the bigger the payment they get, the further they are encouraged to pursue similar lawsuits. The concept behind punitive damages is just. Punish the person or company that has done wrong in excess of the damage they caused in the incidents being adjudicated so that they "get the message". That is reasonable and necessary. The laws should be changed such that punitive damages do NOT go to the victim. They should instead go to a general fund totally out of the reach of the president, congress, governors, or mayors who would seek to spend the money as a tax (which it is not, since that would encourage government to promote civil cases to fill their coffers). The fund should be disbursed (presumably randomly or based on some objective performance-based criteria) to national charities. Obviously suitable means should be used to prevent these charities from doing anything to encourage/promote/incite civil lawsuits as well; perhaps making disbursement of monies only once per 5-10 years for any given charity, and making any charity inelligible if they have been involved to any degree in any cases (whether found to be promoting such cases or actual plaintiffs).
With this approach the victim still gets made entirely "whole" (which is the goal of the law) and lawyers approach cases more on their merits and less on the depth of the pockets of the offending company. (I'm also for some reform on the whole contingency fee stuff, and lawyers getting a percentage, but that's a complicated issue since clearly there are many without resources who need justice and whose only present way to get it is to use such lawyers. So, that's a mostly unrelated battle that must be fought.)
Q
Comments:
None.
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