So many public institutions and businesses in the US base much of their internal policies and procedures on limiting their liability in how they operate day to day so they don’t get sued.
When you see a no-brainer, obvious disclaimer on a product packaging or advertisement and think to yourself *why does that need to be explicitly stated?* and the answer seems to always be “so some idiot doesn’t sue them.”
Even myself as an individual need to carry hundreds of thousands of dollars of personal liability insurance on my homeowners policy in case somebody sues me.
When people who feel that they’ve been wronged by an employer, or their kid’s school, or by another individual the advice they get online is always “get a lawyer” but how can most people afford to do that?
I know that attorneys can take money from a settlement after it’s been won, but that takes months or even years in court and with the average fee of well over $150.00 per hour for even a consultation with an attorney, how do normal people afford to sue anyone?
I am well aware that individuals seeking damages from big corporations for blatant negligence is one of the quickest ways for health and safety regulations to be reformed, like that poor woman who was burned because McDonald’s was keeping their coffee at near boiling temperatures, I’m not questioning if these lawsuits are legitimate, I’m questioning how they’re even possible?
In: Economics
Hiring an attorney is not expensive. Hiring a good attorney when you are not likely to win is.
We aren’t a litigious society.
It’s mostly propaganda from big companies to tighten down maximum payouts.
Like 250k maximums for medical malpractice that may require millions of dollars to correct.
Fact is it’s very difficult to win money in court for a civil case, and when you do it’s because the company messed up really badly and deserves it.
The US is litigious because the civil court system is intended as an all-purpose system in place to resolve any issues. Other countries don’t rely on courts as much for civil issues because they have specialist systems for resolving those issues and the courts just handle stuff that falls outside the field of the specialists. For example, if you are injured and it impacts your ability to earn, in the USA that is often a matter for the courts – you would find an entity that could be seen as partially culpable for the accident ( eg perhaps you argue that the reason you slipped was that the City didn’t sufficiently de-ice the sidewalk as they were supposed to). While in some other countries there is a state agency to handle injury compensation similar to how there might be universal healthcare. They will give you income, and seek changes from any negligent contributor if they think it’s necessary.
Litigation is comparatively common in the USA because when all you have is a hammer, every problem is a nail
Plaintiff’s counsel in America work on Contingency (i.e. client pays nothing until settlement/win, after which they pay ~40% of the take). Conversely most other countries prohibit or greatly restrict contingency agreements, which prevents people from suing.
>I know that attorneys can take money from a settlement after it’s been won, but that takes months or even years in court and with the average fee of well over $150.00 per hour for even a consultation with an attorney, how do normal people afford to sue anyone?
This depends on your definition of “normal” and “afford”.
Consider: does $30,000 sound affordable? Probably not. But that’s the average price of a *used* car right now. 90%+ of households have a car. Clearly, in the general case, a normal person can afford a car.
The thing is that you don’t buy a car the same way you buy groceries. It’s a major expenditure. You don’t do it every week. You don’t do it on a whim. You budget for it – or, if you need it urgently (e.g. previous car breaks down), you have to juggle things to make it fit.
For a “normal” person, lawsuits are the same way. You don’t decide to file a lawsuit the same way you decide to buy a steak. It’s a significant expenditure. It means you’re cutting other things out of your budget. You do it if you decide the benefit is likely to be worth it.
In any given year, the “normal” (median) person is filing zero lawsuits, buying zero cars, buying zero houses, etc.
But just like “buying a car every 5/10/20 years” still adds up on the scale of a population, so too does “filing a lawsuit only under certain circumstances” add up on the scale of a population.
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