Looking for a mid-size domestic car recommendation

Art,

I got news for you - everybody screws up sooner or later. I don't mind a system where injured parties are reasonably compensated for someone else's mistakes. I do mind a system where an honest mistake become some sort of entry in to an enormous lottery.

Ed

Yeah, most of the women I see on 'Cops' are ones I'd want to strip search....NOT!

--Geoff

Recently in NC there was a car stopped at a stop sign and a 50 year old tree fell without warning and killed the people inside. You don't cut down all trees because that happened once. There are all kinds of anecdotal stories out there about lawsuts. Most have been reversed on appeal and you don't hear that part of the story from people who want riduculous limits on lawsuits. When doctors do their job correctly they don't get sued.

incompetent

investigate

So you are saying that a jury of your peers is inherently unfair to doctors? You think somehow when someone gets jury duty they turn off their brain? I don't think so. Please provide a scientific explanation for your conclusion.

You seem to want science only when it's unattainable and can't hurt your position, Art.

It's well known and understood that most of the legal cases that settle out of court do so because both sides recognize that letting the morons who find themselves on the typical jury decide the case is usually not for the better of anyone.

Besides that, I think a doctor would have a tough time getting a jury of his peers. How many medical professionals serve jury duty? And what are the chances that a group of them would find themselves on the same jury for a medical malpractice lawsuit?

--Geoff

If that is what you think, then perhaps you should think about that some more. Any attorney will tell you the reason they can easily manipulate a jury is because the people sitting in the jury box are the ones that were not smart enough to get themselves out of jury duty. ;)

mike hunt

Art wrote:

Yes, we had one of those (fintail) in the sities...

That's hardly justification for a generalisation!

DAS

Well, maybe / maybe not. About 10 years ago my Mother was driving Her company car down a main street in the town nearest where she worked. A large limb fell from an old oak tree and smashed her car. Fortunately she suffered only superficial injuries. Comprehensive insurance replaced the car (the companies insurance, not the town's insurance). My Mother didn't get any money from anyone (or ask for it). However, the town promptly cut down the offedning tree and all the other large old trees on that street that were on the towns right of way.

Regards,

Ed White

I think juries are manipulated into making unreasonable awards. Do I need a scientific explanation for what seems so apparent in many cases?

Juries are led to believe only the rich are paying. You know, the evil insurance companies, or the evil large corporations. You aren't really hurting the little guy when you award millions to an injured party - right? Anybody that believes that is an idiot and the perfect candidate for a civil jury.

I have never been on a jury. I've been on the list twice but never actually had to go downtown so to speak. A fellow engineer has had to join the pool a couple of times, but both times he was immediately excused the minute he admitted he was an engineer. I am sure that no trial lawyer would ever want me on a jury. I am old, white, and have a degree in engineering. I would be impervious to most of the BS they throw out.

As I said before. I have no problems with actual and reasonable damages being awarded. I do have a problem with punitive damages. If there is willful negligence involved, put the perpetrator in jail, don't shower money on the injured person and some scum trial lawyer. If you think economic sanctions are the only ones that work, then have the government fine the perpetrators and use the money to benefit society.

Ed

_________________________________________________________

Normally I don't do "me too" posts, but me too!

Haha, you raise a few points there that I never thought about. I do think that you're right though.

same for me.. good thinking ED... thats the way it was years ago.. i remember my grandfather(who was like most people back then in the 40's and 50's)... if you sued someone you had better have a good reason to do so.. if you got hit by a cop.. the reasoning was that if you did nothing wrong you would never have got hit in the first place... if you did something wrong you go to jail..... but that was the difference back then and now.. now everyone wants something for nothing................ and they have a plague of locus that go by the name of attorneys that get paid to get you something for nothing..... and they get about 40 percent of that something.....

With that one story I told before the family is trying to appeal the law here to get more then the 100k. If they didn't take the child to the doctor the same ending would have resulted. I could understand the parents getting quite a bit more if he was involved in the death, but he wasn't. Once again, if it's so easy stop going to doctors to figure out what's wrong.

Different people have different ways of defining correct. I have a knee problem and I went to my doctor a few times and each time he said that it's nothing. After about the 4th time I went to a specialist and he told me I need surgery. Do I think that the first doctor did his job correctly? Absolutely. Quickly? Not at all. There was another time when I was having pains in my abdominal region and I went in but they couldn't find anything wrong so they took a blood test. Within a few hours they told me to go right to a hospital. They never found out what was wrong. Do I think that they did that correctly? Not really, I'd like to know what I had. Quickly? Yep. There's a tradeoff between following everything exactly down to the letter and trying to do things quickly. You can try all you'd like to do both at the same time, but sometimes certain events don't allow it.

Say you're having heart surgery and something goes wrong. Do you want the surgeon to take his time or would you prefer that he kind of speed it up? In a perfect world everything and everyone would work at 100% speed and with a

0% error rate all the time. If he doesn't move fast enough you'll die and he gets sued by your family. If he moves faster and makes a mistake he gets sued by you. If you can handle that kind of pressure, kudos to you.

That is why you buy insurance.

Most cases are settled out of court because litigation is very expensive. And no one knows what the judge will do or what the jury will do. In a way the inherent inefficiency of the court system leads to an efficient settlement system.

Must be one of those restrictions of freedom that Geoff likes to bleat about in reference to Canada.

Indeed. But even you've heard of insurance fraud right? I mean, hey..he's got insurance..lets get him to get into an accident with us then we can sue his ass off! There're people out there that don't care about anything but getting money.

In the end it's just hurting the people that pay for the services. If I get sued for something frivolous and they win and my insurance goes up, I'm sure as hell going to raise the cost of my services.

Q: What do you call the guy who graduates last in his class at a 4th-rate med school?

A: Doctor.

Up here in Canada, too. There are doctors who've made the news for refusing to continue to see their patients who will not quit smoking.