Oh, boy. I'm going to have some fun with this one.
No, it was not in error. McDonald's was sued, and they lost. I'm not sure of the exact amount, but it was a huge sum of money. The point here was that it was a frivilous lawsuit to begin with and should not have resulted in the judgement that was granted. McDonalds was equally at fault, too, not because they served hot coffee, but because it came to light that they had settled similar cases like this over 700 times out of court, which only encourages more lawsuits of this nature. The problem here is that when a company tries to fight a lawsuit of this type, if generally costs more in legal fees to defend themselves than it would to pay the settlement. McDonalds, from a corporate standpoint, was simply doing what most any company does when it looks at the bottom line--take the cheapest way out. As far as believing the media, well, that depends on what media you pay attention to. We have a very liberal biased media here in the states, unfortunately, but there are still media sources which will give both sides of a story without an agenda of their own. My favorite newspaper, for instance, would be the Wall Street Journal, where you get just the facts. >Having said that, however, there are US citizens whose constitutional rights
If, by tinsel town, you are referring to Hollywood, I will agree that they are liberal leftest as well (not all, but as an industry it would seem so). But to say they are calling the shots is off. In case you haven't noticed, the liberal left has been losing power in government for many years. Bush was elected twice, conservatives have the majority in Congress and the House of Representatives, and liberal democrats are losing polital offices everywhere in the country. Why? Because they are on the wrong side of history, and most of the American people, who are not the dummies that they would like to portray, know this. Most of us just shake our head when some of these actors say the things they say.
I'm not at all sure what rights you feel we citizens are losing here. You will have to be more specific on that. The fact that lawyers push frivilous lawsuits isn't causing me to lose any rights--I could do the same thing; I just don't chose to. It may cause the price of a certain product to go up, but I can shop the competitor, and that puts the burden back on the original company to examine its' own behavior concerning suits.
As far as the legal system in America going the way of GM and Ford? Last time I looked, being a lawyer had nothing to do with selling cars. There will always be a legal system; our country couldn't do without it. We are a nation based on the concept of laws and due process. The system may go astray sometimes, but it isn't going to go away, and, it is not a "corporation".
You couldn't be more wrong here. Doctors don't pay the price, we do. We are the ultimate consumer, and we will pay the ultimate price. Just like any business, when a doctors' expenses go up, the price for their services go up. The bad guys here aren't the doctors, but the lawyers who create huge malpractice suits, resulting in monetary awards that are ludicrous, are. Because of the constant threat of being sued, whether they ever are or not, all doctors must have malpractice insurance. Without this insurance, one suit could put them out of business. These costs are then passed on to us, the consumer.
By the way, doctors don't murder people. They might make a mistake, because they are, after all, human, but they don't deliberatley set out to injure people. And if they do make a mistake, is it fair to award someone millions of dollars? Look, we're talking about people who spend a great deal of money and many years of study to become what they are. One of the reasons they make the money they do is because they didn't start working in their field until 8 yrs or so after high school. It takes a lot of dedication to be a doctor, so I don't begrudge them their fees. I don't like the malpractice aspect of it, but, again, that is not their fault--that is brought about by tort lawyers and judges who award these assinine large awards.
As far as I know, there is no obvious collusion between lawyers and doctors. Doctors, as a rule, would rather not have anything to do with lawyers, and, as far as doctors and lawyers plotting to take more money from the rest of us? Do you know how insane that sounds? In fact, the last part of this post has me thinking that you have had several shots too many and need to lie down. I can't even comment on such blather. You are one atom from calling doctors frankenstein and using lightning bolts for medical procedures.