Wow Barney, it takes so much courage to bad mouth lawyers! Let’s see, at one time the entire auto industry resisted having seatbelts in cars and some “greedy ambulance chasing lawyer” won a products case showing not having seatbelts made the car un-reasonably dangerous. I am sure the Barneys of the world back when those decisions came out made fun of lawyers then too. Don’t most of you applaud the fact that not only do we have seatbelts, but do to our “safety conscious society” (and yes, fear of lawsuits), we have airbags and innumerable other safety features which make our vehicles safer than ever.
I wonder what Barney’s connection to insurance is. Is it claims? Gee, I wonder what would happen if the anti-lawyer attitude so easy to exude resulted in no claims being made because “tort reforms” eliminate it being worthwhile for any claim being made. Adios Claims Department.
Well, if no claims are made, who needs insurance? Adios agents & brokers.
For that matter, why would there be underwriters? Adios underwriting.
I don’t know what your connection to insurance is Barney, and yes, I am a defense lawyer, so I suppose I need those plaintiffs’ lawyers to keep filing those “frivilous claims”, but if people did not bring claims a lot of us would need to do something different.
As a lawyer, I have a standing offer to all non-lawyer humans: stop having disputes, injurious accidents, controversies, misunderstandings, and doing mean things to each other and we will quit bringing lawsuits.
Get real folks, the issue was not whether Big Mac reduced the fat it is that Big Mac did not reduce it as much as some Pl atty thought they should. Don’t kid yourselves, Big Mac is a sugar daddy for lawyers now just as insurance companies are. Cheeper to settle then fight, regardless of the cause.
Barney’s comment has brought several tongue lashing’s from lawyers trying to justify the lawsuits and the big contigents they suck out of their “clients”. The issue of safety belts has nothing to do with safety advancements made in the auto industry. They were added to avoid the cost of protracted lawsuits. If the auto industry is at fault why is the attorney all of a sudden a champion of auto safety? For every lawsuit there are numerous lawyers willing to take them on regardless of the validity. The cost to our society to defend these suits is enormous. The loss of jobs that could have been created in the US go overseas where the legal environment allows recourse but not at the expense of feeding the big contingents. When a company is sued for serving hot coffee we have a big problem. Some suits are justified however the majority of them are sucking the life out of our society.
This is the good old US of A. Anything goes here. I cannot believe it. What’s next? Starbucks get’s sued since Caffeine is bad for you, or they don’t have a label on their cups. We are all responsible for what we eat, warnings or not. We all consume things that are not healthy for our bodies, but most of us are not sue happy or greedy. Grow up people.
Wonder if enough of us could get a class action law suit against lawyers that take
frivilous lawsuits, which ends up only stuffing their pockets and increasing the prices of all consumers!
Steve’s posting was quite timely. I was just catching up on overdue reading and would like to recommend a piece that appeared in the Feb.14 issue of “The Wall Street Journal”, entitled “Class Action…a la Francaise”. It is critical of Jacques Chirac for endorsing the use of class-action lawsuits in France at the same time that the U.S. is taking steps to scale back abusive class-action litigation. In part, the article states,”class actions are just one element of a U.S. tort system that has spiraled out of control in recent years. And, properly employed, they are a sensible and beneficial tool for deciding multiple cases that would, if tried separately, result in the same outcome anyway. But what began as a way to save time, has become, in the U.S., a rent-seeking device for lawyers who bring cases whose primary beneficiaries are almost always themselves, rather than their clients, witting or unwitting”. It goes on in great detail to trace the history of tort litigation and to cite specific examples similar to the McDonald’s fiasco. A MUST read for EVERYONE who posted!
If one would bother to take the time to check their sources, they would have learned that McDonald’s advertised that it was using cooking oil without trans-fats. Turns out that this was just a big “fat” lie (pun intented).
The lawsuit was about false advertising. . . not about the choice of oil. False advertising not only hurts consumers, but it also hurts ligitimate businesses that are forced to compete with those who think they are above the law. Lawsuits help level the playing field for honest businesses, by forcing dishonest businesses to internalize the cost of dishonest practices.
Shame on anyone who would blame the lawyers. The culprit here is a dishonest business that was cashing in by lying to its customers, and worse still, lying about matters that affect health and safety.
Honest businesses – and most businesses do engage in honest practices — have more to fear from other dishonest businesses than from lawyers. McDonalds was fully in control – it could have avoided this by simply telling the truth rather than telling lies.
First, as to the greatest impact on P&C insurers correct me if I’m wrong, but don’t the greatest payouts by insurers come from individuals who suffer catastrophic property damages such as we’ve just experienced in Florida last year(as opposed to class actions)? And just in one state, no less, compared to payouts throughout the country for individual personal injury claims.
And aren’t these individual property losses, once coverage has attached and been accepted by the insurers, almost impossible to avoid or to reduce in exposure, adjustment loss expense and payout?
On the other hand, individual personal injury claims are fought hammer and tongs where fraud or inflated claims are concerned, for example, and even give rise to criminal culpability of not only the insureds but there attorneys as well.
Three hurricanes on the one hand in one year and class actions for Phen Fen on the other just a year or so before. Take your pick.
But the reality is that the recoveries for some individuals could never have been consistently achieved without class action status, regardless of the Wall St. Journal’s reporter’s opinion. The very magnitude of exposure for the drug manufacturer helped enhance each individual’s chance to recover. As opposed to being a small fish in a big pond paying the same contingency fee for a smaller recovery, a member of a class action doesn’t even have to show up most of the time to gain.
But let me add some fuel to the fire. The NY Times recently reported a story this past Saturday about two law firms in New York squabbling over referral fees. These fees arise when an attorney refers his client to another and is completely ethical. The plaintiff firm may have referred a number of its clients to the second firm ostensibly so that they would become members of the class of Phen Fen plaintiffs. However, it was reported that the referring firm received $5 million for referring Phen Fen cases to a firm that had both class action and individual cases. But without knowing the amount of the settlement obtained (the amount of the settlement was sealed) or which companies were defendants, if Wyeth was one of the defendants involved, the exposure is astronomical. Wyeth, for example, has reserved about $16 Billion for its Phen Fen exposure. It’s stock just took a hit on announcing it’s fourth quarter loss.
Notwithstanding that, presumably all the members of the class received some sort of recovery as it was probably settled for a large amount of money split many, many ways.
Hey, regardless of what you’ve been told from whomever, whatever, wherever, whenever, however: SIZE COUNTS! (in litigation) and from the sheer size of the number of participants, the whole process and all the players get ratcheted up to deal big time.
O.K., Tom. You obviously haven’t read the article, so here’s another quote from it. The author gives an example of him being in a class WITHOUT HIS KNOWLWDGE OR CONSENT, which resulted in a settlement. His take after settlement was $0.53! “The most recent such case, Schwartz v. Citibank, in which the bank was sued for late processing of payments, I garnered $0.03. “My” lawyers received some $9 million. I got three cents. Of course, I didn’t work very hard for my three cents, since I didn’t know Citibank was being sued until I received the credit on my statement, but neither was I ever asked whether I wanted to sue.” Nice try, but I rest my case!
I am amazed when reading the lawyer justifications for this suit. McD’s never said they would eliminate TFA’s but would reduce the use of them which they have done. This whole case just points out the level of insanity that our legal system has reached. When a company is sued for serving hot coffee and sued for causing obesity,we have reached a level of a far more reaching damage to our economy. One of the primary reasons companies are moving jobs off-shore is to lessen the cost of frivilous litigation. The legal profession should consider the damage they are doing to our economy and stop trying to justify the cost we all pay to feed their mouths.
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Wow Barney, it takes so much courage to bad mouth lawyers! Let’s see, at one time the entire auto industry resisted having seatbelts in cars and some “greedy ambulance chasing lawyer” won a products case showing not having seatbelts made the car un-reasonably dangerous. I am sure the Barneys of the world back when those decisions came out made fun of lawyers then too. Don’t most of you applaud the fact that not only do we have seatbelts, but do to our “safety conscious society” (and yes, fear of lawsuits), we have airbags and innumerable other safety features which make our vehicles safer than ever.
I wonder what Barney’s connection to insurance is. Is it claims? Gee, I wonder what would happen if the anti-lawyer attitude so easy to exude resulted in no claims being made because “tort reforms” eliminate it being worthwhile for any claim being made. Adios Claims Department.
Well, if no claims are made, who needs insurance? Adios agents & brokers.
For that matter, why would there be underwriters? Adios underwriting.
I don’t know what your connection to insurance is Barney, and yes, I am a defense lawyer, so I suppose I need those plaintiffs’ lawyers to keep filing those “frivilous claims”, but if people did not bring claims a lot of us would need to do something different.
As a lawyer, I have a standing offer to all non-lawyer humans: stop having disputes, injurious accidents, controversies, misunderstandings, and doing mean things to each other and we will quit bringing lawsuits.
Get real folks, the issue was not whether Big Mac reduced the fat it is that Big Mac did not reduce it as much as some Pl atty thought they should. Don’t kid yourselves, Big Mac is a sugar daddy for lawyers now just as insurance companies are. Cheeper to settle then fight, regardless of the cause.
Barney’s comment has brought several tongue lashing’s from lawyers trying to justify the lawsuits and the big contigents they suck out of their “clients”. The issue of safety belts has nothing to do with safety advancements made in the auto industry. They were added to avoid the cost of protracted lawsuits. If the auto industry is at fault why is the attorney all of a sudden a champion of auto safety? For every lawsuit there are numerous lawyers willing to take them on regardless of the validity. The cost to our society to defend these suits is enormous. The loss of jobs that could have been created in the US go overseas where the legal environment allows recourse but not at the expense of feeding the big contingents. When a company is sued for serving hot coffee we have a big problem. Some suits are justified however the majority of them are sucking the life out of our society.
This is the good old US of A. Anything goes here. I cannot believe it. What’s next? Starbucks get’s sued since Caffeine is bad for you, or they don’t have a label on their cups. We are all responsible for what we eat, warnings or not. We all consume things that are not healthy for our bodies, but most of us are not sue happy or greedy. Grow up people.
Wonder if enough of us could get a class action law suit against lawyers that take
frivilous lawsuits, which ends up only stuffing their pockets and increasing the prices of all consumers!
Steve’s posting was quite timely. I was just catching up on overdue reading and would like to recommend a piece that appeared in the Feb.14 issue of “The Wall Street Journal”, entitled “Class Action…a la Francaise”. It is critical of Jacques Chirac for endorsing the use of class-action lawsuits in France at the same time that the U.S. is taking steps to scale back abusive class-action litigation. In part, the article states,”class actions are just one element of a U.S. tort system that has spiraled out of control in recent years. And, properly employed, they are a sensible and beneficial tool for deciding multiple cases that would, if tried separately, result in the same outcome anyway. But what began as a way to save time, has become, in the U.S., a rent-seeking device for lawyers who bring cases whose primary beneficiaries are almost always themselves, rather than their clients, witting or unwitting”. It goes on in great detail to trace the history of tort litigation and to cite specific examples similar to the McDonald’s fiasco. A MUST read for EVERYONE who posted!
If one would bother to take the time to check their sources, they would have learned that McDonald’s advertised that it was using cooking oil without trans-fats. Turns out that this was just a big “fat” lie (pun intented).
The lawsuit was about false advertising. . . not about the choice of oil. False advertising not only hurts consumers, but it also hurts ligitimate businesses that are forced to compete with those who think they are above the law. Lawsuits help level the playing field for honest businesses, by forcing dishonest businesses to internalize the cost of dishonest practices.
Shame on anyone who would blame the lawyers. The culprit here is a dishonest business that was cashing in by lying to its customers, and worse still, lying about matters that affect health and safety.
Honest businesses – and most businesses do engage in honest practices — have more to fear from other dishonest businesses than from lawyers. McDonalds was fully in control – it could have avoided this by simply telling the truth rather than telling lies.
First, as to the greatest impact on P&C insurers correct me if I’m wrong, but don’t the greatest payouts by insurers come from individuals who suffer catastrophic property damages such as we’ve just experienced in Florida last year(as opposed to class actions)? And just in one state, no less, compared to payouts throughout the country for individual personal injury claims.
And aren’t these individual property losses, once coverage has attached and been accepted by the insurers, almost impossible to avoid or to reduce in exposure, adjustment loss expense and payout?
On the other hand, individual personal injury claims are fought hammer and tongs where fraud or inflated claims are concerned, for example, and even give rise to criminal culpability of not only the insureds but there attorneys as well.
Three hurricanes on the one hand in one year and class actions for Phen Fen on the other just a year or so before. Take your pick.
But the reality is that the recoveries for some individuals could never have been consistently achieved without class action status, regardless of the Wall St. Journal’s reporter’s opinion. The very magnitude of exposure for the drug manufacturer helped enhance each individual’s chance to recover. As opposed to being a small fish in a big pond paying the same contingency fee for a smaller recovery, a member of a class action doesn’t even have to show up most of the time to gain.
But let me add some fuel to the fire. The NY Times recently reported a story this past Saturday about two law firms in New York squabbling over referral fees. These fees arise when an attorney refers his client to another and is completely ethical. The plaintiff firm may have referred a number of its clients to the second firm ostensibly so that they would become members of the class of Phen Fen plaintiffs. However, it was reported that the referring firm received $5 million for referring Phen Fen cases to a firm that had both class action and individual cases. But without knowing the amount of the settlement obtained (the amount of the settlement was sealed) or which companies were defendants, if Wyeth was one of the defendants involved, the exposure is astronomical. Wyeth, for example, has reserved about $16 Billion for its Phen Fen exposure. It’s stock just took a hit on announcing it’s fourth quarter loss.
Notwithstanding that, presumably all the members of the class received some sort of recovery as it was probably settled for a large amount of money split many, many ways.
Hey, regardless of what you’ve been told from whomever, whatever, wherever, whenever, however: SIZE COUNTS! (in litigation) and from the sheer size of the number of participants, the whole process and all the players get ratcheted up to deal big time.
O.K., Tom. You obviously haven’t read the article, so here’s another quote from it. The author gives an example of him being in a class WITHOUT HIS KNOWLWDGE OR CONSENT, which resulted in a settlement. His take after settlement was $0.53! “The most recent such case, Schwartz v. Citibank, in which the bank was sued for late processing of payments, I garnered $0.03. “My” lawyers received some $9 million. I got three cents. Of course, I didn’t work very hard for my three cents, since I didn’t know Citibank was being sued until I received the credit on my statement, but neither was I ever asked whether I wanted to sue.” Nice try, but I rest my case!
I am amazed when reading the lawyer justifications for this suit. McD’s never said they would eliminate TFA’s but would reduce the use of them which they have done. This whole case just points out the level of insanity that our legal system has reached. When a company is sued for serving hot coffee and sued for causing obesity,we have reached a level of a far more reaching damage to our economy. One of the primary reasons companies are moving jobs off-shore is to lessen the cost of frivilous litigation. The legal profession should consider the damage they are doing to our economy and stop trying to justify the cost we all pay to feed their mouths.