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Seems to work for nearly every other developed country. I just wish the rest of the world could live up to the shining beacon of hope that is the US legal system.

You see, it promotes a fair system where the poor CAN sue on equal footing with the rich, if they have a viable case, they don't need to take out a mortgage to engage in civil actions.

Don't believe everything your Mother Jones tells you. Read the Scwartz paper.

http://www.pointoflaw.com/archives/2012/07/gibson-guitar-ceo-on-overcriminalizing-businesses.php

Ford's gas tank design led to numerous deaths and injuries, and corporate memos later showed that the company was even aware of the problem, yet Ford was not sued out of business.

Not to champion the Pinto, the but there were less than 30 deaths than could be blamed on the gas tank design in over 2 million Pintos.

http://www.pointoflaw.com/articles/The_Myth_of_the_Ford_Pinto_Case.pdf

I'm more astonished they sold 2 million of those things. Yeesh!

the pinto did not have higher accident fatality rates than comparably sized cars of it's time. http://www.pointoflaw.com/articles/The_Myth_of_the_Ford_Pinto_Case.pdf
Also to consider, the accident that started the pinto controversy was a rear end collision at 30 miles/hour (starting faster, 30 at impact) which is a pretty bad wreck even in a modern car


Schwartz said that the car was no more fire-prone than other cars of the time, that its fatality rates were lower than comparably sized imported automobiles, and that the supposed "smoking gun" document that plaintiffs said demonstrated Ford's callousness in designing the Pinto was actually a document based on National Highway Traffic Safety Administration regulations about the value of a human life

You've just not read enough. Like the 1970s manslaughter committed by Ford (using Pinto cars), or the blatant poisoning of water by various chemical corporations over the years. While they are not as dangerous as government (which sucks money direct from your wallet) (or drafts you to die in Nam), megacorps are still a danger to individual consumers and workers, and must be watched just like any other predator that is more powerful than you are.

Oh, for heaven's sake. OK, I'll bite, but I probably shouldn't. Your use of hyperbole and radical left catchphrases (megacorps? Really?) makes it difficult to take you seriously, but I'm gonna take a leap of faith and assume you're not just trolling.

The specific example you described as "manslaughter" by the Ford Motor company was a myth -- the Pintos were no more dangerous than any other average car on the road at the time. http://www.pointoflaw.com/articles/The_Myth_of_the_Ford_Pinto_Case.pdf

Both government and large private organizations, in the long run, are generally beneficial to individual "consumers and workers," to borrow your terminology. Yes, they bear watching, but don't let a few bad apples spoil your whole worldview.

If GM and Ford are happy about it, it's because it's because they've been on the firing line for the same problem: A design flaw that may or may not have existed and was used for sensationalist media coverage political gain.

I mean, we all *know* that thousands of ford Pintos burst into flame in the slightest accident, and that hundreds of people were burned to death in tiny shitbox cars that *everyone* at ford *knew* were cheap and unsafe. Or do we? http://www.pointoflaw.com/articles/The_Myth_of_the_Ford_Pinto_Case.pdf

We also *know* that GM pickup trucks from the 80's would be destroyed in a fireball in a side impact collision thanks to NBC's top notch investigative reporting (and a well placed igniter that the Mythbusters would love.) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevrolet_C/K#Sidesaddle_Fuel_Tanks

The problem is that the U.S. doesn't have a "loser pays" system like some European countries do. So a non-profit or individual forced to defend itself in court can be pushed into bankruptcy even if they're 100% in the right and win the case. This means that it's very easy for a powerhouse like Apple, MS, Sony, Adobe, etc. to scare an OSS foundation into abandoning their codec or software with even the THREAT of a patent lawsuit.

A good start would be a "loser pays" system similar to what they have in much of Europe. It gives people who legitimately have a strong case a chance to find a lawyer, and discourages frivolous lawsuits and lawsuits aimed only at intimidation (so-called "SLAP" lawsuits).

The Ford Pinto entered production in 1970, whereas the date on that memo is allegedly 1968. That means the timeframe for the memo is
to early to account for pre-production issues being seen in test mules, and certainly far too early to see issues from the general motoring public.
A "best seller" in the automotive market in 1968 would have been 1 million units/year*. Am I to believe that Ford mgmt
thought that the Pinto was going to move 1 million units/year for 11 years?

Perhaps you should acquaint yourself with this pretty thorough debunking of the Pinto "fiasco":
http://www.pointoflaw.com/articles/The_Myth_of_the_Ford_Pinto_Case.pdf

*By the time the Pinto actually went on sale, a best seller was around 800k. Fairly soon thereafter, the market share of Japanese imports increased such that
a best seller could be crowned with as few as 500k units.

I may wrong. Apparently, the government has tried to bring "public nuisance" lawsuits against private parties, though the one in question was voluntarily dismissed by the state (in my mind, probably to avoid a precedent being set by the state's defeat.) This kind of lawsuit is a terrible idea for numerous reasons.

http://www.pointoflaw.com/articles/The_Myth_of_the_Ford_Pinto_Case.pdf

http://www.pointoflaw.com/loserpays/overview.php
http://www.reason.com/news/show/29696.html

If any of what you claim in your post were true, then we wouldn't see lawsuits in "loser pays" countries (which is essentially, the whole civilized world apart from the US and a few other countries).

Since we do see lawsuits in "loser pays" countries, the only logical conclusion is that your post is incorrect about the consequences of a loser pays system.

I know that we sometimes like to argue points based on hypotheticals, as you have, but the counter to your hypotheticals is a ream of data from courts from around the world. Data > supposition, in my opinion at least.

The problem with the Pinto was that in a rear-end collision, the gas tank, which was located behind the axle, could be pushed into the differential-housing bolts, causing the tank to rupture.

GP is most likely referring to "The Myth of the Ford Pinto Case," written in 1991 by Gary Schwartz, in which he pointed out that the fatality rates per million cars on the road was lower for Pintos as compared with a number of other comparable subcompact cars. It's an interesting read.

Ford is once again under scrutiny for putting gas tanks behind the axle, this time in the Crown Victoria (aka Police Interceptor.)

The original 1960-63 Corvair had a tendency to fishtail especially if the tires weren't properly inflated (and the "proper" tire inflations, , but (1) later Corvairs fixed that problem, and (2) a number of other cars of that era had a tendency to fishtail. From 1965 on, the Corvair had an excellent fully-independent rear suspension like the Corvette.

So could the original Corvair, the Pinto, and the Crown Victoria have been designed better? Sure. Were their designs worse than average? Maybe not. Will cars be designed better in the future as a result of all this attention that has been brought to design flaws? I hope so.

If you read the table on page 16 of this pdf document, you will see that the car with the highest death rate was the 1975 VW beetle. The pinto is middle of the pack death-wise. http://www.pointoflaw.com/articles/The_Myth_of_the _Ford_Pinto_Case.pdf Of course, the pinto (manufactured by a "large evil American corporation") was not cute and not loved by the hippies at Mother Earth news, who ideologically preferred a car manufactured by a large German corporation and originally conceived by He-who-must-not-be-named-in-an-online-forum. The hit job on the pinto is similar, really, to the one on the Corvair, or the Audi 5000.

The woman who sued McDonalds required skin grafts and a week in the hospital.

The magnitude of the injury has no effect on blame or liability. If someone walks up to you and punches you in the face, causing pain, bruising & swelling, you can sue them for damages. If this same person knocks out 5 of your teeth and breaks your jaw, you can still sue them for damages.

The only difference is the amount of damages. They are liable in both cases. You might not sue in the first case because the damages are small and it isn't worth the hassle.

Now, magnitude of injury may cause you to get more sympathy from a jury, which is often the case in ridiculous product liability lawsuits such as the McDonald's coffee woman.

Like the guy who won millions from Ford after flipping his SUV by trying to pass a car on a curve where passing is prohibited, while driving 67 mph where the limit was 30 mph.

Most of the rest of the world follows the "loser pays" principle, which helps to discourage questionable litigation. Apparently the American bar doesn't like the idea, though.

For more info see this paper (PDF) Patents and Loser Pays: Why Not? by Solveig Singleton for the Progress and Freedom Foundation.

>God Forbid the terrorists be blamed for the attacks. Much better to use the fear of terrorism to fight against whatever political beliefs you disagree with, right?

No way! Terrorists can't be more than 50% responsible for their actions!

On Oct. 26, unanimously, the jury said the guys who carried out the [93 WTC] bombing were only 32 percent responsible for the damages. PointOfLaw

Even if EchoStar fails in appeals court, the Damages will most likely be capped depending on State law. I think about 30 states have caps on punitive damages, VA being the most extreme - where punitive damages are caped at $350,000 even. Jury's aren't told about the caps. They come out of the court room thinking they really stuck it to the defendant, and as soon as they leave, the Judge reduces the number according to the state's law. (That one that applies is where the injury occurred)

Newspapers almost always report the non-capped number. Rarely if ever will we find out about the final judgment - sometimes billions of dollars less than what was initially proposed.

The Texas state law for Punitive Damage's(as explained in the context of the Merck/Vioxx trials) is a little confusing, and potentially dangerous to EchoStar since TiVo is claiming they have had $650 million in economic damages in the past nine years. But if TiVo really believed that was true, I suspect it would have sought much higher damages than they did.

Although it would be nice if a judge could waive the "loser pays" rule in cases where he thinks the plaintiff had a genuine complaint but still lost.

That's exactly how it works in most countries that have a "loser pays" system for civil cases. See, for example this text for more on the subject.