When a Right Has Gone Wrong

  by Jodi Budd

As children our parents tried to instill in all of us good moral judgment and common sense.  However, if I was to open the newspaper I would surely find any number of articles on the latest frivolous lawsuit, these being even more outrageous than the ones in yesterday’s paper.  How have we as a society, which is completely capable of rational thinking, allowed ourselves to become so intertwined in the blaming game?

                Americans file about 15 million lawsuits a year. (Cannell) A fourth of all lawsuits filed are either frivolous or fraudulent.  Perhaps, the careless point of view about the seriousness of lawsuits is perpetuated by the false representation on the many law shows on TV, such as Ally McBeal and Law and Order, in which the case is neatly rapped up in an hour.  In reality most court cases take about 19 months from start to finish. 

                In order to analyze our “sue happy” society one must first find out, what actually is a lawsuit? A lawsuit is a legal action brought by a plaintiff, a person who claims to have been wronged, against a defendant, the person being sued.  If a judge decides that a case has enough evidence to go to trial then the verdict may be decided by either a judge or a jury.  Yet, 90 percent of cases reach a settlement out of court. (Cannell)

                The scary truth about lawsuits is that anyone can file a suit for anything!  It is for the judge to decide if the case meets two criteria:

there must have been a wrongful act committed and the plaintiff must have suffered. (Cannell)

                The way in which liability is determined seems to be an irony in itself.  The civil law requires people to act with reasonable care, meaning not hurting others or damaging property.   Also it requires the defendant to do what a reasonable person would have done.  (Cannell) However, my question is, if a person is not using a reasonable mind then isn’t that person insane or otherwise mentally handicapped? And if so, an incompetent person cannot stand trial.  

                I must also raise the question, is a child considered to have the same reasonable sense as a adult?  In general I would say not.  This would explain why there is a juvenile court system.  Therefore, should children be able to sue?  A Florida case set precedence when 11-year old Gregory K. was granted the right to sue his parents for a “divorce”. I do not feel that a child has the competency to understand the importance of a lawsuit.  It is a shame that frivolous lawsuits are making a mockery of the judicial system.  What is next?  Will brothers and sisters be suing each other over their childhood squabbles? I’m sure it could be proved that one child had suffered some harm by a wrongful act of the other.  Still, only 17 states have laws prohibiting interfamily lawsuits. 

                In actuality, the number of lawsuits has gone up, however, the rise is not very substantial.  It’s the content for which they are filed that is outraging Americans.  Many people are upset to find that convicted criminals, while in prison, have the right to sue.  Why should it be that someone who has taken away the rights of another be allowed to have the right to sue?  In Ohio alone, 800 inmate lawsuits were filed in 1995.  To defend those lawsuits it cost taxpayers $1.7 million dollars.  In Ohio an inmate sued the state when he was denied soap on a rope.  Another Ohio inmate filed charges after eating a turkey dinner on Thanksgiving.  He sued on religious grounds saying the stuffing had turkey bits in it and eating the meat was against his religion.  Attorney General Betty D. Montgomery has teamed up with other officials to pass a bill that would limit inmate lawsuits. (Fugate)  Montgomery said, ”the law does not prohibit lawsuits that may have some validity, but it does have incentives to make inmates think twice about filing what are deemed frivolous cases.” 

                Inmates are not the only ones who file petty lawsuits.  The general public is far worse.  In Orlando, The estate of a woman killed in a rental car is suing the rental car company.  The person driving the car was the woman’s Irish boyfriend, who was drunk at the time of the accident.  The suit alleges that the rental car company should be liable for the woman’s death because they “either knew or should have known about the unique cultural and ethnic customs in Ireland which involve the regular consumption of alcohol...”  (Best of the Bizarre)

                In another case the parents of Columbine High School gunman Dylan Klebold filed papers blaming the Jefferson County sheriff’s department and the school district.  The Klebolds state that if investigators would have notified them of their son’s Internet rantings and his friend’s violent tendencies “they would have kept the two boys apart and prevented the mass murder.”  However, the argument against their case is that the parents should have known about the “shotguns in the gym bags and pipe bombs in the closet.” (Best of the Bizarre)  This is just another example of the ever so prevalent “blaming game.”

                Some states have been proposing bills to limit frivolous lawsuits.  Under a bill proposed by Ohio legislators the loser must pay legal fees and court costs.  It also establishes a capped award for pain and suffering and limits awards for permanent injuries.  Republican state Representative Gene Krebs reasoned, “[Trivial lawsuits are] causing a great legal strain on the system.  This [bill] will help restore a sense of fairness to the system” (Craig).

                The judicial system is one of the strongest single representations of democracy in our free nation; one in which any person no matter how rich or poor can seek justice.  Thus, it is a shame that the system can be so manipulated by the greedy people who know how to use its loop holes.   

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