Ralph Nader has opened a museum of Tort law. Exhibits to the Corvair, hot coffee and the sure to be popular toys that kill.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/ralph-nader-builds-his-dream-museum-of-tort-law/2015/10/04/babc430e-677f-11e5-9ef3-fde182507eac_story.html
Only if you drive up to it in a Corvair.
I wonder if they'll have simulators where you can try to survive a runaway Toyota or a GM that turns itself off while driving. I'd try to set a high score!
The only place in the world killjoys feel happy.
If you made a simulator of the Toyota runaway throttle I bet that 95% of the public wouldn't know something was wrong until it was to late. I've driven a Toyota with flakey e throttle, it didn't run away, but it was definitely weird. It was the worst e throttle car that I've ever driven.
I should go there and shake his hand for making Corvair parts so cheap for so long.
Just so you know...the McDonalds coffee lawsuit wasn't frivolous:
http://www.lectlaw.com/files/cur78.htm
Joe Gearin wrote: Just so you know...the McDonalds coffee lawsuit wasn't frivolous: http://www.lectlaw.com/files/cur78.htm
Agreed. Watch the movie 'Hot Coffee'. What was portrayed in the media about that case isn't quite what happened.
Hey Ralph, want to play Lawn Darts?
T.J. wrote:Joe Gearin wrote: Just so you know...the McDonalds coffee lawsuit wasn't frivolous: http://www.lectlaw.com/files/cur78.htmAgreed. Watch the movie 'Hot Coffee'. What was portrayed in the media about that case isn't quite what happened.
Blame the media, for sure. What people don't understand is that the large payout was not because the victim deserved it (remember, she originally asked for $20,000 for the hospital bills and they refused), but it was from the courts and intended to send a message.
I totally understand that the concept behind punitive damages is to prevent situations where the punishment is less than the benefit received by committing the wrongful act.
For example, a company may save a million dollars per year by improperly disposing of toxic waste and as a result, be happy to pay ten thousand dollars per year in fines. Great, got it, but awarding the punitive damages to the plaintiff and attorney wildly incentivizes excessive litigation which places a burden on society as the price of goods and services is unnecessarily increased.
The Win-Win-Win solution is totally obvious…
Continue the practice of awarding punitive damages but only give the plaintiff a reasonable settlement (lost income, medical expenses, and pain / suffering).
Allow the attorney greater compensation as more work goes into making a 1M case than a 20K case but pay based on the hours required to prepare the case, don’t pay based on a percent of the award.
In the specific McDonald’s coffee burn case, the plaintiff would still get $20,000…the attorney would normally get around $7,000 but since it was a big punitive case against a huge corporation, the attorney would get much more, say $100,000 or something, and the remaining $880,000K would just go to paying down the national debt.
Am I missing something…isn’t this a Win-Win-Win
Sounds good apart from spending the excess money on paying off national debt. You can let that rack up, governments need national debt to run, it's not like the kind of debt people and businesses deal with.
The hot coffee lawsuit is so not frivolous it was actually settled out of court for some five digit (IIRC) number, the poor woman just wanted her medical bills covered.
The hot coffee lawsuit is so not frivolous it was actually settled out of court for some five digit (IIRC) number, the poor woman only ever wanted her medical bills covered and really got dragged through the mud over it.
So how many of you would put a fresh hot coffee between your legs???
Darwin territory!
NGTD wrote: So how many of you would put a fresh hot coffee between your legs??? Darwin territory!
In an unmoving car trying to open it to put in cream and sugar? I probably would. If I spilled, I would expect it to hurt. I would not expect 3rd degree burns.
mtn would expect to be honked at, because he's not paying attention to the green light , while pouring his cream and sugar. 
GameboyRMH wrote: , governments need national debt to run,
I'm going to disagree with this statement. An government does not "need" debt to run, it can run just as well neutral or with a surplus.
Nick (Not-Stig) Comstock wrote:GameboyRMH wrote: , governments need national debt to run,I'm going to disagree with this statement. An government does not "need" debt to run, it can run just as well neutral or with a surplus.
You can have a surplus and still have debt.
In reply to mtn:
You know what I meant. A government is more than capable of functioning without having any debt.
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