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Originally Posted by KSig RC
I think you actually gave the 'correct' answer earlier: no one can really come up with a better system. If I heard one, I'd be down for it - but I've never heard one.
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Exactly - there are a lot of smart lawyers, judges and law professors who have been trying to come up with a better system, but nothing has come up as of yet.
Also, as far as being "self-insured" against these risks, even putting aside the larger companies that are self-insured in one way or another, that's what property/liability/umbrella insurance is there to do. As long as you are within the insurance contract, the insurers are picking up part of the bill on this. Now, it might trickle down into higher insurance rates later on, but there is a mechanism there for at least partial protection. (I could go into more, but this is what I do for a living, and it would probably get too boring for most of the board).
I don't think it's quite correct to say that the law community is satisfied because they are "already making a living" in the current system. Honestly, lawyers will still find work in an alternate system, through counseling individuals and companies, putting together risk avoidance plans, etc. Plus, as I noted above, there are people in the profession who are looking for a "better" option.
Also, again, the perception of widespread outrageous court judgments isn't entirely correct. RC, Kevin, GP and others may be able to correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't in-court litigation at an all-time low (i.e. the "Vanishing Trial" theory)? It obviously doesn't account for all litigation (since it takes so long to get to court anyway, through discovery, depositions, etc.), but it shows that these types of cases are the exception, not the norm.
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Originally Posted by UGAalum94
I acknowledge that I can't back this up very well, but I still think it would be better for our perception of being responsible for ourselves not to have the pay out connected to some corporation say 5% responsible when the dumbass himself is say 20% responsible.
Sure, we can spread the corporate cost out to the rest of us through other means, but there's still a suggestion of actual responsibility by the company and therefore a suggestion that we aren't mainly responsible for ourselves. And I don't know if this comes out in the societal wash or not.
(Now, I don't really know how my general fund idea encourages individual responsibility better since it probably would require the government to act on our behalf.)
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As to your first point in the above post, a number of states have a mechanism in place for this in comparative negligence; in that way, either the plaintiff's recovery is reduced by his/her "fault" in the incident, or, in some states, if the plaintiff is found to be more than 50% liable by the judge or jury, the plaintiff will walk away with nothing.