Quote:
Originally Posted by UGAalum94
I don't mind people being compensated when they are victimized by others. But they should bear responsibility for their own actions and we should be really careful about who we make pay. Only the people actually responsible should have to pay. It should be really hard to tie in a third party simply because they have more money and yet, I think we allow it to happen pretty frequently. We allow people's sense that the victims are entitled to be compensated to override holding the people responsible responsible.
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I don't think this (holding a merely tangentially-related third-party deep-pocket defendant liable to up the plaintiff's earn) actually happens very often - I think the 'ideal' of the deep-pocket defendant is much more prevalent than the actuality. That's actually why it is such a powerful defense - the reality is outstripped by the outrage. Now, the plaintiff can file against just about any party, but Kevin has already covered why that's really not a big deal from an award standpoint.
Remember, too, that the media loves to show "frivolous" lawsuits (mostly because people have a preconception that there are far too many lawsuits nowadays), so we don't exactly see a representative sample, and even then the coverage is often very cursory and incendiary.
The classic example would be, ironically, the McDonald's 'hot coffee' case, which was not only
not frivolous under any reasonable standard, but the award really wasn't even that far out of line with the nature of the injury and the corporate conduct involved. However, it's pretty easy to say "holy shit what a retard, obv obv obv coffee = hot!" and so that's what people think . . . we don't hear so much about fused labia requiring reconstructive surgery, or the fact that MCD corporate refused repeated warnings to serve the coffee cooler because it would result in more refills (at the cost of fractional cents per cup).
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