$2.5 Million. Spilled Coffee... Remember this Huge Story?

[busterbrown]

This crap is an everyday occurrence now..

Shabby News Reporting which enables the Right Wing to take advantage and create a totally diff.
perception (lies) which they ultimately try to use for political gain.

http://www.nytimes.com/video/us/100000002507537/scalded-by-coffee-then-news-media.html?playlistId=100000002148738&WT.mc_id=VI-D-E-TAB-AD-VAR-VIDEO-ROS-0920-NA&taboola=thehuffingtonpost

[nolabels]

1. Corporate media, the right wing is just a distortion shield they use

It's all about money

P.s. not defending the right wing, in some cases they might be more ..........

[drm604]

2. They try to claim that there's an epidemic of so-called frivilous lawsuits.

If there are so many of them, why is this non-frivolous suit the only one they ever mention, and why do they misrepresent the facts about it?

[Archae]

4. Most of the lawsuits in the US are companies suing each other.

No one in the "news media" points this out...

[former9thward]

5. There is a epidemic.

One only has to go to your local courthouse and look at the docket. There is a epidemic because there is a massive oversupply of lawyers and greedy law schools pump out tens of thousands more every year with poor economic prospects. So lawyers take silly cases in the hopes companies will settle to avoid the cost of trial. If a company forces it to trial the suit is quietly dropped.

[Whiskeytide]

9. Nothing could be further from the truth...

... frivolous lawsuits are quite rare, and the system usually does a pretty good job of weeding them out when they are filed. The caricature of the "greedy, ambulance chasing trial lawyer" is, for the most part, fictional.

You only hear about the outrageous examples - almost all of which turn out to be not so outrageous after all when you know the actual facts (See the Liebeck case, e.g.) - and you never hear about the tens of thousands of routine and unremarkable - and just - jury verdicts that are handed down by the court system every year.

Tort reform was not a solution to a court abuse problem. It was a medical and insurance industry fueled solution to reduce pay-outs to injured and damaged individuals, and to create the false perception of epidemics nicknamed "jackpot justice" and "lawsuit lotteries". A side benefit was the election and appointment of conservative judges and justices nationwide. They spent millions on propaganda and saved billions on the back end. Its that simple.

It worked. Your post is an example of how well. (Not picking on you - I promise).

[former9thward]

10. I am not a personal injury lawyer

but I am in the legal field. I don't get my information from "propaganda".

[ProfessorGAC]

8. The Term Frivolous Lawsuit . . .

. . .has been loosely tossed about by the "zero-blame as long as it's profitable" crowd for a couple of decades. But, the screaming comes and goes. So, it's an epidemic, and it has been going on for decades, but it's not ALWAYS an epidemic.

Seem to demonstrate that it's not much of a problem.

[Takket]

3. WOW

This is an absolute MUST watch. In fact this should be a part of ANY course in high school where students are exposed to the legal system as well as any sort of study program focusing on journalism.

I cannot tell you how many times over the years I've made comments about the effect of "I don't know why I bother working so hard at my job when I could just be a f&$%&ing idiot and spill coffee on myself and make millions."

Not necessary the coffee spilling specifically, but doing anything dumb that causes myself harm.... with all of it leading back to the coffee spilling incident that created the notion of the frivolous lawsuit.

[drm604]

6. Check out the movie "Hot Coffee" on Netflix.

[pinboy3niner]

7. +1. It's an excellent doc by HBO. Here's the trailer: