The Goat Pen

Agreed. The state already makes you pay for your trial if found guilty.

Jungle Rat wrote:Agreed. The state already makes you pay for your trial if found guilty.

I think it would do several things - reduce the number of trials obviously, raise the conviction rate , reduce the number of innocent people in prison, put prosecutors focusing clearly on justice and not just getting a conviction (knowing that a witch hunt would cost the state potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars), reduce petty lawsuits on the civil side, while at the same time give poor people better representation while on trial (because good lawyers would be willing to take a case in which they believe they'll be reimbursed something)...there are alot of positives to that.

"there are alot of positives to that."

Gauranteeing that it won't happen.

FWIW..... Larry Mahoney was an inmate at the Eastern Kentucky Correctional Complex which is only about a mile and a half from my house. A good friend of mine is a correctional officer at EKCC and told me he talked to Mahoney occasionally and he seems to be a decent guy and extremely sorry for what happened. If I can remember correctly, seems as if he blew a .24 or something close to that while being tested after the incident. There was a pic on KSR of a UK football player who was one of those on the bus that was injured. His face is badly scarred and there was another pic of the survivors that got together for a reunion this year.

[youtube]1RT5JSBWCuo[/youtube]

It won't happen but it should.

The problem with "loser pays" on the civil side that I see, is that the lawyers fees can be way out of whack with what the stakes of the case are. It'd be stupid to have to pay someone $10,000 because they had better lawyers than you and you lost your $3,000 claim against them.

It areas where you have two parties with vastly different resources, say Joe Blow vs Big Corp, it will leverage the risk of going to court in favor of the rich guy because Big Corp would have to pay for Joe Blow's bargain bin lawyer if they lose, while Joe Blow would have to pay off the Big Corp dream team

that's why I said the fees paid would have to be determined by an independent 3rd party, otherwise a defendent would go out and hire the dream team and then submit a million dollar fee to the state because they got out of some nickel and dime embezzlement scheme. Kinda like an HMO negotiating with doctors for set fees. Small claims court is already designed to take care of the claims without lawyers involved.

That, and it may discourage poor people from filing suits because they know they can't afford to bring a lawsuit that they may lose. You can say, "Well, don't bring a suit you may lose," but 'losing' a suit doesn't mean that you were wrong or that they were really innocent.

They should just institute the death penalty for attorneys.

AlabamAlum wrote:That, and it may discourage poor people from filing suits because they know they can't afford to bring a lawsuit that they may lose. You can say, "Well, don't bring a suit you may lose," but 'losing' a suit doesn't mean that you were wrong or that they were really innocent.

true, but that really is going to be a differentiator between competency in lawyers. How often to do civil suits between giant corporation X and joe blow for $25K in damages really goes to court anyways? If they know they'll throw $300K of lawyering at it , and even if they win, they just net $50K from a 3rd party administrator, they're going to move on. If you're going to go the distance, I would think its going to be for big money, and with big money involved, you're not going to go with the cheapest attorney you can find - and that would be true whether you had to pay other fees or not.

I don't think the answer is tort reform, but I do think everyone needs to assume more risk.

Also, I'm tired of being part of a class action lawsuit, seeing that the result was a verdict of $29m and I get a check for $1.09 while the legal team of Wham, Bam, Thankyamaam gets paid $7m in fees.

Attorney fees for class action lawsuits should be commensurate with the verdict awarded. Sometimes it may be merited like a website that double charged everyone tax and it really does work out to a $1.09, but other times I've been involved with stuff where the resulting lawsuit should have netted me something and I literally got a coupon.

If the answer to that is tort reform then I retract my first statement.

"but other times I've been involved with stuff where the resulting lawsuit should have netted me something and I literally got a coupon."

You really should've gotten more than a coupon for the Bell's Palsy case. To add insult to injury, it was probably for some food joint that you couldn't enjoy precisely due to the Bell's Palsy. Damn...

aTm wrote:The problem with "loser pays" on the civil side that I see, is that the lawyers fees can be way out of whack with what the stakes of the case are. It'd be stupid to have to pay someone $10,000 because they had better lawyers than you and you lost your $3,000 claim against them.

Make it like Medicare. You might want to charge $500 an hour but you're only getting $85. Deal with it.

Price controls on lawyerin'. I like it, brilliant.

Watch it...

Apparently, the state of Oklahoma has been blown off the map.

it's Wiggins' fault...if you ask UK fans.

Seeing the destruction and the many lives that were changed in my little burg after experiencing last year's F3 tornado makes me have a whole new respect for people affected by the devistation. My prayers go out to these families. Recovery is a long, difficult process.

The 10 deadliest tornadoes in the United States since 1900:

- 695 deaths. March 18, 1925, in Missouri, Illinois and Indiana.

- 216 deaths. April 5, 1936, in Tupelo, Miss.

- 203 deaths. April 6, 1936, in Gainesville, Ga.

- 181 deaths. April 9, 1947, in Woodward, Okla.

- 158 deaths. May 22, 2011, in Joplin, Mo.

- 143 deaths. April 24, 1908, in Amite, La., and Purvis, Miss.

- 116 deaths. June 8, 1953, in Flint, Mich.

- 114 deaths. May 11, 1953 in Waco, Texas.

- 114 deaths. May 18, 1902 in Goliad, Texas.

- 103 deaths. March 23, 1913, in Omaha, Neb.

Nothing like making political hay within 24 hours of a tragedy...

http://dailycaller.com/2013/05/20/democ ... um=twitter