Selling prototypes, beta-versions: Liabilities?

Good you straightened that out. I suppose the reason they run those ads and have their own response teams to get the hospital first after an accident isn't for their own benefit. All they hope for is to just get their wages out of the deal.

Reply to
George
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Let me be the devils advocate. You are in an accident that is no fault of your own. For example lets say you are at the big box buying a box of nails and a higher shelf collapses on you. You loose six months of work and live in uncontrollable pain the rest of your life because of the injuries you received. Would it be OK with you if the big box insurance picked up the tab for the medical expenses and paid you six months of lost wages and then you were on your own?

Reply to
George

Would money relieve the pain? No. If i got paid for the medical bills and time lost i would be satisified. People who injur themselves sometimes suffer pain all thier and lives they and live with it. Lets say a person cuts into a high voltage cable to steal the copper and is toasted but survives should they be able to litigate for pain and suffering?

Best Regards Tom.

Reply to
azotic

Contingency fees are the only option for most people.

Let me be the devils advocate. You are in an accident that is no fault of your own. For example lets say you are at the big box buying a box of nails and a higher shelf collapses on you. You loose six months of work and live in uncontrollable pain the rest of your life because of the injuries you received.

Sound familiar? ;-)

Now unable to work and without income, could you afford to pay an attorney the upfront fees required to successfully sue the big box store?

Reply to
Harvey Specter

azotic wrote the following:

How about "loss of consortium"?

Reply to
willshak

Depends. If it was one of those deals where the thing just let go without warning I'd classify it as "shit happens". If I was the fourteenth person it had fallen on then I'd say that some additional punishment is in order.

Reply to
J. Clarke

Did your friend have auto insurance? His company shopuld have picked up the tab.

uninsured/underinsured coverage.

Remove 333 to reply. Randy

Reply to
Randy333

Pennsylvania just passed the Fair Share act.

Remove 333 to reply. Randy

Reply to
Randy333

Who mentioned contingency fees?

My point is about the really common practice where many/most lawyers are in business solely to transfer as much wealth as they possibly can to themselves in whatever way they can. Essentially they realized they don't need to stand in a dark alley with a hood over their head. They can dress in a nice suit and pretend they are honorable.

Reply to
George

Who said anything about a criminal act? You are minding you own business and through no fault of your own you receive a serious injury.

Reply to
George

Sure, but you can blow through that pretty quick with serious injuries and that is what happened.

Reply to
George

I live in PA. That might mean one less antique car or some other toy for a lawyer and really wouldn't stop the way lawyers operate. First thing they do is look to see how many pockets they can empty.

Without getting into a big story I know someone who legally disposed of an old car his daughter used going to college. The title was forged by others and the repaired version of the car was reborn. Sometime later two kids died in a car fire while according to the toxicology report were using alcohol and drugs. The lawyers followed the ownership of the car back and determined how much of his assets could be touched and sued him for that amount on the basis that there were service bulletins that were not followed while he owned the car. His money was noise compared to what they wanted from the auto makers etc but it meant say a new high end sports car for a lawyer.

Reply to
George

A reasonable compromise is to allow juries to award punitive or pain and suffering damages but cap them at some reasonable multiple of compensatory damages (say treble or four times) and perhaps also impose an absolute amount cap (such as $1M).

Reply to
Spehro Pefhany

I think much could be done by limiting class action suits. Many of these are just fishing expeditions for the attorneys who know what it will cost the companies to go to trial and submit an offer of settlement that is right around that. The last 4 class action suits I have been involved in, I got an average of $3.00 and the attorneys got an average of just over $ 35 million in fees.

Reply to
Kurt Ullman

Agree, limits of some sort make sense.

Current problem is the lawyers who aren't happy with their billing rate and want to go for the kill. They carefully identify every deep pocket that could possibly maybe have something to do with whatever the damages are and whip them into a frenzy to get the gazillion dollar awards.

Reply to
George

Thats why class actions are often called the "litigation lottery" because they can really win big.

Last one I received stated something like "In order to preserve maximum benefits for the class Dewey, Cheatum and Howe has agreed to accept $29 million. And the class members got a $3 off of next purchase coupon...

Reply to
George

You're in the wrong classes. I got a free new phone with many accessories from Sprint when they decided to change systems and obsolete the old phones. Got $100 for IBM selling me bad Deskstar hard drives. Sometimes, class actions bring very reasonable results for the members of the class as well as the attorneys. In the IBM case, discovery revealed that IBM knew they had serious quality control problems but shipped the drives anyway. There's not much you can do when your own emails "indict" you.

I've been invited to join other class actions, but reading the fine print revealed the "payout" was a discount on MORE crap made by the same vendor, so I opted out. In fact, I suspect that some of these supposed class actions were actually scams to dupe people into giving up personal information because the rewards were ridiculously low - less than it would cost a vendor them to gain customers through advertising.

-- Bobby G.

Reply to
Robert Green

That has been my experience. I had a similar "class action" with Verizon back when it was still GTE Mobilnet. Got no money, but I could get a free earbud for my phone, if I reupped for two years more. Some punishment, something that probably costs them a buck or two if I extend my contract. There was NO gain from the suit w/o extending the contract.

Reply to
Kurt Ullman

That's true for virtually all of us. Have you ever turned down a pay increase? I sure as hell have not!

Clearly you have a hard-on for lawyers.

If you ever find yourself needing legal representation, I suggest you hire a cub scout instead.

Reply to
Ted

I was in a class action against the company that owned one of the cellular systems (maybe cellular one) that predated VZW. I don't remember what the action was about but I do remember the final letter. "In order to preserve maximum value for the class, Dewey, Cheatum & Howe has agreed to accept $12,723,201.00

Members of the class received a phone card (remember them?) worth $5 that featured a per minute cost of almost $2. So you got to make a

Reply to
George

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