I am in litigation support. I have a project that I hope someone or everyone on this list might be able to help me since you have apparently been involved with water well drilling equipment or involved in the industry. I am interested in any incident at anytime since 1970 thru current. I am searching for those that were injured or almost injured because of a falling or flying object. I am seeking knowledge of incidents wherein injury has been suffered by anyone of a water drilling crew member by a falling object even through to the current time. I am also interested in reports of near misses as well. Please feel free to call me at 1.800.308.7716 ext 4010.
The most common incidents IIRC, were those involving heavy pump components striking visiting personal injury lawyers on the top of the head. Many times the lawyers were assisted in maintaining the proper position in relation to the falling objects.....
||> The most common incidents IIRC, were those involving heavy pump ||> components striking visiting personal injury lawyers on the top of the ||> head. Many times the lawyers were assisted in maintaining the proper ||> position in relation to the falling objects..... ||>
============================================================= With or without product liability, people will still be injured and killed when using any type of mechanism, even fire or a stone axe.
Product liability cases are generally taken on a contingency basis. This means that a good attorney will carefully examine the circumstances and will take a case only if it appears the [potential] plaintiff has at least a plausible action, i. e. the plaintiff is not primarily responsible for their own injuries and some proximate assignable cause exists.
While we all like to hate lawyers, it is good to remember that « product liability » is simply the « iron fist » inside the « velvet glove » of the invisible hand of the much touted « free market. »
While product liability litigation is perceived to be a major PITA, never-the-less it appears to be the only way to beat common sense into individuals, companies and corporations that are too cheap, too stupid and (mainly) too arrogant to change their products when field experience clearly indicates an ongoing, immediate and unreasonable danger.
Without product liability litigation, the direct and consequential costs of such injuries are born entirely by the unfortunate victims, their immediate families, and society-at-large, unless traditional « extra-legal » proceedings such as assassination or extortion of the parties thought to be responsible occur. There are several problems with this (other than the moral ones). (1) The vic (or their representative) is never sure they are getting the party actually responsible, and in the case of a corporation, « there ain’t nobody home » to hit. (2) They have to be strong/ruthless enough to carry out the retribution. (3) Products never or only very slowly improve. (4) Society-at-large must still absorb most of the considerable cost because of reduced earnings by and public assistance to the victims, etc., i.e. revenge rather than compensation is obtained.
When actual cases are examined, rather then relying on media hype and sensation, (which should be suspect as most major media outlets are now owned by mega- corporations) it is clear that in almost all product liability cases (assuming defendant liability), large compensatory and consequential damages are only awarded when the plaintiff is substantially and possibly totally disabled, normally had and will suffer excruciating pain, and will require around-the-clock care. ==> Failure to make such awards does not eliminate the expenses involved, but simply transfers the costs from the responsible entity to society-at-large because of public assistance, Medicare, etc., payments.
Large punitive damages are very seldom awarded the first time a product liability case goes to trial, unless gross incompetence and/or egregious/malicious behavior can be proven. Indeed, the responsible entity generally gets multiple « bites at the apple » before significant punitive damages are awarded. As the intention of punitive damages is to « get someone’s attention » these must be extremely high to accomplish this with companies or corporations with large incomes. For example, for the typical US adult with 30,000$US annual income a 5,000$US fine is about 1/6 of their gross annual income. For a corporation making 10 billion $US per year, the equivalent prorated amount of 1/6 of annual income would be
1,600,000$US. When parity purchasing power [PPP] (1 additional dollar to a person making 10,000$ per year is worth much more than 1 additional dollar to a person making 50,000$ per year) is considered, the award must be even higher to have equivalent perceptive effect. I am not aware of any product liability case (other than a few class action suits with tens of thousands of plaintiffs) where such an award has been made and upheld.
In the case of accidents resulting from water well drilling activities and/or equipment, it may be there is no product liability exposure, however if it is like most activities, considerable unnecessary and avoidable risk exists because of the failure of the equipment manufacturer and/or owner-operator to remedy known existing faults or deficiencies and/or apply newly available techniques (such as finite element analysis) and materials.
The choice is not between costs/expenses or no costs/expenses resulting from industrial accidents, but *WHO IS TO BEAR THE COSTS*: Society-at-large and to a smaller extend the victims and their immediate families, or the individuals and organizations who profited from the manufacture and operation of the equipment which resulted in the accidents. Its your choice and your (tax) money.
For the record, I am not a lawyer (and never played one on TV). I spent 30 years as an engineer and QC manager in automotive and heavy-duty truck component manufacturing before recycling myself into academia.
Unfortunately this analysis ignores the billions taken out in the process in attorney fees as well as the deep pockets concept where the small individual directly responsible for the accident is bypassed in favor of the larger, frequently blameless, entity with money. Or the jurors who use the same PPP concept as you and conclude that the plaintiff was 99% at fault but they need to be compensated by the "Evil Corporation" since it won't really cost the EC anything anyway.
I used to work for an insurance claims adjusting firm and I think among my all-time favorites was the home owner whose three year old thought the ceiling fan blades going around was fascinating. So the guy holds the kid up over his head who promptly holds his hand up and gets it broken when the next blade comes around. Filed a lawsuit, our insured had us settle to make them go away. Exactly where was the "cheapness, stupidity or arrogance" of the ceiling fan manufacturer?
Steve.
Who, being from North Carolina, watched John Edwards become an EXTREMELY wealthy man chasing ambulances, then buy himself a seat in the Senate on a platform of promises impossible to verify since he had no voting record, who is now possibly going to become Vice President after spending almost his entire Senate career running for higher office and STILL not having much of a voting record and not doing a damned thing for his constituents.
Sentence him to 5 years in Iceland. Consider: According to a reliable source (my wife), if you accidentally leave your camera on a park bench and come back in a couple hours, it will still be there.
Blame the lawyers - they made a decision that it would cost less to settle (odd that you don't mention the amount) the case than to take it to trial. Sure a jury would laugh at the case, but then there's a one prercent chance they would award something.
They might award $100K, and it might cost $10K to bring the case to trial for an exoneration. So why not offer the 10 up front, says the lawyers. Your company said 'settle' I suspect - after a bit of prodding from the insurance company.
If you want to 'fix' this (is it really broken??) then first off you shoot all the lawyers. Then you shoot all the insurance company execs (why spread risk? - if you find the at-fault person, you pin it on them) and then you abolish the court system.
Just remember though, you need consider the case where a company really is negligent. So we make the CEO of the corporation PERSONALLY LIABLE - remember, no insurance, right? - for any damages. Pierce the corporate veil and let folks who are really harmed recover from the individuals concerned.
While we're shooting folks, we take the CEOs and CFOs out and do the same to them as the lawyers, if they can't pay out when they do wrong. Fair's fair here.
You'll see the company execs whining and blubbering for their insurance safty net after all. But ONLY if it benefits them.
Jim
================================================== please reply to: JRR(zero) at yktvmv (dot) vnet (dot) ibm (dot) com ==================================================
Exactly Steve. I typed something earlier that I disposed of because it became a ramble but the main point was the stupidity clause that should apply to liability.
"If your stupidity is the proximal cause of the damage, it doesn't matter if the manufacturer could have done better or put more warnings. You were STUPID and that makes it 100% your fault".
People complain about rising compensation in liability suits...however if this clause were applied, it would eliminate all the suits that are frivolous and leave only those in the gray or black areas that do have merit and should be heard.
Negligence is NOT that hard to pin down. Negligence requires that you DID know or SHOULD HAVE known of a problem and still released the product. It should not be up to a manufacturer to second guess how/what every stupid person will do with their product, only a broad range of average use for a reasonably prudent public.
||wmbjk wrote: || ||> Yes, learning the Icelandic language.... the second thing I'd ||> recommend to a "litigation support" spammer. || ||Sentence him to 5 years in Iceland. Consider: According to a reliable ||source (my wife), if you accidentally leave your camera on a park bench ||and come back in a couple hours, it will still be there.
But send a lawyer there, and that will change :) Texas Parts Guy
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