Jmustang1968 wrote:Europe has labels for stupid people all over everything?
Not necessarily. European countries do, however, mandate design choices, safety features, etc. to a much greater extent than the United States, and compliance with those regulations generally insulates a manufacturer from tort liability. (Tort awards in Europe are much lower than they are in the United States. This is due, in part, to the fact that those countries' "social safety nets" cover many of the costs associated with injury and sickness.) The United States, on the other hand, generally does not mandate design choices, safety features, etc, and relies instead, upon a stringent tort regime to produce efficient results. (Obviously, the United States mandates some design choices and safety features - particularly with regard to automobiles - but the breadth of U.S. regulation is much narrower.)
In short, Europe relies on "front end" safety regulation (i.e., the regulators decide what safety features will be placed on your prodcuts) and the United States relies on "back end" regulation (i.e., the tort system makes you pay for the harm your products cause and you decide what safety features justify the cost).
mjmjr25 wrote:I'm not concerned about coffee. Clearly that wasn't the point being made. Luke was talking about slavery and marrying rapists - which weren't remotely discussed in that video. The point was, the video intent was to celebrate a day when there weren't frivolous lawsuits --- It wasn't glamorizing slavery or the beating up of handicap kids as Luke was suggesting.
If we're going to seriously debate whether there are frivolous lawsuits and whether there are small segments of the population who would rather "fall" in some "rich" guy's yard than to go to work, we can have that discussion - but that wasn't the original point of the comment or the undertow of the video Luke posted.
I think Luke's point - with which I agree - is that the "good ol' days" were not all that good for most people. Here is a fun, short blog post I think about whenever people talk or write about how much better things were in the past:
http://www.slate.com/blogs/convictions/ ... times.html. My favorite passage:
After all, if we are no worse than the cavemen (which seems likely), and there have been moral declines in certain periods (which is possible), then there must have been moral improvements to bring us back up to caveman level as well. Even when indicators such as out-of-wedlock births or drug usage or crime improve, as they do from time to time, opinion leaders never attribute the improvement in behavior to moral betterment. If credit card use increases, it is because of a decline in morals; but if credit card use declines, it is because of an improvement in the law or the spread of information or some such thing untainted by moralistic talk. Why this asymmetry?
In any event, frivolous lawsuits were just as prevalent 20 and 30 years ago as they are today (and - I can assure you - there are plenty of them today). That said, frivolous lawsuits can be disposed of easily and inexpensively - and smart Plaintiff's attorneys never want to take on a case they can't win - so, they are not actually that big of a threat. (In my experience, most truly frivolous lawsuits are filed by people representing themselves.)
