Claim of Frivilous Lawsuits is a Frivolous Claim
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Politicians like to claim we have an epidemic of frivolous lawsuits costing this country thousands of dollars per household by adding cost to the manufacture of goods and services. As a solution the proponents ask to ban the use of contingent fee contracts. This claim couldn't be any farther from the truth.
The premise itself fails as a matter of practice and logic.
Let's start by understanding the word frivolous. Remember when something is frivolous it has no value. A frivolous lawsuit is of no value to anyone, including the plaintiff and the plaintiff's lawyer. A contingent fee is a legal fee earned and paid as a percentage of what is actually won in a case. Normally the amount is between one-third and forty percent of the gross recovery. The value of a contingent fee earned in a frivolous claim is zero. It's simple math of course. The value of any number times zero is zero. If lawyers, as it is wrongly claimed, file a lot of frivolous lawsuits, they would soon be out of business. It's no different if a retailer is trying to sell worthless products. It wouldn't take long before the costs of doing business exceeded any profit and the doors would close for good. The law business is an expensive business to operate. Secretaries, legal assistants, rent and insurance coverage doesn't come cheap.
So why is this claim being made and why is it so attractive to politicians? Because as a group they can claim to be doing something against a foe that doesn't exist and they will never be challenged. They know the lawyers won't be able to prove something that doesn't exist.
Perhaps it's the smaller claims they refer when claiming all these frivolous lawsuits exist? Never assume that a small dollar settlement is a frivolous lawsuit. I'm pretty sure that every state in the United States has a small claims' court. Lawyers regularly assist tenants and landlords, insurance companies, and regular working people to collect small sums. Certainly our politicians can't be referring to these claims because that would include the insurance industry itself along with working people who have legitimate claims of smaller amounts.
Why would politicians make such claims if this is not true? The business community is well organized, spends huge sums of money on lobbyists trying to change the laws to more favorably affect the profit line. Much of that lobbying money comes in the form of campaign contributions. To get on the A-list for PAC money the politician has to say things that are in line with the interests of those controlling the money. What better way to garner favor with the business community than to rail against frivolous lawsuits?
So what can you do when a politician makes this claim? Ask them to name the frivolous lawsuit, the lawyer, provide a docket number of the lawsuit, in what courthouse it was filed and the date it was filed. Ask the politician for the exact number of frivolous lawsuits they have identified along with the identifying information for each. If they can't recall it right then ask who on their staff should be contacted for this information.
Now why do moneyed interests in this country really want to ban contingent fee agreements? It's simple, it's the common person's key to the courthouse and if you take it away their access to the courthouse you take away accountability for wrong doers. And that has only one affect; it increases the bottom line of corporate America.
Next time you hear a politician mention "frivolous lawsuits", demand specifics, like the amount of campaign contributions they have taken from special interests.
Related Information: Tort Reform Information