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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!harpo!seismo!hao!hplabs!oliveb!olivee!oliven!chrisp
From: chrisp@oliven.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.auto
Subject: Who is Liable?!
Message-ID: <131@oliven.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 27-Apr-84 13:44:22 EST
Article-I.D.: oliven.131
Posted: Fri Apr 27 13:44:22 1984
Date-Received: Sat, 28-Apr-84 11:05:14 EST
Organization: Olivetti ATC, Cupertino, Ca
Lines: 52


Keith Bauer's comments on the Mark Donohue and San Diego Porsche 930 liability
trials implies the need for some education on the state of the torts business.

First, I am in complete agreement with Keith that both trial results are totally
assinine. In the Donohue case, the trial judge seems to be a major problem as he
basically took away a good third of the defense on various thin excuses. (Would
you believe that after 25 years as a first rank driver, Mario Andretti is not a
qualified expert on the behavior of race tires?!) It seems very probable that
the decesion will be voided by a higher court based simply on the massive series
of decision errors by the judge. In the case with the 930, the errors seem to
have been made by the defense counsel: he tried to cover up the loss of an
interoffice memo on the 930's handling and got caught substituting a doctored
copy of another memo. I suspect that the case cannot be retrieved.

Essentially, Keith has just discovered what has been going on in liability law
for the last 30 years. The prime question in any liability case in 'who has the
deepest pockets' (the most money). This is known as the deep pockets doctrine.
So counsel always goes after the individual (or company) that they think they
can get the most money out of without regard to other factors. The next most
important question is whose lawyers are how good. A trial is really a contest
between the legal teams (rather like a football game). Third, you should note
that juries are carefully selected to eliminate people who think. Lawyers prefer
juries who react emotionally and don't use their heads. The facts of a situation
come after all of the above.

There was a case in Santa Cruz a few years ago in which a twerp dove off a 30
foot trestle into 4 feet of water and (surprise!) broke his fool neck. He WON
his suit against Southern Pacific for 'maintaining an attractive nuisance'.
Fortunately the decision was thrown out when the sole witness told SP that he
had obtained a small honorarium for his appearance on the stand. (A sane result
for the wrong reason.)

And that is why we all have the questionable pleasure of compensating blatent
idiots for the fruits of their irresponsibility! You should note that nearly all
of the truely rich lawyers are liability lawyers. This is because virtually all
liability suits are payed on a 'contingency' basis: 40% of the award goes to the
lawyer. It doesn't pay to have turkeys enjoy the fruits of their stupidity!

The only way that I can see to correct this mess is to get your state to legally
ban contingency fees. And good luck! The fight to do this is would be long, hard
and expensive because most state legislators are lawyers and it would close the
main chance that lawyers have to get rich. (An interesting alternative would be
a counter suit against plaintif's counsel on the grounds that the gamble of the
contingency fee is in conflict with counsel's status as an 'officer of the
court'. That would require an idealistic and good attorney as well as a lot of
time and money.)

No flames from this quarter, Keith. You are totally right!

					Chris Prael
					(retired driver)