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From: henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer)
Newsgroups: can.politics
Subject: Re: The new equal rights rule
Message-ID: <5566@utzoo.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 4-May-85 19:26:11 EDT
Article-I.D.: utzoo.5566
Posted: Sat May  4 19:26:11 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 4-May-85 19:26:11 EDT
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Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
Lines: 24

> ...all of the ridiculous cases won't get very far.

Unfortunately, there is precedent for ridiculous cases getting far.  The
current court view of product liability is roughly "anytime something bad
happens, somebody *must* be at fault, and should pay heavily for it".  The
situation is bad enough that, for example, production of some vaccines is
in serious danger of being shut down completely.  (Vaccines are not big
money-makers, and adverse reactions to them are common enough to cause
serious [expensive] lawsuit problems for the manufacturers.)

To pick an example closer to home, if you are an employer and you fire
someone who was once involved in union organizing -- no matter why you
fire him -- you had better pray he won't sue claiming "I was fired for
union activities".  Because there is a good chance he will win such a
suit, even if the claim is preposterous.

I fear I have little confidence in the courts' ability to reject silly
lawsuits, particularly in the area of employment discrimination.  When
one side is some poor geek who has suffered somehow, and the other
side is a big corporation (or even a small one), the courts are not at
their most unbiased...
-- 
				Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
				{allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry