Quote :

"Leading Conservative Activist Seeks Punitive Damages Judge Robert Bork, one of the fathers of the modern judicial conservative movement whose nomination to the Supreme Court was rejected by the Senate, is seeking $1,000,000 in compensatory damages, plus punitive damages, after he slipped and fell at the Yale Club of New York City. Judge Bork was scheduled to give a speech at the club, but he fell when mounting the dais, and injured his head and left leg. He alleges that the Yale Club is liable for the $1m plus punitive damages because they "wantonly, willfully, and recklessly" failed to provide staging which he could climb safely. Judge Bork has been a leading advocate of restricting plaintiffs' ability to recover through tort law. In a 2002 article published in the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy--the official journal of the Federalist Society--Bork argued that frivolous claims and excessive punitive damage awards have caused the Constitution to evolve into a document which would allow Congress to enact tort reforms that would have been unconstitutional at the framing: "State tort law today is different in kind from the state tort law known to the generation of the Framers. The present tort system poses dangers to interstate commerce not unlike those faced under the Articles of Confederation. Even if Congress would not, in 1789, have had the power to displace state tort law, the nature of the problem has changed so dramatically as to bring the problem within the scope of the power granted to Congress. Accordingly, proposals, such as placing limits or caps on punitive damages, or eliminating joint or strict liability, which may once have been clearly understood as beyond Congress's power, may now be constitutionally appropriate." Ted Frank, another leading proponent of tort reform, questions the merits of Judge Bork's claims: "I sympathize with Judge Bork's serious injuries, but it's beyond me what his lawyers are thinking in asking for punitive damages. And if any danger is open and obvious such that there is an assumption of the risk, surely the absence of stairs to reach a lectern on a dais is—especially if the dais is of the "unreasonable" height that the complaint alleges it to be." "

So it's OK for Bork to get punitive damages for himself... but the rest of us need not clog up the justice system with our punitive claims. Boy we dodged a bullet on him for Supreme Court, huh?

6/8/2007 10:35:46 PM

Depends. Punitive damages are bullshit and need to be far more restricted than they currently are.

But if I get a chance to sue someone and get millions of dollars, I'm going to do it! Ideological consistency does not feed me. Similarly, it is not hypocrisy to say the rules need to change while using the rules to your benefit. They are the rules, we all must do our best to live under them. Examples include believing the war is wrong, yet still paying your taxes to avoid jail; believing the FCC has no right to censor TV broadcasts, yet still preventing the use of "fuck" on evening news broadcasts to avoid losing millions in FCC fines; believing the USDA has no right to prevent you from testing all your meat for potentially dangerous diseases, yet still not performing the tests to avoid having the Government destroy your business.

All these are perfectly rational, although they are hypocritical.

[Edited on June 9, 2007 at 1:13 AM. Reason : .,.]

6/9/2007 1:08:38 AM

^^ this may be the first time Ive agreed completely with EarthDogg. I dont remember for sure though. there may have been others.


LoneSnark, however, is still the same old douchebag

Quote :

"But if I get a chance to sue someone and get millions of dollars"

because you were a dumbass, and fell off their lectern dias? damn, you dont have any sense of ethics or morals do you?

6/9/2007 4:25:49 AM

Yeah, I know more than one person who has had the chance to sue for millions of dollars...and they haven't done it cause they're not fucked up people.

6/9/2007 5:25:05 AM

Quote :

"because you were a dumbass, and fell off their lectern dias? damn, you dont have any sense of ethics or morals do you?"

This is friggin' millions of dollars! Do you have no sense of self? I despise the rules, and it is hypocritical, but that is a lot of money!

Now, I recognize that I am inflicting a huge wrong on someone else, I'd be very sorry. And I would only sue if I was assured victory; no point harming someone else for nothing. But millions of dollars? I would not lie, but filling a complaint in court, being 100% truthful, and getting millions of dollars?

[Edited on June 9, 2007 at 9:15 AM. Reason : .,.]

6/9/2007 9:13:51 AM

^
Would you still try it if we had a "Loser Pays" system? If you knew you could get burned up financially by going for the big bucks, would youstill take the chance?

Now if I was Judge Bork who spent my career advocating against punitiive damages, and I fell off the dais, AND I knew I could lose a lot of money if my case fell through...I would definitely reconsider.

6/9/2007 9:36:58 AM

Yes, if I got my way and the rules were changed then I would act differently, so would everyone else.

6/9/2007 10:25:39 AM

^^problem with the "loser pays" system is the small guys could more easily be intimidated by large companies into not bringing suit even when it's a legitimate one.

6/10/2007 5:09:51 PM

I like the loser pays system, but only if the judge declares a suit to be frivolous.

one million plus bc you fell down? Get a life. Total BS. Unless he can show medical bills totaling 1 million, well scratch that, bc you are allowed to show what medicail bills you have, but you arent allowed to show what you actually PAID, and if insurances paid any.

6/10/2007 7:01:16 PM

if we are going to have a loser pay system, then we will need a barrister system in which the lawyer does not get paid by the client, rather by the court.

6/10/2007 7:25:26 PM

Well, it's easy enough to have a cap on the loser pays side.

6/10/2007 9:59:27 PM