ARE WE VICTIMS OF “LEGAL” EXTORTION” ?

When are some people going to take responsibility for their actions instead of blaming someone else when something bad happens from their own actions?
Probably never, when you have greedy, “ambulance chasing” lawyers, prowling the airwaves and other media outlets, encouraging “supposed victims” to get compensated for their own wrong or stupid actions.
Now, we know that some people are injured by the negligent actions of others and those people should be compensated for the injuries suffered by that negligence, but what about others who do something stupid and cause injury to themselves and still want to be compensated by others? That’s where the extortion sets in. Bringing a lawsuit to court is an expensive action and most people couldn’t afford the costs and legal fees to initiate a lawsuit. When a person has a legitimate claim for redress, a lawyer, on a contingency basis, might take the case under an agreement with the client that gives that lawyer 1/3 of the eventual settlement as his agreed upon fee. That’s the good part, but what if some people, who don’t have a legitimate cause of action can get the services of a lawyer on a contingency basis to pursue a “junk” lawsuit in order to get compensated just like the legitimate victim?
Most lawsuits very rarely get tried in a court, mainly because it’s too expensive to actually try a case through a full court trial. So if a lawyer can take a case, even a bogus case, and get a settlement before trial, he can get his fee with a non-chance of losing the case in a trial and with a minimal amount of effort.
Listen to ads on T.V. encouraging people who lost money in the stock market, people who worked in a certain industry, people who were injured in an accident etc., and you see how the “barracuda” lawyers use extortion to exact money from a company or an individual with “deep pockets” by threatening them a with a multi-million dollar lawsuit and the resulting bad publicity that inevitably follows. Many companies and rich people settle the lawsuit, before trial, rather than fight it in court because it is cheaper to do so, whether it is a legitimate claim or not.
This abuse of the legal system, directed by lawyers and willing clients, is what is driving up the cost of healthcare, auto and property insurance, and is causing many doctors to curtail their practices or abandon it all together, and many activities for children and adults will be eliminated or curtailed out of fear of lawsuits. In addition, our freedom of speech , in many cases, is being infringed upon out of fear of being sued by greedy, unscrupulous lawyers and their lackeys, like the Reverends Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton.
One of the biggest scams today is the “class action” lawsuit whereby many plaintiffs receive a pittance in remuneration and the plaintiff lawyers receiving millions, in some cases, of legal fees. This abuse of the legal system costs all of us in the form of higher insurance premiums and increases in the cost of food and products we buy to help these companies pay for these outrageous damage claims and awards.
What can be done - here are some things that can be done: 1) initiate “loser pays” (like in most other countries) to cut down on frivolous lawsuits, 2) put a cap on “pain and suffering”, 3) curtail the awarding of punitive damages. This will even up the playing field between plaintiffs and defendants and will benefit society as a whole.
So, let’s try to make “illegal” the practice of “legal” extortion, as practiced by the legal profession, so that we can bring back the semblance of order , decency, and fairness in our system of law.

Written By Chuck Lehmann
Chuck on the Right Side