The Chief wrote:

fatdad wrote: Most if not all of the discussion that's taken place has been hypothetical. It's all the doomsayers that have been crying about lawsuits that haven't even taken place.

Thank YOU!

This has been my point all along.

Climb at your own risk and be prepared for the worst, regardless of the amount or quality of gear you own/have.

The best piece of gear in your arsenal, your Brain and the common sense that resides within it. USE IT!

Maybe I missed where you were coming from originally, but I totally agree with you on that point. Your smarts and experience are by FAR your best protection. Period.

My only point is if a product is clearly defective (not one that fails because of poor placement, a huge impact, etc.), you should be able to sue the manufacturer. Deciding who contributed more to the accident when you're talking about climbers and their gear will likely be really tricky, but on a theoretical level, manufacturers of climbing gear should be no different than others.

There have been two cases of this in the last couple of years that many climbers are aware of. I am hesitant to call them out by name here for fear of being sued for libel or some such thing, but if y'all rub a few neurons together you'll figure it out.

They fall into the insufficient product testing category, product fails when used as advertised, etc.

ksolem wrote:There have been two cases of this in the last couple of years that many climbers are aware of. I am hesitant to call them out by name here for fear of being sued for libel or some such thing, but if y'all rub a few neurons together you'll figure it out.

They fall into the insufficient product testing category, product fails when used as advertised, etc.

I believe that hey were recalled prior to any "public" malfunctions?

Thus, they CTA's.

Actually in both cases multiple public malfunctions drew attention to the problems.

Gear broke when it should not have.

fatdad wrote:Three points first off:

1. Wow, there is a LOT of misinformation about products liability from the posters on this site.

2. MikeTX and Fortmental are the only two thus far who get it.

That is, they agree with you.

ksolem wrote:Actually in both cases multiple public malfunctions drew attention to the problems.

Gear broke when it should not have.

Yup, Yer right!

OP and CCH products failed prematurely.

Read this book:
http://books.google.com/books?id=O4P34_ ... ok&f=false

"Loser pays" is the easiest and most effective tort reform legislation that must eventually get passed if we are to stay competitively productive with the rest of the world. I urge everyone to look past lawyers' rhetoric and study the issue further. We simply ended up with too many law schools, it has become too easy to get into law school, too easy to graduate....and too much easy money being made compared to teachers, nurses and even doctors, who can make more, but have to put in more effort overall. This recent wallstreet crisis has put a few out on the street, but that just means more lawyers "suing for food".

Dow Williams wrote:"Loser pays" is the easiest and most effective tort reform legislation that must eventually get passed if we are to stay competitively productive with the rest of the world. I urge everyone to look past lawyers' rhetoric and study the issue further. We simply ended up with too many law schools, it has become too easy to get into law school, too easy to graduate....and too much easy money being made compared to teachers, nurses and even doctors, who can make more, but have to put in more effort overall. This recent wallstreet crisis has put a few out on the street, but that just means more lawyers "suing for food".

Absolute B.S. You should equip yourself with the facts first if you're going to present your opinion as fact.

I think someone just has a dislike for lawyers.

FortMental wrote:Actually...average beginning lawyer salary is pretty shitty. The hours are really long, and the work generally sucks. It's really no different than any other industry that has swamped its labor pool.

To me this is the part of the problem; I have met many a starving lawyer and yes, have been pursued by one rather aggressively....I don't know anyone who has been successful (read "target") who has not. I don't take it personally or have a vendetta against lawyers; it just enlightens my experience and interest regarding tort reform discussion.

Chronicle of Higher Education: Law Schools Mull Whether They Are Churning Out Too Many Lawyers, by Katherine Mangan:

"At least 10 new law schools are on the drawing board around the country, in addition to the 200 already accredited by the ABA. At the same time, the demand for legal services has dropped during the economic recession, prompting hundreds of firms to lay off lawyers, cut salaries, and delay the start dates of new associates. As law schools continue to churn out graduates, the resulting bottleneck could make the competition for jobs even more fierce......But that sobering news hasn't stopped students from flocking to law schools, which saw the number of applicants rise 4.3 percent for this fall, according to the ABA. "

Stephen Bainbridge (UCLA), Is Law a "Mature" Industry?:

"If law in fact is a mature industry, we face a problem of systemic oversupply. The rate at which demand for new lawyers grows has permanently leveled off. Economic recovery will help, but it will not change the fundamental structural changes in the market for lawyers.......Because that growth rate was artificially high due to the exogenous shocks of the preceding decades, the number of law schools and large law school class sizes no longer make sense. .....My suggestion?.......Lop off the bottom third of law schools and see if that solves it."

I am not saying it is rosy for you guys, I paid less for full time lawyers when I was in business than I paid guys running construction crews (which I did value much more).....what I have observed is too many lawyers starving out there actually results in bad lawsuits being filed where there is no negative recourse, i.e. loser pays.

Yes of course I, like many I know, have had a bad experience with this...that is what causes us to stand up and pay attention to the matter. If something never affects you directly, you tend not to think about it. One tends not to think about how much tort is included in the price of milk? or even medical services, although that one should be obvious if you have truly been sick and had to pay some hospital bills first hand (read high deductable for those of us self employed) versus handing it over to an insurance company blindly.

I was sued for 3 million for my bag hitting a woman in the head on an airplane. It was an accident, but there appeared to be nothing to stop her lawyer making it out to be a 3 million dollar claim which was rather absurd, given she had no obvious injury, to any reasonable person that is. The case lasted 3 years and involved quite a few expert witnesses. Yes, 6 reasonable jurors agreed with my insurance company's attorney and awarded her $0. A rare personal legal success story I was the beneficiary of.

But is it really a success for society?????? ....there is always devil in the details isn’t there?...it cost my homeowners ins policy $55K in legal/expert bills to refute their baseless (according to my peers) claim. I did not pay that directly, but the rest of America did when that insurance company raised their homeowners premiums accordingly to cover such costs. As someone previously noted in this thread, it is not the actual lawsuits won or loss we are really talking about in terms of cost to society. It is the massive $$$ in settlements. In my case, my insurance company offered to settle with the plaintiff for $100K prior to trial. They (Ins company) were quickly ready to reward a frivolous claim (according to my peers) because defense litigation is too expensive. Everybody hears about the McDonalds coffee settlements or awards but these $100K settlements are a dime a dozen and affect the pricing of every item you use. The airlines settled with her separately (like it was their fault???)....that cost society in higher airline fares. Think of me the next time you buy a ticket.

The reason my peers (jury) did not give her anything after a weeklong trial is because they deemed her claim frivolous. But there is no loser pay law. We had no counter suit in place. Why would I counter sue someone who I clearly dropped my briefcase on their head? Why could she not just have been a real person and accept my apology and go on her way? Because when she got home, some lawyer convinced her that he needed food asap and was willing to sue for it. Come on guys, she did do the right thing from a money perspective, she could have had $100K!!!!!!! for nothing but a bump in the head, if her lawyer was smart enough to accept the settlement offer. It is basically a lottery for the morally deprived.

This case was a rare success on the side of law only because it was in Reno, NV. In my opinion, a big city jury could have easily screwed you all over regarding your homeowners insurance premiums and awarded her millions of dollars. Society would have paid for it in the end, not me personally.

Over 200 law schools....125 med schools.....which is more of a priority in this Country? I thought health care was front and center? LOSER PAYS! urge your congressman to get tort reform passed during the Obama administration.

So yes, when you buy ropes, belay devices, and the like....legal represents a significant amount of that cost.

FortMental wrote:Actually...average beginning lawyer salary is pretty shitty. The hours are really long, and the work generally sucks. It's really no different than any other industry that has swamped its labor pool.

Passing tort reform has nothing to do with making America more competitive. However, enacting slavery (again), might.

I recall reading that there was a huge difference between the mean and median salaries for lawyers in the US. The median was quite low, and the mean was high. That means that there are a lot of struggling, poorly-paid worker ants in law firms, and a few partners who earn a lot.

The situation is not too different in medicine.

The current system lets sharks of both ilks swim through loopholes, while the worker ants get crushed.

Taking a segue from the OP question..

In many countries that we admire for health care, there is also "loser pays" law -- e.g. UK, Germany, France. I think that to have socialized medicine, you also have to have a degree of socialized law. I also believe that "loser pays" will never be implemented in the US, because 1) our system is too Byzantine for such an extreme uprooting, 2) half of Congresspeople are lawyers, and 3) the Democrats, who push most for health care reform, are heavily supported by trial lawyers.

I was once a sotto voce consultant for a malpractice suit in Britain. The system there has ways to give people a leg up against "powerful" companies, when the case is pre-judged to have merit. In that case, it was clear to me that there had been malpractice. It was also clear to me that the fault was in the application, not in the equipment used for a procedure. Yet the nutball lawyers decided to argue that the equipment -- made by an American company -- was faulty. I'm not sure if this tack was because the lawyers found they were normally successful if they went after the equipment manufacturer, or just because they had failed physics in college. In any case, the company that manufactured the equipment had a very strict QA system, and a good record, so the pre-trial decision dismissed the case.

butitsadryheat wrote:As a side question...

Do you all think judges should be elected, or continue to be appopinted (for the most part)?

They should be selected just like the jurors. Then kicked back to there regular job after the trial.