Responsibility and You!

We all go through life wanting things, wanting to do things and continually dreaming! Dreaming is good, dreaming helps fill the atmosphere with hope when it sometimes feels that things can be hopeless. Where is this going? Well, by day, I am a practicing attorney (among other things) and all other times (including the daytime), I am a parent. Being a parent is definitely one of the most important jobs I have and I wouldn’t want it any other way. Part of being a good parent is being a provider. We make sure our children get an education, eat healthy foods and have access to resources that will help them grow into healthy, productive members of society. Part of being a parent is also being a teacher and doing so on a regular basis. Both my husband and I consider it priority to teach our children responsibility. If you make a mistake, you own up to your error and the hope is that it won’t be repeated again.

On a daily basis, we attempt to drill the case for responsibility into our children, but recently, I am finding that as a nation, we do not teach this and we certainly are not supporting this concept. The truth is, most people believe that if something goes wrong in their lives, the blame rests upon someone else. What was the tinder that set this flame off and made the fire blaze out of control? I believe it was our Tort system.

For those unfamiliar with what a tort is, a tort is a wrongful or unlawful act or infringement of rights which lead to civil legal liability. Also, a tort can be a civil wrong that occurs when a person causes harm to another with knowledge that harm or injury can occur. Most people are familiar with torts like auto accidents, slip & falls or medical malpractice. Basically, all the attorney advertisements you see on billboards and television.

As a young law student, I learned about torts from a fine professor, Michael Richmond. He was delightful and entertaining, but the more I studied about torts, the more I resented what I viewed as abuses in the system. It was at that moment, I knew that I would not be that kind of lawer. When I opened my solo practice out of law school, I rarely, if ever, took a case that smelled like a tort. On the other hand, if it was a sugary torte, that would be a completely different situation. I like tortes.

The first case that truly pissed me off was about the lady that bought coffee from McDonald’s (Liebeck v. McDonald’s Restaurants) and ultimately chose to put said hot coffee between her legs, ultimately burning her. I feel horrible that she was injured, no doubt, as the woman was hospitalized for 8 days and had skin grafts. But, when I found out that a jury awarded her with $2.86 million dollars for this action, I was confused and befuddled. The woman wasn’t in her youth, in fact, she was 79 years old. She definitely had experience with hot coffee before this day. She did realize she was buying HOT coffee, right? I know common sense isn’t so common these days, but this was just plain stupid. I later found out that the award was reduced by the trial judge to about $640k, but it still struck me as wrong that anyone should benefit from being so stupid.

After further research, I did learn that McDonald’s had a history of complaints, issues and concerns with respect to their hot coffee. So, while the outcome of that case seemed unfair initially, ultimatelt, the result was that McDonald’s did change its behavior in response to the Liebeck decision. That is the point of allowing people the opportunity to be heard in court. Unfortunately, there still needs to be reform, but not exactly the way that it’s been proposed in the past few years.

What I also learned about the present system is that large corporations have lobbied vigorously for tort reform, proposing caps on legitimate damages. This, I do not agree with, but rather, finding some way to fairly punish those litigants who bring frivolous claims. I do believe if a person has been unjustly harmed, due to no fault of their own, they deserve their day in court.

Which brings me to my next topic, insurance. Our country has become too enamored with placing blame on others, so much so that we have become nothing, but purchasers of insurance. When I look at a snapshot of my largest liabilities, they always turn to insurance. Car insurance, homeowner’s insurance, property & casualty insurance, health insurance, life insurance, disability insurance, cancer insurance, appliance insurance, travel insurance, professional liability insurance, dental insurance, vision insurance, and the list goes on….. My father has been complaining about the excesses in the insurance industry for years.

Back in the old days, about 30 years ago, the need for insurance did not rise to the level it has risen to today. The costs associated with requiring insurance has left us all with extra liabilities that just didn’t exist back then. A great example of what insurance requirements lead to is the increased cost of sending your kid to sleep away camp. Sleep away camp has always been expensive, but the need for higher levels of insurance has definitely jacked up the cost at an immeasurable rate. So, sending your kids to sleep away summer camp, which is extremely healthy for both children and parents, is fast becoming less and less of an option.

I am constantly reading and some of the things I pay attention to are tort cases, but sadly, the mentality has become such that if there’s a claim, there’s someone to blame. The cost for blaming others has become insurmountable and in the end, we all suffer. Whether it’s jacked up sleep away summer camp costs or requiring individuals or corporations to pay for more insurance, we all suffer. It seems the only people benefiting from this sort of behavior are insurance companies and lawyers.

I’m making this article short and sweet, so now, it’s time for us all to start being responsible for our own behavior and teach our children to do the same.

One more thing about the lady with the hot coffee, if she had only put the coffee in a cup holder, she could have avoided the whole thing, but she didn’t. She made a decision to put the hot coffee in between her legs. And, even though the coffee was truly scalding, beyond all necessaty temperatures, that was just stupid and nobody should be responsible for that except herself.