The Myth Of The "Frivolous Lawsuit"

We've all heard the term "frivolous lawsuit." As a personal injury lawyer, I can tell you that I have heard tons of lawyer jokes. Some of them were actually funny. But I get concerned when I hear people talking about the "crisis of all those frivolous lawsuits." I get concerned because it is utter nonsense to say that there is a lawsuit "crisis" in this country. Do people occasionally file lawsuits with no merit? Of course. There will always be people who abuse their right, whether it is the right to file a lawsuit, the right to own a handgun, or some other right, and these people should be punished for abusing the system. But there is no "lawsuit crisis." If someone is hurt because another person was careless, like a car accident victim, the court is the only forum where the grievance can be heard and adjudicated. It used to be, in the old days, that if two people had a problem between them, they would have to physically fight to determine who was in the right. That wasn't such a great solution. So civilized and developed countries, like our great nation, developed a system of justice where the outcome did not depend on who was better with the sword. The outcome became dependant on whose side the evidence was on. Therefore, there is no shame, and nothing wrong, about taking your problem to the courts. By all means, however, everyone should first try to settle their problems out of court. You go to court when you have no choice.

But the problem is that when there are insurance companies involved, settling out of court is often a waste of time. Insurance companies and other corporations routinely lowball injured people, and these people often have no choice but to go to court. So when I hear people cry out about so-called frivolous lawsuits, what these people are doing is victimizing and blaming injured people who use the only legal option available to them - the lawsuit. Moreover, lawyers who work on contingency, like personal injury lawyers, only get paid if and when they win. Think about this: why would such a lawyer take a case that had no merit? A case with no merit is a case that loses, so a lawyer who takes these cases would soon find himself out of business. So you see that lawyers who work on a percentage have an incentive to only take good cases. Insurance company propaganda about lawsuits brainwashes people into voting for political candidates who promise to come down hard on lawsuits, and what really happens is that the access to the court system is now limited. This is a serious threat: the courts are often the only thing standing between a greedy corporation and the safety of the population. When you limit access to the courts, you take away that protection. Imagine, for example, what would happen if you got rid of the police and the prisons. How safe would you feel?

Do not hesitate to contact the Los Angeles personal injury attorneys at the Lagstein Law Firm if you need access to the courts.