NationStates Jolt Archive

I have submitted a proposal to drastically cut down the amount of frivilous lawsuits that are currently flooding our courts, at the expense of the good taxpayers.

Description: Frivilous lawsuits, with no base on merit are continuing to strain our already over-clogged courthouses.

Lawsuits that deny any accounts of personal responsibility continue to drain the courts.

Lawsuits such as "Brand X Restraunt made me fat" should be the least of the Courts concerns as real trials should be made 1st priority.

I propose the following.....

Should a person or persons choose to bring forth a frivilous lawsuit, they may do so .... but should they lose, they pay all court costs, including the salary of the Judge, Court Reporter, Bailiff, and other Court employees during the time of the trial.

Considering each country's legal system is different, this would interfere in their internal affairs too much.

Your idea wouldn't work, because "frivolous lawsuits" must be dismissed by courts according to this UN resolution:

Common Sense Act II

A resolution to improve worldwide human and civil rights.

Category: Human Rights
Strength: Significant
Proposed by: Fantasan

Description: : Far too many civil injustices occur each and every day in courts around the world. Frivolous lawsuits plague innocent homeowners and businessmen, who have done nothing wrong but earn enough money to become a target of an opportunist. Lawsuits on the basis of idiotic negligence on the part of the victim shall henceforth be dismissed in the courts of UN member nations, as they violate the civil liberties of those being sued. Idiotic neglegence shall be defined as such: 1:Burning oneself with a hot beverage, such as coffee. 2:Injuring oneself while using a tool in a reckless or improper manner, such as without safety gear or for a purpose the tool is obviously not supposed to do. 3:Consuming a legal product which is either high in fat or damaging to the body, such as fast food or tobacco. 4:Any injury incurred during the commission of a crime, such as cutting yourself on a broken pane of glass while burglarizing a home. This proposal will lower the tax burden on all citizens, it will make the jobs of Judges and Juries easier, and will help restore a modicum of common sense to the world.

Votes For: 8627

Votes Against: 4776

Implemented: Fri Sep 12 2003

It helps to look at the list of already-passed resolutions at http://www.nationstates.net/cgi-bin/index.cgi/79050/page=UN_past_resolutions before you start work on a new one.

thank goodness it's been done

Well, yes and no. The cited proposal did make progress on the idea of frivilous lawsuits, but it leaves a lot of ground to be covered. In the quoted text, the resolution only bars four kinds of lawsuits. Under current law, I could sit in my neighbor's yard, shoot his dog with a pellet gun all day, and then sue that neighbor when the dog jumped the fence and attacked me.

I think the key to this kind of legislation is not to define every type of dumb lawsuit, but to provide some kind of legal precident so judges may throw out any case where the plaintiff is clearly at fault for whatever accident occured, or the defendant was responsible via only a limited, fuzzy version of reality. Also, such legislation would do well to cap "emotional damage" claims. The generic argument that "the scalding coffee on my leg has ruined my self-esteem around any coffee-drinking establishment" can carry a lot of weight with juries, but is obviously not based in reality. Embarassing things happen to people all the time, and society continues to function.

Just a few thoughts.

Even the classic 'spilled coffee' case could be argued that it wasn't frivolous. See the StellaAwards (http://www.stellaawards.com/stella.html) website for mitigating details of the actual case.

Ultimately, somebody has to be in charge of the decision to decide a case is 'frivolous'. Common Sense II grants the intent, if not the letter of that choice, to the presiding head of the court. In most countries, that would be the judge. As for Frisbeeteria, we're comfortable leaving that decision on a local level, rather than trying to create an all-encompassing framework on the international level.