by Jack Lee
It’s a slip and fall accident and this is one of the top scams to defraud insurance companies. A typical nuisance claim settles for about $4000. This would be a settlement to avoid court costs. So, most of these types go completely uninvestigated, which has encouraged more of the same kind of fraud. This is a real big problem and it’s driving up the cost of goods you and I buy every day.
It’s safe to say a slip and fall scam takes place every day somewhere in America.
A slip and fall event in a grocery store (the most common place for such accidents) is called a premises liability lawsuit and its filed against the property owner. In order to file you must believe your injury was due to a hazard that the property owner did or should have known about, it has nothing to do with you being oblivious or clumsy. The doctrine here says when you enter a store there is an implied reasonable safety standard and if the owner fails to meet that test of reasonable safety and you’re injured there is a monetary liability to be decided… a cash award.
The burden of proof necessary to prove negligence on the part of the store owner varies depending on what part of the country you live in. Butte County is one of the more difficult counties to obtain a large jury settlement, but Orange County is just the opposite. Why the big difference, you may wonder? Butte County is a very conservative area and Orange County isn’t. They also have a large minority population and minorities serving on a jury are more inclined to look favorably at the defendant and unfavorably against the wealthy business.
I think we need to step back and take a look at what we’ve become and that’s a highly litigious society… thanks to frivolous lawsuits and in particular these scam type suits by ambulance chasers.
The Wall Street Journal reports that lawsuit abuse costs the average American family $3,520 a year. This comes in the form of higher costs built in to everything we purchase. Those fake lawsuits siphoned off $260.8 billion says a 2005 study by Towers Perrin, a consulting firm. The U.S. Chamber Institute, which is affiliated with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, cited a much greater estimate of the “tort tax,” another way of saying phony lawsuits. They reported last year by the free-market think tank Pacific Research Institute, $9,827 per family of four. This is really serious and it’s particularly painful during these recessionary times.
If you look at jury awards the threshold for personal responsibility seems to be lowered every year and you have to wonder where it’s going to stop? I wonder, is this because of our trend to a big Nanny government? I think that has something to do with it, but it’s only my hunch.
There was a time not so long ago when it widely held that we had almost total responsibility for our own safety and we needed to watch where we’re walking and what we’re doing in order to avoid getting hurt. Now, according to the legal industry its mostly a store owners responsibility to insure your 100% safety – but that’s impossible!
It’s great for the lawyers and the scammers – bad for the consumers and bad for business.
Scams and nuisance settlement encourage more scammers, who doesn’t understand that now? Well, the good news is finally insurance companies are figuring out and growing a spine. It’s been determined it’s cost effective to fight what otherwise could have been a nuisance settlement. When they fight them they are not just stopping one scam they are stopping dozens of scams. This has a ripple effect all the way up to the bigger lawsuits.
However, in order to help fight this type of fraud legislative help is needed. We call this tort reform and its been really tough to get what is needed because lawyers dominate our legislatures from coast to coast. However, if we could start a bill through it ought to be loser pays court costs law, followed by another bill for stiffer criminal penalties for scammers. Eventually real reform would incorporate a cap on the dollar settlement, something every ambulance chaser has vowed will never happen unless its over their dead body. Now there’s a pleasant thought to conclude on, eh?
A lawyer is a scoundrel extensively trained in ways to circumvent the law.
Soaps this should be the standard dictionary definition. Very succinct and relevant of you to say it that way. Good job.
Huh?
Does anyone have a logic to occutard dictionary handy?
I may have shared this before but it’s worth sharing again since you brought it up.
One of these scammers lived in my neighborhood when my kids were little. Her favorite trick was to pull something like a big heavy can of lard off the shelf and leave the store in a huff vowing to call her lawyer! The joke was that her phone rang as soon as she hit the door…you got it, it was the store offering a settlement to avoid court costs…THEY ALL KNEW HER! She had a both a lawyer and a doctor that supported her scamming. She also had her kids set fire to the house and the insurance ended up building her a brand new family room…nothing like keeping the family business alive by passing skills on to the children.