Whenever we talk here about immunity from lawsuits for Big Pharma I hear a lot about so-called frivolous lawsuits. Those aren't the lawsuits that are clogging our court system since only about 10% of lawsuits are tort actions. But I'll concede one thing: there is such a thing as a frivolous lawsuit.
Two of the biggest practitioners of frivolous lawsuits are Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA). RIAA has sued more than 20,000 music fans allegedly for file sharing. Grandmas, sub-teens and people who don't even own computers have all been winged by their lawsuit shotgun even though many are likely innocent of anything, even using a computer. According to the Electronic Frontiers Foundation RIAA has netted about $3750 a settlement, so this would be about $75 million if all were paid. So far there is no showing that any artist has gotten a penny of that.
Maybe it's gone into technology innovation. Innovation like opposing MP3 players, VCRs, Digital Audio Tape recorders, lawsuits against TiVo-type technology or P2P software. Sorry. They are in favor of some kinds of new technologies. Like DRM (copyprotection software) that stops me from lawfully moving music from CD to computer to iPod, even though it's perfectly legal to do so. Or Sony's wonderful innovation of copy protection that damaged user's computers.
How about MPAA lawsuits so I can't make a backup of a DVD that I own? Frivolous lawsuit?
I never hear "Doctor" Frist complaining about these kinds of frivolous lawsuits. Only the kind involving doctors, hospitals and Big Pharma. By the way, the Frist Family owns and runs one of the largest for-profit hospital chains in the country.
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USPIRG reports that malpractice awards are not part of the problem.
Melanie: Quite true. It's a Fristian urban myth that the cost of medical care is driven by "frivolous lawsuits." If you want a definition of a frivilous lawsuit it's suing a grandma for file sharing.
Don't forget about SLAPP suits and similar judicial knucklebones. The US has a very litigious culture, in general, which I think has one of its expressions in popular anxieties over lawsuits and lawyers.
While it's true that there are "big practitioners" of frivolous lawsuits, large corporations with too many attorneys on retainers equalling the GDP of some small nations, don't forget the smaller practioners of the same craft that end up costing billions in tied up courts and needless bankruptcies nationwide.
I know this from experience. I own a small remodeling company, and have practiced my craft for decades, with a 100% client satisfaction rate, all the while managing to make a modest income sufficient to raise a family and keep the roof over our heads.
Along comes the client who, after a $500K remodeling in which their bland home was turned into the home of their dreams, they decide not to pay the final $35K bill. Calls go unanswered, letters unanswered. I finally have to lean the property and sue for that amount only.
I was countersued, for $250K, under the premise that the homeowners didn't know that I was profiting from their remodeling project, and therefore I needed to return a large sum of money along with damages for emotional duress and such.
At this point you can't just say "uncle". You HAVE to defend yourself, which means lawyers and accountants and so on. Although I ended up winning, it cost me everything I had (6 figures) to defend against this nonsense, and it will be years before I can recover enough to just get back to square one, and my kids will not be going to college either. Retirement is out of the question. And seeing as how I'm in my mid 50's, it might be a long shot to recover at all.
Odds are that 1 out of 3 small businesses will encounter something like this in their lifetime. It's a very damaging and painful event. So please don't discount frivolous lawsuits, or simply lump them into the large corporate arena. They're all around. Don't look, there's probably one behind you right now.