Personal injury lawyers can fight for the weirdest people sometimes.
For instance, a man is suing his cable company, Charter Cable, because he claims that the company has made him addicted to cable. The man alleges that because the company had failed to turn off his cable after he cancelled the service, he and his family were forced to watch TV every day for four years, causing his wife to get fat and his kids to become lazy.
In Chicago a class action lawsuit was filed on behalf of the city's bums, who alleged that their civil rights had been violated after law enforcement arrested and ticketed them for panhandling on the streets. After they refused the first settlement (free clothes), the city agreed to pay each of the city’s 3,000 bums $450.
In Missouri, a man was granted $3.9 million for breaking his neck after diving head first into the shallow end of a Ramada Inn pool. Apparently, the man had been drinking at the time of the accident.
I could tell dozens more of these jackass lawsuits, but we don’t have enough time.
Of course there is something insanely hilarious about these stories and that’s why we love to talk about them at the water cooler. But there is also something strangely disturbing about them as well. How do people like this find a personal injury lawyer?
A personal injury lawyer is considered by many to be the guy who helps the little guys. But what if they are helping idiots like these? That lawsuit in Chicago mentioned earlier costs Chicago taxpayers $375,000 in attorney fees, not to mention the cost of settlement. One argument could say that the lawyer is just doing his or her job and it would be crazy to expect anyone to turn away business. But is it too much to ask for these lawyers to have some standards?
This is not to say that every personal injury lawsuit is bogus. A personal injury lawyer is a vital asset to the protection of American consumers. They allow accident victims the representation and compensation that they deserve. In serious cases that involve instances of wrongful death or medical malpractice, victims don’t stand a chance of winning a case without the expertise of a personal injury lawyer. Medical negligence cases are very difficult to prove due to a multitude of factors, such as getting doctors to testify against other doctors, the inability to read illegibly written medical records, and the complex nature of the medical field itself.
These attorneys aren’t cheap, either. If you can’t find a lawyer who will take your case on a contingency fee, you can pay them on an hourly basis. Either way you will have to make an investment if you want to win big. Sometimes the government pays for suits that are for a good cause, for someone who is clearly in need.
And maybe we should not point the finger at the personal injury lawyer. Maybe people should logically assess their situation before jumping on the take-him-for-all-he’s-worth bandwagon. True, anyone who is seriously injured on the job or is diagnosed with a life threatening illness due to the negligence of their doctor should seek justice. It’s just the people who sue restaurants for serving their coffee hot that I don’t understand.
By Kelley Caner