Quin-Essential Cases: Frivolous lawsuits harm real people
By: Quin Hillyer
Examiner Columnist
December 16, 2008
Imagine that you own a small air-conditioning business, with just two employees, both of whom had to miss work after the company truck they were driving was struck head-on by a driver who crossed the road’s center-line while traveling in the opposite direction.
The police report clearly shows, in multiple places, that the other driver was at fault. Your truck was ruined. And although it was July in Jacksonville, Fla. – ordinarily quite a profitable time for an AC business – you lost money that month because you were short both employees and a truck.
And then – after you’ve already taken a hit for something for which nobody in your employ was at fault – the other driver threatens you with a lawsuit. Even after your insurance company pays part of the other guy’s claim in order to avoid the hassle of a lawsuit, the other driver then sues your employee who was driving to try to recover even more damages. This is even though, again, it was the guy suing, not your employee, who drove on the wrong side of the road.
This AC business owner, Charles Terrizzi, today becomes the newest featured victim in “Faces of Lawsuit Abuse.org,” project of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Institute for Legal Reform (ILR).
Terrizzi joins 12 other people – all families or mom-and-pop businessmen – who last week were introduced as the site’s inaugural examples of how predatory class-action plaintiffs’ lawyers often don’t represent the “little guy” against a big conglomerate, but instead use suits to bully other “little guys” who aren’t even at fault.
There was, for instance, 11-year-old Lauren Ellis, who was roller-blading when she was run over from behind by a doctor on a bicycle. Amazingly, the doctor sued Lauren’s parents. Local papers in Chester, N.J., covered the case as it dragged on for four long years.
The Ellises, justly, refused to settle. When the case finally went to trial, the jury took just 15 minutes to rule that Lauren was not liable for the doctor’s injuries – but the Ellises were still out legal fees and an almost incalculable amount of valuable time.
Among others victimized by outrageous suits: The youth baseball coach sued when a player dove for a pop-up, missed, and was hit in the mouth by the ball. Then there is the basketball facility that was forced to close down because it couldn’t afford the legal fees to defend a suit claiming lack of wheelchair access – to the second floor, even though the first floor was wheelchair-friendly.
Also included is the now-famous cleaners sued for $54 million for losing a D.C. judge’s pants, plus, – get this – the pool maintenance business sued because somebody slipped on the sidewalk when startled by a goose that had settled in a large store-front planter.
Even more frustratingly, the owners already had tried to have the geese removed – but had been told that if they “disturbed” them, they would be in violation of the Migratory Species Act.
Thus, even though they were forbidden from removing the geese, they were sued (for $750,000) for the geese’s presence. That’s the very definition of “lose-lose.”
Like many of the other lawsuit victims, these business owners eventually won in court – but only after considerable time and expense.
“The people featured in this campaign all suffered real emotional and financial pain,” said ILR President Lisa Rickard. “By giving voices to their stories, we hope that Americans will understand that our lawsuit-happy culture is taking a toll on their friends, neighbors, and local businesses.”
ILR has been widely publicizing an election-night poll in which huge majorities – 77 percent of Democrats, 80 percent of independents and 92 percent of Republicans – said the number of frivolous lawsuits is a serious national problem.
“Who is made weaker [by such suits]?” asks Jacksonville’s Terrizzi on the web site’s video, rhetorically. “The American people, the hard-working people.”
Terrizzi, finally, is out of the woods. But, he told me during an interview, “We would be out of business if we had to get a lawyer right now. Just a couple of court appearances would put us out of business.”
That’s what predatory class-action plaintiffs’ lawyers count on, to force settlements even when their cases have no merit. And we all pay for it, through higher insurance premiums and higher prices at the store.
Quin Hillyer is associate editorial page editor of the Washington Examiner.
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