Frivolous Law Suits - Essay Example

Frivolous Law Suits Frivolous Law Suits Introduction: A Frivolous suit is one which has no legal implications. It is being filed only to harass the opposite party. This essay will examine two famous cases for frivolous law suits and discusses the issues, facts and the outcome of the cases. According to the Law Encyclopedia, a frivolous suit is one which has no legal merit. Sometimes these cases may be initiated for harassing the defendant. Under such circumstances the individual who brings the frivolous suit may be liable for damages for malicious intention and prosecution. Lawyer Daniel Evans, B (year unknown) writes: “When a judge calls an argument "ridiculous" or "frivolous," it is absolutely the worst thing the judge could say. It means the person arguing the position has absolutely no idea of what he is doing, and has completely wasted the time of everyone. It doesnt denote that the case was not well argued, or that judge simply decided for the other side, but it indicates that there was no other side. The argument may turn out to be absurd and incompetent. The judge is not telling you that you are "wrong." The judge is telling you that you are out of your mind.” Yet another definition of Frivolous law was defined in the case “Texaco, Inc. v. Golart, 206 Conn. 454, 463-464, 538 A.2d 1017 (1988)”wherein it was defined as: “The definition of a frivolous appeal is set forth in the comment to Rule 3.1, wherein it is stated that “the action is frivolous if the client desires to have the action taken primarily for the purpose of harassing or maliciously injuring a person or if the lawyer is unable either to make a good faith argument on the merits of the action taken or to support the action taken by a good faith argument for an extension, modification or reversal of existing law.” Facts of the case: Let us take the cases of Liebeck v. McDonalds Restaurants 1994, and Pearson v. Chung case filed in 2005. In February of 1992, Stella Liebeck of Albuquerque, New Mexico, was travelling in the passenger seat of her grandsons car when she was severely burned by McDonalds coffee. She was 79 years old then. The coffee was served in a Styrofoam cup at the drive through the window of a local McDonalds. After the coffee was served the grandson pulled his car forward and halted temporarily for Liebeck to add cream and sugar to her coffee. Liebeck positioned the cup in between her knees and tried to take away the plastic lid from the cup. As soon as she opened the lid, the whole contents of the cup poured forth onto her lap. Liebeck was wearing sweatpants and it absorbed the coffee and held it to her skin. It was declared that Liebeck suffered third-degree burns which were over 6 percent of her body, including her inner thighs, perineum, buttocks, and genital and groin areas by a vascular surgeon. She was admitted to the hospital for 8 days and she underwent skin grafting. Liebeck also had to undergo debridement treatments and she wanted to settle her claim for $20,000, but McDonalds refused. (Courtesy) ATLA fact sheet. © 1995, 1996 by Consumer Attorneys of California. In Pearson v. Chung Dry Cleaner case, the plaintiff was Roy Pearson and the defendants were Soo Chung, Jin Nam Chung and Ki Y. Chung. The suit was over a pair of allegedly missing pants. The defendants own Custom Cleaners, a dry cleaning store on Bladensburg Road, NE, within walking distance from the plaintiff’s home. Mr. Pearson claimed that he took his pants to Custom Cleaners for alteration in May 2005, and that the defendants lost the pants. They attempted to substitute another pair of pants for his. But the defendants denied the plaintiff’s allegations, and insisted that they attempted to return to him the pants he brought in to be altered, which he refused to accept. Mr. Pearson also claimed that a “Satisfaction Guaranteed” sign was displayed in Custom Cleaners. And this sign was an unconditional warranty that required the defendants to honor any claim by any customer, without limitation, based on the customer’s determination of whatever would make that customer “satisfied.” According to the plaintiff, the defendants did not honor and had no intention of honoring that purported unconditional guarantee of satisfaction to their customers. He contended that it was an unfair trade practice under the Consumer Protection Procedures Act, D.C. Code § 28-3901 et seq. (“CPPA”), on several grounds (Courtesy: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia). The issues of the cases: Both the cases were frivolous in nature. They have been filed only to harass the defendants of the case. In fact the issues of McDonald’s case were: Liebeck sought to settle with McDonalds for US $20,000 to cover her medical costs, which were $11,000, but the company offered only $800. When McDonalds refused to raise its offer, Liebeck approached Texas attorney Reed Morgan. Morgan filed suit in a New Mexico District Court accusing McDonalds of “gross negligence” for selling coffee that was “unreasonably dangerous” and “defectively manufactured.” McDonalds refused Morgans offer to settle for $90,000. Morgan offered to settle it for $300,000, and a mediator suggested $225,000 just before the trial, but McDonalds refused these final pre-trial attempts to settle (Courtesy: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia). In the other case, Pearson rejected a later offer to settle the case for $12,000. D.C. Superior Court Judge Neal Kravitz stated that "the court has significant concerns that the plaintiff is acting in bad faith." The judge resolved some of the issues in the Chungs favor in response to their motion for summary judgment, which was filed at the close of findings, but could not dismiss the case because some facts were in dispute. The owners of the business, South Korean immigrants Jin Nam Chung, Soo Chung and their son, Ki Chung, were reportedly considering moving back to South Korea. After an outpouring of support for the Chungs from members of the public, a website was set up to accept donations for the Chungs legal defense. On May 30, 2007, Pearson reduced his demands to $54 million in damages rather than $67 million. Among his requests were $500,000 as attorneys fees, $2 million for "discomfort, inconvenience, and mental distress", and $15,000, which he claimed would be the cost to rent a car every weekend to drive to another dry cleaning service. The remaining $51.5 million would be used to help similarly dissatisfied D.C. consumers sue businesses. Pearson also re-focused his lawsuit from the missing pants to the removal of window signs for "Satisfaction Guaranteed" and "Same Day Service". Pearson claimed the signs represented fraud on the part of the Chungs. The Chungs lawyer, Christopher Manning, alleged that the signs could only be considered fraud if a reasonable person would be misled by them, and that a reasonable person would not see the signs as an unconditional promise. The Chungs lawyer portrayed Pearson as a bitter, financially insolvent man. During interrogation, Pearson admitted that, at the start of the court case, he had only $1000-2000 in the bank due to divorce proceedings, and was collecting unemployment (Courtesy: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia). The law that applies in both the cases is: Frivolous litigation and the need for tort reform in the United States. The problems with the Liebeck case are as follows. Similar is the problem with the Pearson case too. i) a product that, through open and obvious consequences, injures one in 24 million people is not “unreasonably dangerous”; ii) the fact that billions of cups of McDonald’s coffee are sold should be per se proof that it was serving its coffee at a temperature that consumers desired, rather than “too hot.” No one was forced to buy the hotter McDonald’s coffee instead of the lukewarm coffee supposedly served elsewhere; if McDonald’s coffee was really undesirably “too hot,” it would be punished in the marketplace for this flaw. Instead, there is public policy by jury, and the millions of customers who, for whatever reason, prefer McDonald’s coffee, are out in the cold; iii) a defendant who is not the proximate cause of an injury should not be held liable for that injury; iv) there is no principled construction of tort law that holds McDonald’s liable for failing to prevent injury in the case of a foreseeable coffee spill, but not a clothing manufacturer for failing to prevent injury in the case of a foreseeable coffee spill, and one can agree that the latter scenario is an absurd proposition for liability; v) a defendant should not be subject to punitive damages because the jury did not understand that “statistically insignificant” is a technical statistical term, and not an insult; and vi) punitive damages were assessed against McDonald’s based on their coffee sales, which is a punishment for selling a lot of coffee, rather than because of their behavior. Ted Frank, 2003, Chronicling the high cost of our legal system. Verdict and settlement in both the cases Verdict of Liebeck case: (Courtesy: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia). Applying the principles of comparative negligence, the jury found that McDonalds was 80% responsible for the incident and Liebeck was 20% at fault. Though there was a warning on the coffee cup, the jury decided that the warning was neither large enough nor sufficient. They awarded Liebeck US$200,000 in compensatory damages, which was then reduced by 20% to $160,000. In addition, they awarded her $2.7 million in punitive damages. The jurors apparently arrived at this figure from Morgans suggestion to penalize McDonalds for one or two days worth of coffee revenues, which were about $1.35 million per day. The judge reduced punitive damages to $480,000, three times the compensatory amount, for a total of $640,000. The decision was appealed by both McDonalds and Liebeck in December 1994, but the parties settled out of court for an undisclosed amount less than $600,000. Liebeck died on August 4, 2004, at the age of 91. Verdict of Pearson case: (Courtesy: http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Pearson-v.-Chung) On June 25, 2007, the trial ended with District of Columbia Superior Court Judge Judith Bartnoff ruling in favor of the dry cleaners, and awarding them court costs pursuant to a motion which the Chungs later withdrew. The court took judicial notice of Pearsons divorce proceedings, where he was sanctioned $12,000 by the trial court "creating unnecessary litigation and threatening both [Rhonda] VanLowe and her lawyer with disbarment." Ethical issues of both the cases: The unusual circumstances of this case led the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, and dozens of bloggers to refer to it as "The Great American Pants Suit," and "Judge Fancy Pants." The case has generated considerable international attention. BBC News quoted Chris Manning, attorney for the Chung family, as saying that the experience for the Chungs has become the "American nightmare"--an ironic reference to the American Dream. The Wall Street Journal is an influential international daily newspaper published in New York City, New York with an average daily circulation of 1,800,607 (2002). ... ... On July 24, 2007, The American Tort Reform Association and the Institute for Legal Reform of the United States Chamber of Commerce hosted a fundraiser for the Chungs to help pay their attorneys fees that reported having raised up to $64,000.00. The Chungs say they have received close to $100,000 from supporters to cover their attorneys fees and lost business. The American Tort Reform Association (ATRA), founded in 1986, is an organization that advocates for tort reform. ... The US Chamber Institute for Legal Reform (ILR) is one of the various departments of the US Chamber of Commerce that was founded in 1998 to address the country’s growing number of litigations. ... The United States Chamber of Commerce is the worlds largest not-for-profit business federation, representing 3,000,000 businesses (via its Federation of local chambers and association members. ... Citing a loss of revenue and emotional strain from the lawsuit, the Chungs announced, on September 19, 2007, that they have closed and sold the dry cleaning shop involved in the dispute. The Chungs still own one additional dry cleaning shop and have stated they would be focusing their attention and resources on their remaining shop. The ethical issues of the Liebeck case is as follows:(Courtesy: http://www.canf.bc.ca/briefs/mcdonalds.html) This case wasnt won by the plaintiff or lost by the defence. It was won by those lobbying for tort reform. They won a public relations campaign by misleading the public and unfairly characterizing certain details of this case. As a result, Ms. Liebeck was further victimized by jokes that made a mockery of her injuries and the harmful actions of McDonalds would occur, but testified that McDonalds had no intention of reducing the "holding temperature" of its coffee. Both the cases raise further questions as to whether justice is subject to public relations campaigns and perceptions of the public. Tort liability is adjusted over time to societal expectations, but in an age of mass media this could suggest that a legal defense may have less to do with the law than with access to the public. Conclusion Prevention of such scrupulous cases by business owners and my advice to them for the future: Ours is a society knit in mechanical life. With the general awareness on the rights of a citizen against exploitation is on the increase, each and every member of the society is bent upon to fulfil his or her selfish aims, utilising every chance that comes to them. For, human beings are always selfish. The business owners are akin to this. The customers and clients are highly vigilant on what they get from business owners for the price they give, and if they sense that they are not given what they are to be given in full against the price, there will be disputes. The business owners must have a proper idea about this aspect and they should be very attentive in providing the quantity and quality against the cost they are paid. If the customer argues, hear him patiently and try to pacify him. It is better to remove his fears than to allow him to take up the grudges against the business owner to the public. This is because an unsatisfied customer can do mischief more than the positive response favouring the business owner. The customers will never compromise, though they seem to compromise at times depending on the circumstances. But the state of compromise will not stand for ever. A person can be cheated once for a long time, and a few persons can be cheated for a considerable time, but nobody could cheat the whole community for a very long time. The business owners should keep this in mind in dealing with customers. They must strictly and scrupulously adhere to the quality and quantity of service or products they offer to the public. If a customer is not satisfied with the product or service, it is up to the business owners to take the customers in confidence and deal with them to satisfy their needs within the limits. For a business owner is made by the customers, and the customers are not the outcome of business owners. References: 1. Liebeck v. McDonalds Restaurants, P.T.S., Inc., No. D-202 CV-93-02419, 1995 360309 (Bernalillo County, N.M. Dist. Ct. Aug. 18, 1994. 2. ATLA fact sheet. 1995, 1996 by Consumer Attorneys 3. of California. 3. Lubna Takruri, "Judge Who Lost $54M Suit Not Giving Up Pants Fight", Associated Press, 2007-07-09 4. The Great American Pants Suit", Wall Street Journal, June 18, 2007. Retrieved on 2007-06-21. 5. American Tort Reform Association, press release, 2007-06-25 6. Manning & Sossamon. The Facts of Pearson v. Chung. Retrieved on 2007-07-20. Read More