Should health care be free in America?

CParso · Mar 23, 2007

I think there needs to be more punishment for frivolous lawsuits. If a case is easily tossed out, and yet the defendent has had to spend tons of money already, the SOB that filed the lawsuit needs to poney up.

red55 · Mar 23, 2007

CParso said: ↑

I think there needs to be more punishment for frivolous lawsuits. If a case is easily tossed out, and yet the defendent has had to spend tons of money already, the SOB that filed the lawsuit needs to poney up.
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In many cases they are made to pony up by the judge. But there is an important difference and ambiguity between the technical "frivolous" and the colloquial "frivolous".

From Wikipedia:

Frivolous litigation is a legal claim or defense presented even though the party and the party's legal counsel had reason to know that the claim or defense had no merit. A claim or defense may be frivolous because it had no underlying justification in fact, or because it was not presented with an argument for a reasonable extension or reinterpretation of the law.

"When a judge calls an argument "ridiculous" or "frivolous," it is absolutely the worst thing the judge could say. It means that the person arguing the position has absolutely no idea of what he is doing, and has completely wasted everyone's time. It doesn't mean that the case wasn't well argued, or that judge simply decided for the other side, it means that there was no other side. The argument was absolutely, positively, incompetent. The judge is not telling you that you were "wrong." The judge is telling you that you are out of your mind." -- DB Evans

The more common or colloquial use of the term "frivolous" in political discourse refers to lawsuits that are based on a theory that seems absurd, or where the claim results in damages that greatly exceed what one would expect from reading a brief summary of the case. Awards for medical malpractice are sometimes derided as frivolous (in this sense of meaning "excessive").

If a jury and a judge decided in favor of the plaintiff in such cases, the plaintiff's claim was not technically frivolous, though it might be considered frivolous colloquially. Because of the ambiguity in the term, calling these lawsuits "frivolous" can lead to confusion because opposite sides of the tort reform debate can both say they oppose "frivolous" suits, with the tort reform supporters referring to the colloquial understanding, and tort reform opponents referring to the narrower technical definition.
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martin · Mar 23, 2007

i concede that i know nothing and i see no solution. i was thinking out loud.

if people insure themselves, and doctors present their services "as-is" then maybe there would be more motivation to reduce frivolous cases because people see directly how much insurance costs. they can insure themselves for lots of money against malpractice, or just risk it. either way, the medical services are much cheaper for not having the cost of zillion dollar malpractice cases preinstalled.

TigerSnarl · Mar 23, 2007

I don't think medical lawsuits should be eliminated just capped. Make it so that the 33% (or whatever a lawyer gets) would compensate them for their costs and a reasonable profit. So 'honest' lawyers would still take the cases for people really screwed. And doctors would have to face some sort of liability for incompentence.

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Should health care be free in America?

CParso Founding Member

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