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Joined: March 24 2006
Location: flyover country
Status: Offline
Points: 2822
Posted: April 03 2009 at 19:57
rpe9p wrote:
Ive got no real problem with the system, I just wish there were not so many lawyers so that there wouldnt be so many frivolous lawsuits. People do something stupid, and there are a thousand lawyers waiting there to help the person blame anyone but themself.
THIS. There's way too many lawyers out there, and every one of them wants to earn a living. So they create work for themselves. How? Hel-LO frivolous lawsuits!
"Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard." -- H.L. Mencken
Joined: January 16 2008
Location: Argentina
Status: Offline
Points: 15745
Posted: April 03 2009 at 19:24
Raff wrote:
cacho wrote:
Here in Argentina the question would be: Why don't you sue?
And the simple answer would be: because justice/trials/whatever takes years here, it's not worth it, believe me
Same as in Italy, though people do sue. For years I dreamed about suing the Ministry for the moral (and material) damage they did to me, but then life rewarded me in a different way, and now I'd rather enjoy what I have than spend money on a lawsuit.
that's the cool heavy prog team you're leading, right?...hope you told that to Micky, he wouldn't be up to such a surprise, would he?
Just kidding....always, me, getting off-topic, and making silly jokes....
Seriously, back on topic, my brother crashed last year, and still NOTHING has happened, however, my father got sick of waiting, and took the car to a mechanic to fix it, and pay it himself.... hopefully some justice will arise...
Joined: July 29 2005
Location: None
Status: Offline
Points: 24429
Posted: April 03 2009 at 19:18
cacho wrote:
Here in Argentina the question would be: Why don't you sue?
And the simple answer would be: because justice/trials/whatever takes years here, it's not worth it, believe me
Same as in Italy, though people do sue. For years I dreamed about suing the Ministry for the moral (and material) damage they did to me, but then life rewarded me in a different way, and now I'd rather enjoy what I have than spend money on a lawsuit.
Joined: October 02 2005
Location: .
Status: Offline
Points: 46833
Posted: April 03 2009 at 19:06
yep... and the article made clear that facts sort of got lost in the tabloid nature of the whole affair... like David I laughed about it at first.. and wondered how much I could get for spilling my coffee in my crotch ...
see that youtube video of yours... hell forget that.... what about poor David... did I hear him say earlier he SAW pictures of the aftereffects of that
oh I am bad...
The Pedro and Micky Experience - When one no longer requires psychotropics to trip
Joined: June 23 2005
Location: The Tardis
Status: Offline
Points: 8543
Posted: April 03 2009 at 18:34
The simple answer is "because we can".
If people outside of the US could do it as easily as we do, they'd be doing it too. After three years in law school, my general impression is if the law protects stupid people, then stupid people will use it to protect themselves from their own stupidity. Sorry to say, but eventually this will spread to Europe at the very least. My favorite is the three or four fat teenagers who sued McDonald's for making them fat. Although the woman who tripped over her own child in a furniture store and then successfully sued the furniture store is a close second.
I can understand your anger at me, but what did the horse I rode in on ever do to you?
Special Collaborator
Retired Admin and Amateur Layabout
Joined: May 13 2007
Location: Europe
Status: Offline
Points: 37575
Posted: April 03 2009 at 18:26
TheCaptain wrote:
BaldFriede wrote:
Atavachron wrote:
well ridiculous lawsuits are not necessarily representative of the vast majority of them, and even some of the legitimate ones will be dismissed. I remember is the famous McDonalds one where the woman sued over a hot cup of coffee that burned her when she spilled it. "Insane" most said including me, until I saw the photos of her injury and fond out the coffee had been mistakenly heated to a temperature close to that of the sun.
Coffee can't be heated any more than the temperature of boiling water. And when you make coffee the water is boiling too, so the coffee can not have been unusually hot. It is physically impossible.
Actually it can be heated to a temperature hotter than that of boiling water (even without added pressure as Negoba stated). Any time a solute is added to a solvent, the boiling point increases and the freezing point decreases. The more things the solute dissociates into, the more drastic the change in temperature is. Anyway, I'm sure that the coffee wasn't drastically hotter than normal coffee which isn't drastically hotter than boiling water. I just wanted to lay down some mad science on this forum.
You don't even have to add anything to the water to enable its temperature to be raised to over 100°C, nor do you need to pressurise it - you can do it in a standard cup in a standard microwave oven - it is called superheating and it is very dangerous because the superheated liquid is extremely volatile - simply adding sugar or any rough-surface into the liquid will cause it to violently boil spraying superheated water and water vapour out of the cup.
The boiling point of any liquid is the temperature at which the liquid turns to a gas - in boiling water the gas released is steam and the water temperature will be at 100°C when the gas separates from the liquid. The release of energy in the steam bubbles is equal to the heat energy going into the water, therefore once bubbles form in the water its temperature cannot be raised above the boiling point. The bubbles form at what is called nucleation points - imperfections in the surface of the container that trap small pockets of air which "seeds" the formation of steam bubbles.
However, in superheated water there are no bubbles so the heat energy going into the water has no release and the water temperature rises to over 100°C. This is because the water in a microwave is heated from the centre of the volume of water so the temperature of the container can be below the boiling point, preventing the formation of bubbles.
Superheating can occur in easier in liquid that has been temperature cycled without disturbing the container, since this degases the liquid, reducing the liquid's ability to form bubbles as it approaches the boiling point.
Joined: January 04 2009
Location: Ohio, USA
Status: Offline
Points: 1335
Posted: April 03 2009 at 14:24
BaldFriede wrote:
Atavachron wrote:
well ridiculous lawsuits are not necessarily representative of the vast majority of them, and even some of the legitimate ones will be dismissed. I remember is the famous McDonalds one where the woman sued over a hot cup of coffee that burned her when she spilled it. "Insane" most said including me, until I saw the photos of her injury and fond out the coffee had been mistakenly heated to a temperature close to that of the sun.
Coffee can't be heated any more than the temperature of boiling water. And when you make coffee the water is boiling too, so the coffee can
not have been unusually hot. It is physically impossible.
Actually it can be heated to a temperature hotter than that of boiling water (even without added pressure as Negoba stated). Any time a solute is added to a solvent, the boiling point increases and the freezing point decreases. The more things the solute dissociates into, the more drastic the change in temperature is. Anyway, I'm sure that the coffee wasn't drastically hotter than normal coffee which isn't drastically hotter than boiling water. I just wanted to lay down some mad science on this forum.
Joined: July 29 2005
Location: None
Status: Offline
Points: 24429
Posted: April 03 2009 at 13:50
In my personal case, the question should probably be, "why do you NOT sue?". In the past few years I found myself in at least two instances in which I would have had every right to sue the manure out of the people involved. Unfortunately, in the first instance (which was work-related), I would have ended up doing myself a lot of damage before I was ever awarded compensation (the ministry for whom I worked would have retaliated against me, and the suit would have gone on for years anyway). The second instance was immediately before my departure for the US, and had instead to do with my ill-fated PhD. In this case, I decided not to pursue the matter for obvious reasons - it is not easy to take care of a lawsuit when you are halfway across the world.
Joined: February 13 2004
Status: Offline
Points: 6898
Posted: April 03 2009 at 13:44
I`,ve mentioned this before on the site.
Some dumbass went through a stop sign and hit one of my dogs about 4 years ago. It cost me a king`s ransom in vet bills or else I would have lost the dog. I threatened to take the jerk to court and sue him for ten times the vet bill. Now before you go on about " you should have had the dogs on a leash" They are Australian Cattle Dogs, very loyal and obedient ( ACDs are in the top 5 percentile of canine intelligence ) and they walk close beside me and will not even chase a squirrel and automatically sit at an intersection before I give the all clear to cross. This occured in a residential area close to where I live and take them for their run in a park specifically designated for dogs. This dumbass was doing three times the speed limit and a bystander had to chase the guy down and of course I called the cops.
Through a lawyer we settled out of court although I would have prefered to choke the guy to death.
Sometimes suing someone is the only way to teach them a lesson.
Joined: July 24 2008
Location: Big Muddy
Status: Offline
Points: 5208
Posted: April 03 2009 at 12:49
I agree to some extent. That there would be a place to bring complaints before the community for judgment is indeed a grand ideal.
Our courts look nothing like this. Lawyers are given too much freedom by judges because they are their peers. Because of that latitude, the major of lawsuits are not legit anymore. People know a cash cow when they see one, so they pile on.
Reasonable legislated regulation of industry by informed representatives is just as viable option for keeping the big guy from abusing the poor. Of course we know that our legislatures are just as political (or corrupt) as the courtrooms.
It's variable from place to place, but I'm from Illinois so my faith in the system is pretty poor.
You are quite a fine person, and I am very fond of you. But you are only quite a little fellow, in a wide world, after all.
Joined: May 27 2005
Location: NE Indiana
Status: Offline
Points: 28057
Posted: April 03 2009 at 12:42
Finnforest wrote:
rileydog22 wrote:
Why do people sue? Because people don't have the right to harm others and not suffer the consequences. Sure, it gets abused. Every system has its abuses. But for every absurd lawsuit that somebody wins, there's a hundred cases of someone rightfully receiving reimbursement for damages from somebody's malicious or negligent behavior. It's just not as newsworthy.
He hit the nail on the head. End of discussion. All of the legit lawsuits that were actually worthy are not sexy, and can't be used by Fox News to rile up their base.
The alternative is to take away all rights from the consumer and allow big business to wrong people and environment with zero consequence. Yeah, that'd be great.
What we need is just a bit more discretion for the judge to toss suits that he knows are frivelous.
Simply enough, without the right to reasonably sue something or someone, acts of vigilante vengeance would skyrocket.
Joined: December 31 2008
Location: Charlottesville
Status: Offline
Points: 485
Posted: April 03 2009 at 12:12
Ive got no real problem with the system, I just wish there were not so many lawyers so that there wouldnt be so many frivolous lawsuits. People do something stupid, and there are a thousand lawyers waiting there to help the person blame anyone but themself.
Joined: February 03 2007
Location: The Heartland
Status: Offline
Points: 16913
Posted: April 03 2009 at 11:57
rileydog22 wrote:
Why do people sue? Because people don't have the right to harm others and not suffer the consequences. Sure, it gets abused. Every system has its abuses. But for every absurd lawsuit that somebody wins, there's a hundred cases of someone rightfully receiving reimbursement for damages from somebody's malicious or negligent behavior. It's just not as newsworthy.
He hit the nail on the head. End of discussion. All of the legit lawsuits that were actually worthy are not sexy, and can't be used by Fox News to rile up their base.
The alternative is to take away all rights from the consumer and allow big business to wrong people and environment with zero consequence. Yeah, that'd be great.
What we need is just a bit more discretion for the judge to toss suits that he knows are frivelous.
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NaturalScience wrote:
, and now I'd rather enjoy what I have than spend money on a lawsuit.
that's the cool heavy prog team you're leading, right?
...hope you told that to Micky, he wouldn't be up to such a surprise, would he?
. In the past few years I found myself in at least two instances in which I would have had every right to sue the manure out of the people involved. Unfortunately, in the first instance (which was work-related), I would have ended up doing myself a lot of damage before I was ever awarded compensation (the ministry for whom I worked would have retaliated against me, and the suit would have gone on for years anyway). The second instance was immediately before my departure for the US, and had instead to do with my ill-fated PhD. In this case, I decided not to pursue the matter for obvious reasons - it is not easy to take care of a lawsuit when you are halfway across the world.
