IANAL so this is all just personal opinion. You don't understand what OP is posting. His family filed a wrongful death suit against the person who was responsible for the decedents demise. Dying is actually extremely expensive (everywhere in the world) and many times funerals, the cost of a coroner in the event of a crime, medical bills, therapy, etc can bankrupt families. No one is trying to "make a buck" on the dead - they are trying to recover costs + damages for something that is horrific and life changing. "Another family"? They are suing someone. The person responsible. You best bet they try to get what they can out of the people who's loins birthed the reason their loved one is dead! What kind of monster are you? Criminal and civil court are different in basically every western society. You can be found not guilty of a crime and still have to pay out in civil court. You may think this is stupid but it is exactly as intended. Courts, from what I understand, have discretion in allowing/prohibiting a civil suit to follow a criminal suit - for example in a case where you defend yourself against a robber or something. A great example is a DUI case involving the serious injury of someone else. If it wasn't for their indiscretion the person who was injured would not have medical bills, pain and suffering, mental anguish, etc. The person responsible for the DUI has committed not only a felony (for which they will serve some time as a debt to society as a whole) but also is responsible for the civil costs of their poor choices. The purpose of the civil suit is an attempt to make whole someone who was wrongfully injured in the process of someone committing a crime. This makes complete sense, and any reasoning to the contrary is backwards and regressive. I'm still waiting to hear what socialist paradise you come from. This is something like the fourth time I've seen you go on a rant about America. Stop shielding yourself from criticism. I'd love to enumerate the reasons your country sucks.
I live by my own words. My dad had a general checkup in 2008. 7 months later he was in pain and went for another checkup. Diagnosis, late stage cancer with 4 months of life expectancy. He died 3 months later. On multiple images that were taken during the first test it was perfectly apparent that the doctors then misdiagnosed and basically overlooked cancer that would have ,according to several other doctors, potentially been able to be treated with surgery and chemo. My family could have sued for medical malpractice. We did not but that's aside the point. The point is that in our jurisdiction (and most other jurisdictions around the world) a suit would have prompted a federal/state case vs the hospital/doctors and that would have been it. It might have involved private lawyers joining in with state prosecutors but in no event would financial payments ever have been considered other than a reimbursement of legal expenses by the losing party to the winning party. It's grotesque to even imagine that we would have sued in order to extract money from the hospital or doctors. Sounds more like the practice of the jungle: "you fucked my daughter, you give me money, we all good".
?!? Of course at least in some parts of Europe and Asia there are damages to be paid for wrongful death, although afaik this is borne by the insurer (I guess if the person responsible has no car insurance or civil responsibility insurance or those reject the claims because of major fault from the person, this person is gonna end up indebted ). Still the sums involved are much lower than in the US apparently
Who is making a bunch of assumptions here, you or me? "suing just to recover some costs"? Please don't make me laugh, you know that this is in most any case in the US not true at all. It goes way beyond that. So someone died, the remaining family sues the guy who ran over the person who died. Millions of dollars. You are saying this does not affect the entire family of the person who ran over the person? In most societies there is one single law suit, a judge decides the case, decides the punishment of the wrongdoer (removal of privileges, including freedom) and sets a financial amount in case the wrongdoing causes financial expenses that the wrongdoer should be responsible for. No other law suit, no other bullshit. Case closed. That is how the majority of the world handles such case.
Well given that there are over 300M Americans and we're still nominally a democracy, then the 50M will have to convince the vast majority of the country that they're right then we'll change the law. That's given that your assertion is correct that 50-100 million people are against civil liability in wrongful death cases, seems far to specific a question and far too broad an answer range (survey with a 100% margin of error!) to have been surveyed so presumably you pulled those numbers out your ass although happy to see your source? You disagree with the concept of civil liability, noted. Now move on with your life, it's too short to trip offline about random shit like this.
And the financial sums are set by the judge in one and the same court. There are no multiple suits for the same crime in different courts, not in France as far as I know not in Germany, Scandinavia, Japan, HK, Singapore, and other advanced nations.
Yes, and you actually mentioned it already, I missed it. It s also true ib Europe the American Civil suit system is often seen as an aberation, fighting the suing culture is one reason lawyers are not allowed to be paid uniquely as a percentage of the settlement in? Several countries
You got it, I disagreed with the assertion of civil suits above and beyond a criminal suit. And I exercised that right. Until a bunch of hyenas threw themselves onto me. Since then I have simply defended my stance and corrected where I was taken out of context. And now a quiet minute for the deceased, stand Brothers and sisters, hand on the heart and the national hymn please. And while we are at it let's still remember September 11, 18 years ago. After all we are a nation that militarily destroys others and emotionally shouts down everyone who disagrees yet when we are hurt or violated it turns into an unforgivable crime. A nation that is highly emotional when it comes to hurt inflicted on them yet stabs and destroys without mercy others as long as it serves own interest, even if the interests are just of economic nature. Point made, it's easy to feel offended about everything that happens in the own backyard, others will show again respect and trust when the same feeling of anger is shown to own misbehavior and transgression towards others. The civil suit system has destroyed more families and people for good than benefitted the few. It's almost impossible to start up a business in America unless one hires iron clad legal protection from all the monkeys that soon sue for whatever they think they can get away with. A little neck pain because someone gently bumped into my car in the parking lot? Sue that fucking bastard for whatever he is good for. At every corner lurks a law suit. End of rant
My brother was killed by someone who ran red-light. He was only 45-years old and leaves behind 16-year old daughter. My dad, my remaining brother and I wants to allocate settlement for daughter's care and future education, but it won't compare to what could've been done if my brother was still alive and taking care of her. Problem with U.S. legal system is it needs to mature through same stages as European systems. It's evolving, but ever so slowly. Part of problem is it's too generalized and has too many areas for abuse. Thus loading it down with heavy load of frivolous lawsuits. One example is numerous convicted criminals filing all sorts of lawsuits with no merit. Or ambulance-chasing attourneys or non-injured parties claiming life-threatening injuries. In many European nations, there's preliminary worthiness stage where judge determines if case has merit. Most of U.S. cases would be thrown out at this stage. It's amazing that Mercx vs. Gilead case went as far as it did (I've worked for both). Or case where guy successfully sued city for injuries sustained after crashing into light-pole, even though he was drunk at time. Biggest problem in U.S. I think, is so many people take no responsibility for their own lives, someone else is always at fault for their own results. One more-evolved system was developed in G.B. where guilds sets price of various injuries and when you injure someone intentionally or through neglect, there's standardized payment for reparations. Insurance companies here have developed similar system, however, it's extremely inefficient due to numerous court-procedures necessary to arrive at settlement.