On Sat, 26 Apr 2014 09:37:44 -0700 (PDT), jbeattie
wrote:

On Saturday, April 26, 2014 6:18:58 AM UTC-7, (PeteCresswell) wrote:
Per John B.:

Well, why not? After all, someone buys buy a cup of hot coffee and

proceeds to spill it in their lap then they sue the coffee seller.



Watch the movie "Hot Coffee". The complexity of the situation goes

way, way, way beyond the sound bytes you hear on the news media.

--

Pete Cresswell

True, although "Hot Coffee" was produced by a trial lawyers association and was more or less a preemptive strike on jury pools. Nonetheless, the case is generally misunderstood and trotted out as evidence of lawsuits run amok, which it is not. I have seen far stupider cases -- and paid to settle them since the cost of trying a stupid case can be more than an extortive settlement.

-- Jay Beattie.

We (an Indonesian company) had a suit brought against us in a U.S.
court. At the time we had a law form on retainer in Jakarta, another
in Washington D.C. and then another firm licensed to practice in
Delaware for the trial (and me too, as by this time I was retired and
the owners had me come back for technical information).

In the end the complainant agreed to settle out of court and I
complained saying that the complainant had lied and I had already
given the lawyers documents demonstrating this. The Boss said, "it's
cheaper this way. Do you have any idea what three law firms are
costing us?"
--
Cheers,

John B.