|
Post by kaoru on Mar 10, 2019 12:10:02 GMT -5
I'm surprised more people don't see it this way, actually I'm sure most people rather still be alive and have the opportunity to recoup from the loss than being dead, actually. Your example doesn't really work for me personally, since a) my car insurance (which is mandatory to have) would cover the cost and even when losing everything the state would put me on social welfare, because I live in Germany. But even without that, you had to do a lot of worst case mental gymnastics in that example to come to the baseline of lawsuits being worse than death there. It's honestly quite astounding.
|
|
|
Post by toei on Mar 11, 2019 12:33:47 GMT -5
Honestly, a basic rear-ending accident with no serious injury is one of the mildest possible car accident scenarios. If you can't recover from that, you live in a very harsh, very fucked-up society. Here in Canada, it'd pretty much go down like Kaoru said - you'd be considered at fault, but you'd be covered for any damage or injury to the other person through your mandatory liability coverage. Then, if you have collision coverage, you'd be covered for damage to your own car, too. The only consequence would a premium increase when it's time to renew your policy.
|
|
|
Post by edmonddantes on Mar 12, 2019 10:47:55 GMT -5
I'd be more comforted if I were hearing these responses from a fellow American, personally.
'Twas a time almost a decade ago, my entire family was living on my dad's savings from when he was in the Navy, and Dad "accidentally" rear-ended someone (I put that in quotes because the person in question was known to intentionally cause these kinds of accidents for the money--which was the only reason my dad got off the hook). Before the law took our side though it was seriously looking like we might lose everything over a stupid accident. America is NOT as forgiving as other countries. We're the country that has "tough on crime" laws, after all, where if you're a vagrant and arrested for vagrancy, the judge can put you in jail AND fine you $200 (which, if you could make $200, you wouldn't be a vagrant, would you?)
Here's another crap circumstance that happens often: The freaking weather suddenly becoming a pop-up thunderstorm that renders you unable to get on the internet for two days. Makes me glad I'm not one of those big-name youtubers whose entire livelihood depends on having internet access, altho a lot of my other plans do.
|
|
|
Post by kaoru on Mar 12, 2019 15:13:34 GMT -5
Sorry to hear that, but the original point still stands: It's quite the reach to go "well, if I imagine the intend was malicious and if everything I can think of going wrong would go wrong" = "filing a lawsuit makes you worse than a murderer in general". Also, by your logic, at least imagining a scenario where the law would not have taken your family's side, you would have prefered for your father to die in that accident?
|
|
|
Post by edmonddantes on Mar 13, 2019 13:17:17 GMT -5
Obviously not, but you're overlooking a thing:
When I said that thing about filing a lawsuit being worse than murder, I was saying the person who FILED the suit had to be worse than a murderer--because at least when you kill someone, they're dead, their suffering is over. If you take away everything they have though, unless they're Bill Gates you have NO assurance they'll bounce back--you might rationalize it as such, but as far as you know you may have just condemned a person and his/her dependents to a life of hardship.
I'm seriously not sure how these people can say murder is bad, but then rationalize doing THAT to people. Seems like both should be considered heinous.
Kinda reminds me of the finale to Avatar the Last Airbender. Oh, so killing Firelord Ozai is bad, but leaving him in a dungeon, manacled to a wall (where his limbs are sure to atrophy and BTW he now has to be spoon-fed by his jailer and you KNOW they're not gonna treat him well) in a dark stone dungeon where his body is gonna decay from lack of use... that's somehow better? Way to be a freaking hypocrite, Aang. At least if you had cut his head off like Zuko wanted, the pain would've only lasted a moment.
But yeah, you're putting undue focus on the outcome, when the real problem is the committing of the act in the first place.
|
|
|
Post by toei on Mar 13, 2019 14:03:22 GMT -5
That only sort of makes sense in the context of a completely groundless, abusive lawsuit, where the target is effectively ruined. Even then, in most civilized countries you could declare personal bankruptcy, though I seem to recall reading that they were going to make that much harder for individuals to do in the US some years ago? Either way, that's a lot of caveats, and like kaoru, I'd rather be broke than dead. Keep in mind that some people and companies get sued because they need to be sued. A landlord who knowingly rents out apartments, knowing his property is infested with mold, for example, and who refuses to do anything when the tenants find out. He's putting their health at risk for personal greed, and the police are not going to arrest him for it. Your only recourse is to sue him. This isn't rare, either.
|
|
|
Post by kaoru on Mar 14, 2019 2:17:45 GMT -5
edmonddantes, you have a real knack for dereailing your own topics and changing the goal posts. You are the one that said "I'd rather have died in that accident (instead of losing everything)" which would leed to in that scenario with your dad, you'd have to think he'd be better off dead than sued and losing everything, too. That's not really hard to follow, I hope. And once again, you are awfully projecting a lot of bad intentions and terrible life destroying outcomes into the general "filing a lawsuit" to end at "better be dead than suffering/making you worse than a murderer". Ideally people file lawsuits because they are wronged and this is the only way for them to get things made right, and ideally the outcome shouldn't completely ruin the other party.
|
|
|
Post by eatersthemanfool on Mar 14, 2019 5:08:40 GMT -5
As an American, while I don't completely agree, I can definitely see where edmonddantes is coming from. We are one of, if not *the* most litigious countries and lawsuits are absolutely intended to ruin the other party. Common practice is to sue for as much as possible and leave it to the judge to determine how much is appropriate.
Whether or not that is true, it is absolutely the public perception that a single lawsuit will ruin you for life.
|
|