How Can We Help Prevent Frivolous Lawsuits?

By: Kimberly Goubeaux

There are an extravagant number of frivolous lawsuits being argued in today’s court system, and it is time that we, the citizens of America, do something about it. Frivolous lawsuits harm our nation as well as make us as Americans look greedy. When a person sees a lawsuit concerning someone getting sued over a spilled cup of coffee they immediately think that money was an issue. Things like this hurt the image of our country. Frivolous lawsuits don't only hurt the corporations and businesses being sued, but the citizens of this country as well, and it is time that the citizens take action.

In this day and age lawyers believe that it is worth their time to go after punitive damages in almost any case. Many of those cases are product liability cases, or cases involving the manufacturer's responsibility regarding the quality of their product. Lawyers don’t need to win every one of these cases in order to make it worth their time. Being awarded punitive damages in approximately one out of every ten lawsuits provides enough monetary compensation for the other nine to be worth the lawyer's time.[16] This causes lawyers to insist on going after punitive damages in every case. Therefore we now have a large number of cases floating around in our legal system that probably could have been settled out of court, but the lawyers took them to court in the hopes of receiving punitive damages and more money. Paul Harvard, president of the National Association of Manufacturers estimates that many small businesses spend around $100 billion annually settling liability cases.[17] Many small businesses can’t afford to pay these outrageous legal fees and still be able to operate.

Essentially I feel that these frivolous lawsuits pick on the little people more often than the larger companies. Many small businesses can no longer afford to stay open because of the legal fees connected to these lawsuits. [18] These smaller companies going out of business hurts everyone . Many people know someone who owns a small business or own one themselves. When these businesses close people lose their jobs and, therefore, their income. Some of the shops that close may be specialty shops that carry unique products which are hard to find in other places. A business like that closing is a bad situation for everyone. The owners lose, the employees lose, the consumers lose.

Frivolous lawsuits could have a large effect on larger companies as well. To many of the Fortune 500 companies an occasional lawsuit costing them a million dollars or so isn’t that big of a deal, but eventually those numbers add up. When a person wins a lawsuit against a large company they are usually awarded a substantial amount of money. When other people see the amount awarded for winning they see that being awarded punitive damages in such a case is possible and are more willing to spend the time and effort on filing their own lawsuit against a large corporation. However, even these larger companies can only pay out so much money before they can’t afford it and eventually would have to close. A large corporation closing has much the same effects as a small company closing except on a much larger scale. There are countless numbers of workers who lose their jobs and the stockholders of the company lose their investments.

It is our duty as citizens to look out for the interests of our great nation. No one wants to see people lose their job, especially when it could be a friend, a neighbor, a family member, or especially themselves. People may say that there’s not much that we can do, but even the little things can make a big difference. If enough people contact their Congressmen and women it will send a message that can not be ignored.[19] provides the names, addresses, phone numbers, and e-mail addresses of all of the current members of Congress. If enough people write to their representatives in Congress about their dissatisfaction with the legislation affecting frivolous lawsuits the government will have to take some kind of action. We need to let not only our fellow citizens, but the nations of the world know that we will not stand for this kind of corruption in our court systems, corruption that effects every one of us in some way.

There are also organizations out there that are already involved in fighting against frivolous lawsuits. One example is CALA, or California Citizens Against Lawsuit Abuse. CALA provides information about lawsuit abuse, what lawsuit abuse is doing to our nation, and has programs implemented to help stop it.[20] Their website has a petition that you can sign, and many other ways that you can get involved in the fight against lawsuit abuse. Organizations such as CALA are a great way to get involved and to make a difference.

One thing that is being done by the government in an effort to prevent frivolous lawsuits is the introduction of LARA, or the Law Abuse Reduction Act. LARA would make it so that if a lawsuit is ruled frivolous in a court of law, the party who was suing would then be responsible for paying the legal fees of the other party.[18] This Act would discourage frivolous lawsuits because many people who initiate these lawsuits wouldn't be able to pay the legal fees for both sides. This Act would also outlaw forum shopping, or taking lawsuits out of the area where the offense took place in order to take them before a judge who is known to generally rule in favor of frivolous lawsuits.[21] Forum shopping is a big problem and is done by lawyers all the time in order to have better chances for a favorable ruling. This would discourage filing frivolous lawsuits in some areas because they would know there was little chance of receiving a favorable ruling for the type of lawsuit being filed.

I feel that it is encouraging that the government is starting to take a stand on this issue. There have been many ideas brought up in Congress already, such as setting a cap on the punitive damages that can be awarded in a lawsuit.[22] Another thing that is happening is that the House has passed two reform bills that encourage pretrial settlements.[23] One bill would require the loser in a case to pay the legal fees of the winner if the loser had rejected a pretrial settlement offer. The other would put limits on class action suits against securities brokers. The third bill of the same kind that they are considering is one that would put a cap on punitive damages in products-liability cases. One of the issues with that bill is how high they should set the cap.[24] They don't want to set it too low because then even when damages are awarded it won't even have an effect on the larger companies. Even a couple million dollars is just pennies to some of the larger companies. On the other hand, if they set it too high then smaller companies will get sued for everything they're worth. Many argue that the cap would defeat the purpose of punitive damages in a products liability case, which is to punish companies for producing a bad product and selling it to the public.[25] The cap is definitely a big issue that will take a lot of thought and consideration, but it is worth it to make that effort. Hopefully, if the government continues to work on legislation against frivolous lawsuits and the citizens become more involved; then we can someday stop the growing number of frivolous lawsuits appearing in our court system.

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