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You can view the page at http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/content.php?r=631-Send-Lawyers-Guns-and-Money
Article: Send Lawyers, Guns, and Money
- Thread starter Chatterton
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Frivolous law suits should be made painful. When a shotgun law suit such as that is brought against a person, and they win, all of their costs should be recoverable from the claimant and their lawyer(s).
BVickery
Contributor
We will never see any sort of Torte Reform, which the legal system desperately needs (and I know many lawyers who feel it is needed and get sick when they read about such lawyers and what they do). The reason for this is simple. The Trial Lawyers Association donates (read: bribe) both sides of the aisle. Most of the Dems are actually trial lawyers (not a slam against them, just the truth. John Edwards made all his money this way and is trying to do so again).
chrpai
Contributor
The OpEd is rich in inflammatory opinions but utterly lacking in details. It's easy to criticize the legal system until we are the ones seeking relief.
This rant belongs in Thumbs Down but having connections seems to do wonders...
This rant belongs in Thumbs Down but having connections seems to do wonders...
Did you read the rest? I doubt it.
As for "connections" - there's no wonder. John Chatterton is a famous diver, a dive industry personality, with 2 best selling books about him, and 54 episodes of a television program to his credit. Not to mention that he's one of the few people to actually see the Titanic in it's final resting place. John Chatterton doesn't need help from me to be a person of interest.
It's certainly easy for you to throw stones from the protection of your armchair though.
chrpai
Contributor
Of course I did.
chrpai
Contributor
Ah, argument of authority and attack the person not the opinion. Connections? Yes.... your personal dive buddy.
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What this says to me is that despite what the pundits say on Scuba diving chat boards, a properly executed release does speak to the state of mind of the releaser prior to the fatality. Kudos to David Concannon for his tenacity and to the jury for realizing that the gold digger (the lawyer in this case, not Terry's widow) was who he was.
As an aside, the lawyer found Terry's widow, not the other way around.
As an aside, the lawyer found Terry's widow, not the other way around.
It's my understanding that if a court rules a lawsuit was frivolous, the court can impose sanctions on the lawyer. I have to believe that in this case the court found at least a shred of evidence supported the lawsuit, so it was not "frivolous." Without further information than what's in this article, we have no way to know what the plaintiff alleged happened or what the evidence was. The article presents an awfully one-sided, black and white picture: it was an unforeseeable heart attack, and the victim signed a waiver. The article would be much more interesting to me if at least a little bit of the other side of the story was presented. But then again, I'll read anything Chatterton writes.
I do agree that that the shotgun approach is used all too often. It's easy to fall into the trap of believing that if someone died, there is a reasonable likelihood it was at least in some small part someone else's fault.
And to respond to a question in the article, yes, I believe there are "evil" lawyers and there are "good" lawyers.
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