[extropy-chat] Professor Being Sued Over Anti-Aging Comments

Mike Lorrey mlorrey at yahoo.com
Wed Jun 22 19:00:38 UTC 2005



--- Brent Neal <brentn at freeshell.org> wrote:

>  (6/22/05 10:42) Brett Paatsch <bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au> wrote:
> 
> 
> >
> >Ultimately I think all intelligent people to be successful in a
> competitive
> >world do need to know the law reasonably well. Even scientists 
> >and technologists are well advised to go slum it in the humanities 
> >occassionally because the humanities or inhumanities will cause them
> >untold or told amounts of grief if they do not. 
> 
> 
> This is absolutely true. But you assume that I'm completely ignorant
> of the law (i.e. you've taken Lorrey at his word).  I'm actually
> reasonably cognizant of the laws in this country covering tort.  I'm
> also reasonably cognizant of how they play out in "real life" as
> opposed to on paper, which I suspect Lorrey is a bit shaky on.  If he
> were better informed, he'd realize that class action, as it exists
> today, provides very little benefit to the plaintiffs.

You have no clue. It certainly provides no benefit to potential
plaintiffs who never join a class action. Can any member of this list
make the claim they've ever joined a class action? I have, on my
defective Firestone Wilderness A/T tires. I received full value,
thanks. I've also read the filings for a number of other class action
suits in my work, such as the suit against JP Morgan and Barrack Gold
for their manipulation of world gold markets in the late 1990's.

Certainly some class action lawsuits against many defendants have
historically failed miserably. That is how the system works: you take
your chances. You may have higher losses than what you wind up with, if
you wind up with anything. Those are the calculations you make when you
decide whether to join a class action or pursue your own action
independently.

Mr. Neal, please list the number of times that any government has
actually distributed cash earned in fines to the actual people who
suffered the damage the government prosecutes businesses over? They
NEVER do, so your side of the equation has a score of ZERO.

> Some have
> argued that the plaintiffs in class action only serve to benefit the
> lawyers who are bringing the suits.  One of the key problems therein
> is that the lawyers have an incentive to settle, due to the burden on
> most civil court dockets, for substantial sums, but sums that are not
> sufficient to adequately recompense their clients.  The defendant
> company typically admits no wrongdoing in the settlement, the lawyers
> receive a sizable fee, and the plaintiffs receive pennies on the
> dollars of loss.  While certainly, -some!
> - class action suits are prosecuted effectively, an overwhelming
> plurality of them end in a settlement that's worthless in the sense
> that we've been discussing.
> 
> Now, lets imagine a system where we've doubled or tripled the number
> of cases of product liability. The courts would struggle to handle
> that kind of workload, thus providing even more incentive to settle
> and quickly.  The stated goal of the suit - to punish the wrongdoer
> in order to provide a disincentive for further wrongdoing - is not
> met and further, the person who suffered the loss would not receive
> recompense. 

Your failure of logic here is that you assume that the number of cases
would increase in an unregulated world. Not so, since regulations
generally protect manufacturers from liabilities, a lack of such (or of
bankruptcy and liability protections, etc) would result in businesses
being operated much more scrupulously for fear of their corporate veils
being pierced.


Mike Lorrey
Vice-Chair, 2nd District, Libertarian Party of NH
"Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom.
It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves."
                                      -William Pitt (1759-1806) 
Blog: http://intlib.blogspot.com

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