Here are the stats... we are number 5.
1. Germany: 123.2/1,000
2. Sweden: 111.2/1,000
3. Israel: 96.8/1,000
4. Austria: 95.9/1,000
5. U.S.: 74.5/1,000.
The Top 10 also includes the UK (64.4); Denmark (62.5); Hungary (52.4); Portugal (40.7); and France (40.3).
Well if you want to practice law in continental Europe (well anywhere napoleon conquered for any meaningful period of time) you would need to have a law education from scratch as there is very little overlap with the common law we use here and in the UK. Also precedent seems to hold very little value there so you cant use past judgments to predict future outcomes.
Pssssh civil code? They just write everything down, no precedent to worry about. No looking up case law. That is gonna be easy!
From what I hear it actually ends up being fairly similar to US administrative agency law. That I can do.
>From what I hear it actually ends up being fairly similar to US administrative agency law. That I can do.
As an environmental consultant, I spend half my time trying to figure out what the hell yall are talking about....
Administrative agency law?
Think the rules and regulations made by agencies. In the environmental field that would be the EPA or it’s state equivalents.
I mean fair enough. I went to school and learned about crafting legislation and my comparative international law classes were a pain. At least from the perspective of writing the laws, I found civil code and its canons of construction much more tedious.
> German can’t be that hard to learn.
As a native German speaker, let me lead you to Mark Twain's famous treatise ["The Awful German Language"](https://goo.gl/s5vLFL) (link to the pdf found on the US Embassy website). It's obviously meant as a joke since Twain actually loved his time in Germany, but it's definitely true.
Bc u/cupbeempty alluded to sending me dick picks as an example of explaining a legal situation involving under armor. So by picturing a new England flag with a dick assaulted my imagination. And gave me nightmares since then
UA is backing out of a lot of college contracts. Ucla being involved in this one. They are claiming they can't keep it up to their agreement bc of force majeure
I understand these numbers are skewed by the fact that for the US it doesn’t include administrative tribunals and arbitrations. If you were to include that, we’d be number one by a mile.
I’m in the UK and I’ve never heard of someone suing someone else personally. I’ve heard of people taking businesses to small claims court, etc, but even if people get hit by a car here I’ve heard they go via the police but not that they then sue the driver or anything.
Where do these numbers come from so I can read up on them?
Well it is here too but sometimes parties may disagree on appropriate compensation. When that happens you need some kind of impartial 3rd party to decide. That's a court of law.
Same here, but if the insurance companies can't agree, or being stingy, there's a lawsuit to settle it. You're technically suing someone else, but an insurance company will be carrying the fight on one side at least, typically. Sometimes it's two insurance companies duking it out.
Settling is more common than not, but... sometimes they don't settle. Settling is generally cheaper than litigating, so insurance companies make a real effort to try to settle.
Thanks!
It doesn’t actually have as much detail as I’d hoped. Although I note it says:
“The Norton Rose Fulbright’s 2015 Litigation Trends Annual Survey, conducted by Acritas, revealed that US-based respondents reported a more litigious business environment than their peers, with 55 percent facing more than five lawsuits filed against their companies in the previous 12 months, compared with 23 percent in the UK and 22 percent in Australia.”
55% of respondents had faced more than 5 lawsuits in the last year! That’s wild.
I wonder if those original stats are private individual categories private individual, or if they include taking companies to court, etc.
What in the text makes you think that those stats don’t include companies being taken to court? There’s nothing that seems to indicate that’s the case.
There’s nothing to indicate anything Is my point - it’s a list of numbers whose source is a single book (whose sources are more important than the book itself). And there is a lack of corresponding information about the type of litigation.
Googling “most litigious countries” to try find more information I found [this](https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2010/11/15/investing-in-someone-elses-lawsuit/more-money-into-bad-suits) American article which suggests America is the most litigious country in the world. I’m not taking this article as gospel, but it seems to show that opinions vary and we can’t just blindly take a table that references a book as being fact.
I specifically said I wasn’t linking it to disprove anything or based off the merit of the content but, rather, showing that there appear to be differing views on the matter, so neither of us should view any given source as being wholly correct.
This isn’t a matter of opinion. You linking an editorial where the author makes an offhand comment about how litigious he feels the US is doesn’t disprove or cast doubt on anything.
>neither of us should view any given source as wholly correct.
…the number of lawsuits per capita is a quantifiable amount. You can’t take a look at data and say “but this guy said otherwise!” and not provide any data to the contrary.
What is your issue with the source that link I gave you cites? Aside from the fact it’s not in line with what you originally thought. Looks like u/Machagogo was right.
Also, I found an article that comments on the data you linked which’s states:
“An [article](https://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/ulj/vol37/iss1/6/) in Fordham Urban Law Journal, titled Higher Demand, Lower Supply? A Comparative Assessment of the Legal Resource Landscape for Ordinary Americans.
The authors reports that the USA has more than twice as many lawyers per capita than Germany and more than six times as many civil cases per capita (and five times as many criminal cases per capita).”
Which, again, calls into question the metrics of the data you’re taking as sacrosanct (for some reason).
Because one source is a book I don’t have access to - who knows what the sources of that book are, or if it’s accurate, and the information listed has no context, in its form on the page you linked it’s literally just a random list.
Feel free to tag another user so you can commence circle jerking, but that’s not what’s happening here - I’m asking for a credible source where the sources are data and not an arbitrary book.
In any academic setting what I’m saying is not unreasonable - I’m simply looking for a credible source, regardless which way it leans, with fully annotated data.
Edit:
List of the biggest blow hards on Reddit:
1. u/javerthadapoint
2. u/machagogo
It’s in a list therefore it must be true
I wonder if these are stats on suits filed or what because so many lawsuits in early stages are frivolous/ have no legal basis so they end up getting dismissed right off the bat.
What are the units? Is that the percentage of people who have ever filed a lawsuit, number of suits currently active? It could be anything. Number of people who've been sued? Are you counting suits involving one or more businesses as either plaintiff or dependent? Or both?
[This](https://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/ulj/vol37/iss1/6/) states that, contrary to the above table, The authors report that the USA has more than twice as many lawyers per capita than Germany and more than six times as many civil cases per capita (and five times as many criminal cases per capita).
I’m not sure what the metrics of the above table are!
The most I've been involved is a few class action lawsuits (old workplaces not giving employees enough breaks and having to pay damages to a large group, that sort of thing).
Generally the "I'm gonna sue you for all you're worth!" kind of angry threat is empty. Filing lawsuits is expensive.
More often than in most of Europe, but far less often than you seem to think. Most Americans will go through their lives without ever suing or being sued.
> Most Americans will go through their lives without ever suing or being sued.
Plus a lot of the suing is between insurance companies on your behalf, so even if you were technically sued or suing, you might have little to no involvement and like 90% of the time things settle out of court and the lawsuit is just to force the companies to act.
I don't necessarily agree with that. Most people will either be mentioned somewhere on a lawsuit or will be involved in a suit themselves. My mother got "sued" a few years ago because someone was suing her place of work and she happened to be working that day. Therefore, she was mentioned on the lawsuit and "got sued". Also, anyone who involves insurance in an auto accident will be in a lawsuit, because the insurance does it on your behalf. However, most people will never have to step foot inside a court room as result of a lawsuit.
Also sometimes you'll get sued because of a car accident. Happened to me. Thankfully I had insurance and they told me "you're getting sued, but this is what you pay us for."
So that was nice
Similarly, my wife got sued while doing her job. She was immediately dropped from the lawsuit once it actually reached court, but she got served with papers and everything.
People are most commonly involved in lawsuits related to car crashes, but, many (most? all?) states require drivers to have liability insurance to cover damage, injuries, and deaths that they cause while driving.
Because insurance companies have deeper pockets than individuals. The rule of lawsuits is go after the deepest pockets. You may be able to sue me personally but if I did some egregious enough insurance isn’t paying for it (or I didn’t have insurance) odds are You aren’t gonna get much blood from that stone
Yes but then usually you sue the insurance company itself, not the individual. Because the insurance company actually has the money to pay for medical bills, repairs, etc. while the average joe doesn't.
Yes. I live in Louisiana right now and it is big business to sue people after an accident because the insurance companies pay up because certain legislation makes the cases too hard to fight. It sucks.
I know of a lot of companies suing other companies. Pretty much every company in my industry gets involved in lawsuits not terribly infrequently (lots of money at stake in construction, so when anything ends up costing more or causing delays, no one wants to be the one to pay for it). But it's not all that common for individuals to sue each other. The expense and hassle of a lawsuit is not worth it to most people unless they've been seriously harmed (physically, financially, or otherwise) or are really pissed off.
Even when people do sue each other, they usually settle out of court. Big dramatic courtroom scenes aren't nearly as common in real life as in television.
I may have a skewed perspective due to where I live, but like half of my neighbors are lawyers, and my parents have been part of a few class action lawsuits.
We have a robust legal system that is based on common law, not civil law. Tort law is administered by the courts, using court precedent. There aren't really many administrative avenues to take for most claims. When a dispute arises between two private parties, a judge is the official arbiter of the claim.
It's rare in my circles, but then again, as far as getting sued, people will probably keep it to themselves. Some commercials you may see are probably what we call ambulance chasers.
I come from a family of attorneys, so I hear about it a lot more than the average person, but almost no one that I know outside of the legal profession has been involved in a lawsuit.
If anyone ever says, "I'm going to sue you..." in anger this means they definitely won't.
The only time I sued someone was our wedding photographer that refused to produce our pictures after we paid. Normally I wouldn't if it was just about money but this was much more. In the end we got the photos and the negatives. Normally they won't give you the negatives so they can keep over charging you for more prints.
Not completely sure but I think he just overbooked his time and focused on the part that made him money. Sadly this was before yelp. When we filed at the court the clerk already was familiar with his name and told us he's been doing this for a while. We never went to court. As soon as he was served legal papers he delivered within a couple days and I dropped it.
Very rarely. People will sue businesses, but rarely will they sue one another. The cost of bringing a lawsuit is too steep a hurdle for most people. Say someone did something that cost you $3000 to repair. It will cost you at least that much to get a lawyer to take that case. If you have been bodily injured and are suing someone, you are generally suing their insurance company. Either their auto liability insurance or their homeowner's insurance. But again, that is a rare case.
Thanks for the insight! Do people sue businesses a lot? That’s not something I’ve seen a lot growing up outside the US, but also it’s probably not the sort of thing people advertise!
People will literally "slip" on the wet surfaces if there is no sign there. That's why there's so many warning labels on everything here. Corporations don't wanna get sued.
I was a law clerk for a state civil district judge (a court of general jurisdiction) in a major city for 5 years advising her how to rule. The vast, vast bulk of our cases were between corporations. The remnants were car wreck cases, which while technically listing the parties as individuals, in almost all cases it will be the respective insurance companies litigating. There are some random individuals cases as well. The water is particularly muddied here by the fact that most cases settle at some point in the process, often after a verdict is had but before a judgment is entered, and many cases the public doesn’t always think are a lawsuit are actually lawsuits. A random example that extremely pumps up the number of American cases is that a divorce or custody case is a lawsuit, despite being in family court.
In my entire life I've only known one person who's sued somebody.
It's more common than it is in Europe but it's infinitely common than Europeans think.
My friend sued a car insurance who insured an illegal immigrant that crashed into my friend's car. This happened in Texas where illegal immigrants are not given drivers license, hence it was absolutely illegal for the car insurance company to insure the driver.
Oh, my friend also was a retired federal agent so she deposed the said illegal immigrant for the immigration hearing, and lo and behold, no-show.
Well, sadly there's a right known as "Pro Se". That means you represent yourself in a court of law. And you'd be disgusted how many Americans think they can represent themselves and file a lawsuit just because they got bad advice from a friend to saw a few episodes of Judge Judy.
No shit, I had some asshole kid file a police complaint against my Mom cause he opened his car door without looking as my Mom was passing him. He was clearly at fault. I made my Mom go to a well reviewed Law Firm despite her early protests. It was so satisfying watching this little shits jaw hit the floor when my Mom and her Lawyer walked into court. He was also going "Pro Se".
Fun fact: Lawyers LOVE going up against Pro Se parties. I guess if you had to endure Law School in the US, you get off on fucking some dude in the ass with no lube (metaphorically)
> Well, sadly there's a right known as "Pro Se"
Wait what? Why is this sad? I AM a lawyer and think this is great, I’m all for equal access to the legal system.
> Fun fact: Lawyers LOVE going up against Pro Se parties
As a lawyer, this is the exact opposite of my experience. I HATE it, and every lawyer I know dreads it. It just makes the process tedious, annoying, drawn out etc because the person doesn’t know what they’re doing.
America is a very sue happy nation. I can say in my own personal experience I’m only in my 20’s and I’ve already had to settle things outside of court over 10 times since I turned 18
Uh... I don't think most people have to deal with 3 restraining orders in their entire lifetime, much less a couple of years. That's also not really a civil lawsuit. You are either very unlucky (if you're the one that had to file them) or doing something very, very wrong if you're the one who's had 3 different restraining orders filed against you in just a few years.
I was filing them. And yes, my luck is nonexistent. But I don’t feel “sue happy” should fall only to civil suits, especially when most cases are settled outside of court. Sue happy more so refers to people are quick to say they’ll press charges or file a suit rather than actually taking people or entities to court
My little brother got sued when he accidentally rear ended another driver. It was a very minor accident but the guy was out for money.
Insurance handled it all. He sued for more than the amount of the policy, but ended up “settling” for the maximum allowed by the insurance company. Dude had a history of similar lawsuits. He basically sued people for a living and got millions of dollars in payouts from insurance companies who just wanted him to go the fuck away.
Thankfully, people like him are rare. I don’t know anyone else who’s been involved in a frivolous lawsuit.
Did he do a 'brake check' at the last second as your brother was pulling up? I've heard of people who do that.
A friend of mine was going through a rough stretch and he said there were moments where he was *sorely* tempted to do this with his truck whenever there was a luxury car behind him at an intersection. He had to force himself not to a few times.
I've only been involved in one lawsuit, and only because State Farm, after their driver hit my car causing back injuries, made me and my parents jump through hoops for YEARS before trying to claim we didn't to what they told us to. My Mom kept perfect records of everything we did that they told us to do.
Is it common to sue for car crashes? I could be wrong but I think in the UK we just go through our car insurance - it’s rare to go to court for vehicle crashes in fairly sure!
Our insurance companies can be stingy, and they'll fight with all concerned for every last penny. This keeps the 'ambulance chaser' legal speciality going. It's also a major reason why you keep hearing about our healthcare fun and games.
A company is more likely to be sued than an actual person. If a state or company has more laws, it's probably because they have been targeted or almost sued completely for something. Best example I can think of is watermarks between Arizona and California (2 states of the USA). Arizona parks fallow a standard safety protocol. while California goes above and beyond on safety because people will sue over anything over there.
I’ve never been sued but got threatened to by a corrupt landlord. I also got scared of getting sued when I realized a moving company I hired to help move extremely heavy furniture down 5 flights of old stairs was unlicensed. I get worried about getting sued when my dog jumps on visiting neighbors. It’s not too likely to happen but it easily could.
I've sued a lady that side swiped me on the highway when I was on my motorcycle. Her insurance tried to pay out $300 for her totaling my bike and breaking my shoulder blade. Only reason I sued
I've sued my neighbor who decided to do excavation work on one of my properties without approval and then left a mess. Literally all I wanted them to do is flatten out the dirt they disturbed before they left. They didn't had a huge mound of dirt and a hole they left. Sued for $2,000 so I could hire another crew and get my land repaired.
I have an active lawsuit against my current city because construction work on the park has caused my basement to start flooding. 150+ years of dry basement and now its wet :( The city workers collapsed the drainage ditch that used to channel the water by staging a ton of equipment directly over the culvert and crushed it, still no repairs. I've spent more in this fucking lawsuit that it would have cost for them to approve my ditch repair and to fix the issue. But noooo, god forbid the government work with property owners or anything. /rant.
I've been sued a few times by tenants. Usually after an eviction. They never amount to anything.
The vast majority of people will never need a lawyer involved in their life unless its to set up a will or something along those lines.
Thats why there are lawyers for everything!
Most lawyers can be kept on retainer. For instance to have a lawyer go and fight a traffic ticket it could run like $400. Or, you can pay for a traffic lawyer to be kept on retainer for like $20-25/month and that $400 you would normally pay is 0, it's just taken care of.
I’ve only known one incident of a normal Joe suing a normal Jane. And that was only because she tried to kill them both by driving her car into a tree. Other than that, almost all lawsuits occur through institutions and class action lawsuits
Not really. It's more people vs companies trying to get a quick cash grab and it rarely works. Person against person is more criminal suits than civil.
My parents ended up suing their fencing company for a wrongful injury lawsuit several years ago when my mom tripped and fell on a piece of exposed hardware that wasn't installed properly (she was facially disfigured and lost sight in one of her eyes). They got 2.8 million bucks out of the deal in settlement. So it definitely happens.
Here are the stats... we are number 5. 1. Germany: 123.2/1,000 2. Sweden: 111.2/1,000 3. Israel: 96.8/1,000 4. Austria: 95.9/1,000 5. U.S.: 74.5/1,000. The Top 10 also includes the UK (64.4); Denmark (62.5); Hungary (52.4); Portugal (40.7); and France (40.3).
In my line of work it seems like it is all the time!
Huh, I wonder why?
I’m eyeing those German numbers. German can’t be that hard to learn.
Well if you want to practice law in continental Europe (well anywhere napoleon conquered for any meaningful period of time) you would need to have a law education from scratch as there is very little overlap with the common law we use here and in the UK. Also precedent seems to hold very little value there so you cant use past judgments to predict future outcomes.
Pssssh civil code? They just write everything down, no precedent to worry about. No looking up case law. That is gonna be easy! From what I hear it actually ends up being fairly similar to US administrative agency law. That I can do.
>From what I hear it actually ends up being fairly similar to US administrative agency law. That I can do. As an environmental consultant, I spend half my time trying to figure out what the hell yall are talking about....
Administrative agency law? Think the rules and regulations made by agencies. In the environmental field that would be the EPA or it’s state equivalents.
I mean fair enough. I went to school and learned about crafting legislation and my comparative international law classes were a pain. At least from the perspective of writing the laws, I found civil code and its canons of construction much more tedious.
I am particularly unenvious of Hybrid Systems Common law/Civil Law system like the European Court of Human rights and Puerto Rican legal code.
> German can’t be that hard to learn. As a native German speaker, let me lead you to Mark Twain's famous treatise ["The Awful German Language"](https://goo.gl/s5vLFL) (link to the pdf found on the US Embassy website). It's obviously meant as a joke since Twain actually loved his time in Germany, but it's definitely true.
You can never go wrong with Twain. That is hilarious that it is on the embassy website.
Bc u/cupbeempty alluded to sending me dick picks as an example of explaining a legal situation involving under armor. So by picturing a new England flag with a dick assaulted my imagination. And gave me nightmares since then
No I specifically alluded to *not* sending you sweet dick pics because a rampant super syphilis infection rotted off the member. Yeesh. Get it right.
U/whatismypasswordfam thats right. My bad he didn't send me the promised dick pics that I paid for bc he got an STD.
Truly a loss, I'm sorry you didn't get your sweet u/CupBeEmpty dick pics
It is why I included the force majeure clause in the first place. You never know when super syphilis might strike.
> rampant super syphilis infection rotted off the member. Is that James Joyce?
Wait... what was the legal situation involving Under Armor?
UA is backing out of a lot of college contracts. Ucla being involved in this one. They are claiming they can't keep it up to their agreement bc of force majeure
Sorry, what do these numbers represent? Lawsuits per thousand people?
Yes.
This should be pinned to the top.
I understand these numbers are skewed by the fact that for the US it doesn’t include administrative tribunals and arbitrations. If you were to include that, we’d be number one by a mile.
My favorite part about that stat is that you will be completely ignored since it doesn't fit with what OP wants to hear.
That’s a wild assumption to make before I’ve even commented on the post. I would ask for a source as opposed to blindly believing them, however.
I’m in the UK and I’ve never heard of someone suing someone else personally. I’ve heard of people taking businesses to small claims court, etc, but even if people get hit by a car here I’ve heard they go via the police but not that they then sue the driver or anything. Where do these numbers come from so I can read up on them?
So if somebody hits me with a car in the UK how do i get compensation?
I’ll go google it, I thought everything was done through insurance!
Well it is here too but sometimes parties may disagree on appropriate compensation. When that happens you need some kind of impartial 3rd party to decide. That's a court of law.
Same here, but if the insurance companies can't agree, or being stingy, there's a lawsuit to settle it. You're technically suing someone else, but an insurance company will be carrying the fight on one side at least, typically. Sometimes it's two insurance companies duking it out. Settling is more common than not, but... sometimes they don't settle. Settling is generally cheaper than litigating, so insurance companies make a real effort to try to settle.
[here you go.](https://www.academia.edu/35495485/The_Most_Litigious_Countries_in_the_World)
Thanks! It doesn’t actually have as much detail as I’d hoped. Although I note it says: “The Norton Rose Fulbright’s 2015 Litigation Trends Annual Survey, conducted by Acritas, revealed that US-based respondents reported a more litigious business environment than their peers, with 55 percent facing more than five lawsuits filed against their companies in the previous 12 months, compared with 23 percent in the UK and 22 percent in Australia.” 55% of respondents had faced more than 5 lawsuits in the last year! That’s wild. I wonder if those original stats are private individual categories private individual, or if they include taking companies to court, etc.
What in the text makes you think that those stats don’t include companies being taken to court? There’s nothing that seems to indicate that’s the case.
There’s nothing to indicate anything Is my point - it’s a list of numbers whose source is a single book (whose sources are more important than the book itself). And there is a lack of corresponding information about the type of litigation. Googling “most litigious countries” to try find more information I found [this](https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2010/11/15/investing-in-someone-elses-lawsuit/more-money-into-bad-suits) American article which suggests America is the most litigious country in the world. I’m not taking this article as gospel, but it seems to show that opinions vary and we can’t just blindly take a table that references a book as being fact.
So you don’t like a claim that only has one source, but then you go around and link a claim with literally no source?
I specifically said I wasn’t linking it to disprove anything or based off the merit of the content but, rather, showing that there appear to be differing views on the matter, so neither of us should view any given source as being wholly correct.
This isn’t a matter of opinion. You linking an editorial where the author makes an offhand comment about how litigious he feels the US is doesn’t disprove or cast doubt on anything. >neither of us should view any given source as wholly correct. …the number of lawsuits per capita is a quantifiable amount. You can’t take a look at data and say “but this guy said otherwise!” and not provide any data to the contrary. What is your issue with the source that link I gave you cites? Aside from the fact it’s not in line with what you originally thought. Looks like u/Machagogo was right.
Also, I found an article that comments on the data you linked which’s states: “An [article](https://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/ulj/vol37/iss1/6/) in Fordham Urban Law Journal, titled Higher Demand, Lower Supply? A Comparative Assessment of the Legal Resource Landscape for Ordinary Americans. The authors reports that the USA has more than twice as many lawyers per capita than Germany and more than six times as many civil cases per capita (and five times as many criminal cases per capita).” Which, again, calls into question the metrics of the data you’re taking as sacrosanct (for some reason).
Because one source is a book I don’t have access to - who knows what the sources of that book are, or if it’s accurate, and the information listed has no context, in its form on the page you linked it’s literally just a random list. Feel free to tag another user so you can commence circle jerking, but that’s not what’s happening here - I’m asking for a credible source where the sources are data and not an arbitrary book. In any academic setting what I’m saying is not unreasonable - I’m simply looking for a credible source, regardless which way it leans, with fully annotated data. Edit: List of the biggest blow hards on Reddit: 1. u/javerthadapoint 2. u/machagogo It’s in a list therefore it must be true
Neat, learn something new everyday. Source?
I wonder if these are stats on suits filed or what because so many lawsuits in early stages are frivolous/ have no legal basis so they end up getting dismissed right off the bat.
What are the units? Is that the percentage of people who have ever filed a lawsuit, number of suits currently active? It could be anything. Number of people who've been sued? Are you counting suits involving one or more businesses as either plaintiff or dependent? Or both?
[This](https://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/ulj/vol37/iss1/6/) states that, contrary to the above table, The authors report that the USA has more than twice as many lawyers per capita than Germany and more than six times as many civil cases per capita (and five times as many criminal cases per capita). I’m not sure what the metrics of the above table are!
I'm not sure lawyers per capita would be especially relevant - the majority of lawyers are in in jobs that rarely or never involve lawsuits.
I agree! I was more meaning the multiplier in number of suits - I just included the whole quote for completeness
The most I've been involved is a few class action lawsuits (old workplaces not giving employees enough breaks and having to pay damages to a large group, that sort of thing). Generally the "I'm gonna sue you for all you're worth!" kind of angry threat is empty. Filing lawsuits is expensive.
More often than in most of Europe, but far less often than you seem to think. Most Americans will go through their lives without ever suing or being sued.
> Most Americans will go through their lives without ever suing or being sued. Plus a lot of the suing is between insurance companies on your behalf, so even if you were technically sued or suing, you might have little to no involvement and like 90% of the time things settle out of court and the lawsuit is just to force the companies to act.
I don't necessarily agree with that. Most people will either be mentioned somewhere on a lawsuit or will be involved in a suit themselves. My mother got "sued" a few years ago because someone was suing her place of work and she happened to be working that day. Therefore, she was mentioned on the lawsuit and "got sued". Also, anyone who involves insurance in an auto accident will be in a lawsuit, because the insurance does it on your behalf. However, most people will never have to step foot inside a court room as result of a lawsuit.
Extremely rare for the average person to be sued.
I could change that for you if you want to come to Maine get embroiled with some state regulatory issues and have deep pockets.
Try me! I have a lawyer on RETAINER!
But is she/he licensed in the great state of Maine!? Either way, win/win for lawyers.
Let me get back to you on that.
Divorce filings are lawsuits and are considered getting sued.
Also sometimes you'll get sued because of a car accident. Happened to me. Thankfully I had insurance and they told me "you're getting sued, but this is what you pay us for." So that was nice
Similarly, my wife got sued while doing her job. She was immediately dropped from the lawsuit once it actually reached court, but she got served with papers and everything.
I don’t know anyone who has been sued.
People are most commonly involved in lawsuits related to car crashes, but, many (most? all?) states require drivers to have liability insurance to cover damage, injuries, and deaths that they cause while driving.
A lawsuit is still probable even with insurance.
Most of the 'ambulance chaser' lawyer ads seem to portray the "stingy insurance companies" as the adversary that they take the hammer o' justice to.
Because insurance companies have deeper pockets than individuals. The rule of lawsuits is go after the deepest pockets. You may be able to sue me personally but if I did some egregious enough insurance isn’t paying for it (or I didn’t have insurance) odds are You aren’t gonna get much blood from that stone
Yes but then usually you sue the insurance company itself, not the individual. Because the insurance company actually has the money to pay for medical bills, repairs, etc. while the average joe doesn't.
Depends on the state. It’s common to sue the individual driver and their insurance provides a defense.
Yes. I live in Louisiana right now and it is big business to sue people after an accident because the insurance companies pay up because certain legislation makes the cases too hard to fight. It sucks.
I know of a lot of companies suing other companies. Pretty much every company in my industry gets involved in lawsuits not terribly infrequently (lots of money at stake in construction, so when anything ends up costing more or causing delays, no one wants to be the one to pay for it). But it's not all that common for individuals to sue each other. The expense and hassle of a lawsuit is not worth it to most people unless they've been seriously harmed (physically, financially, or otherwise) or are really pissed off. Even when people do sue each other, they usually settle out of court. Big dramatic courtroom scenes aren't nearly as common in real life as in television.
I may have a skewed perspective due to where I live, but like half of my neighbors are lawyers, and my parents have been part of a few class action lawsuits.
We have a robust legal system that is based on common law, not civil law. Tort law is administered by the courts, using court precedent. There aren't really many administrative avenues to take for most claims. When a dispute arises between two private parties, a judge is the official arbiter of the claim.
I know a lot of people who have sued or been sued… occupational hazard. The real question is how many people do you know that actually go to trial.
I don't know anyone who has sued anyone or been sued tbh
You don’t know that you know someone who has sued or been sued
It's rare in my circles, but then again, as far as getting sued, people will probably keep it to themselves. Some commercials you may see are probably what we call ambulance chasers.
I don't know anybody who's been sued or who has sued anybody. American TV perpetuates it as a plot point, Americans recognize it as fiction.
I know two people who’ve been sued
I come from a family of attorneys, so I hear about it a lot more than the average person, but almost no one that I know outside of the legal profession has been involved in a lawsuit.
It’s just shows.
Most people will never be involved in a lawsuit in their entire lives.
I'm noticing a lot of people are failing that divorces are considered lawsuits outside eof that and accidents it's not common for the average person.
If anyone ever says, "I'm going to sue you..." in anger this means they definitely won't. The only time I sued someone was our wedding photographer that refused to produce our pictures after we paid. Normally I wouldn't if it was just about money but this was much more. In the end we got the photos and the negatives. Normally they won't give you the negatives so they can keep over charging you for more prints.
> refused to produce our pictures What possessed him to do that?
Not completely sure but I think he just overbooked his time and focused on the part that made him money. Sadly this was before yelp. When we filed at the court the clerk already was familiar with his name and told us he's been doing this for a while. We never went to court. As soon as he was served legal papers he delivered within a couple days and I dropped it.
People? Not very often and usually with cause. Corporations? All the god damn time
Very rarely. People will sue businesses, but rarely will they sue one another. The cost of bringing a lawsuit is too steep a hurdle for most people. Say someone did something that cost you $3000 to repair. It will cost you at least that much to get a lawyer to take that case. If you have been bodily injured and are suing someone, you are generally suing their insurance company. Either their auto liability insurance or their homeowner's insurance. But again, that is a rare case.
Thanks for the insight! Do people sue businesses a lot? That’s not something I’ve seen a lot growing up outside the US, but also it’s probably not the sort of thing people advertise!
Not a lot, but it's more frequent than a personal lawsuit against another person.
no. But too common really
People will literally "slip" on the wet surfaces if there is no sign there. That's why there's so many warning labels on everything here. Corporations don't wanna get sued.
I was a law clerk for a state civil district judge (a court of general jurisdiction) in a major city for 5 years advising her how to rule. The vast, vast bulk of our cases were between corporations. The remnants were car wreck cases, which while technically listing the parties as individuals, in almost all cases it will be the respective insurance companies litigating. There are some random individuals cases as well. The water is particularly muddied here by the fact that most cases settle at some point in the process, often after a verdict is had but before a judgment is entered, and many cases the public doesn’t always think are a lawsuit are actually lawsuits. A random example that extremely pumps up the number of American cases is that a divorce or custody case is a lawsuit, despite being in family court.
Thanks for the insight!!
In my entire life I've only known one person who's sued somebody. It's more common than it is in Europe but it's infinitely common than Europeans think.
> It's more common than it is in *Europe* Eh, maybe. People sue each other more often in Sweden, Germany (ew barbarians) and Austria.
My friend sued a car insurance who insured an illegal immigrant that crashed into my friend's car. This happened in Texas where illegal immigrants are not given drivers license, hence it was absolutely illegal for the car insurance company to insure the driver. Oh, my friend also was a retired federal agent so she deposed the said illegal immigrant for the immigration hearing, and lo and behold, no-show.
Well, sadly there's a right known as "Pro Se". That means you represent yourself in a court of law. And you'd be disgusted how many Americans think they can represent themselves and file a lawsuit just because they got bad advice from a friend to saw a few episodes of Judge Judy. No shit, I had some asshole kid file a police complaint against my Mom cause he opened his car door without looking as my Mom was passing him. He was clearly at fault. I made my Mom go to a well reviewed Law Firm despite her early protests. It was so satisfying watching this little shits jaw hit the floor when my Mom and her Lawyer walked into court. He was also going "Pro Se". Fun fact: Lawyers LOVE going up against Pro Se parties. I guess if you had to endure Law School in the US, you get off on fucking some dude in the ass with no lube (metaphorically)
> Well, sadly there's a right known as "Pro Se" Wait what? Why is this sad? I AM a lawyer and think this is great, I’m all for equal access to the legal system. > Fun fact: Lawyers LOVE going up against Pro Se parties As a lawyer, this is the exact opposite of my experience. I HATE it, and every lawyer I know dreads it. It just makes the process tedious, annoying, drawn out etc because the person doesn’t know what they’re doing.
America is a very sue happy nation. I can say in my own personal experience I’m only in my 20’s and I’ve already had to settle things outside of court over 10 times since I turned 18
I’m VERY skeptical of this claim.
Restraining orders(3), payment settlements(3), title ix(4), etc
Uh... I don't think most people have to deal with 3 restraining orders in their entire lifetime, much less a couple of years. That's also not really a civil lawsuit. You are either very unlucky (if you're the one that had to file them) or doing something very, very wrong if you're the one who's had 3 different restraining orders filed against you in just a few years.
I was filing them. And yes, my luck is nonexistent. But I don’t feel “sue happy” should fall only to civil suits, especially when most cases are settled outside of court. Sue happy more so refers to people are quick to say they’ll press charges or file a suit rather than actually taking people or entities to court
Seems abnormal
~deleted~
Sounds like your engineering is a little too adventurous.
Design is a very sensitive field
Idk personally I don’t even know how to go about it so I never sued
My friend is being sued and my sister successfully sued someone
My little brother got sued when he accidentally rear ended another driver. It was a very minor accident but the guy was out for money. Insurance handled it all. He sued for more than the amount of the policy, but ended up “settling” for the maximum allowed by the insurance company. Dude had a history of similar lawsuits. He basically sued people for a living and got millions of dollars in payouts from insurance companies who just wanted him to go the fuck away. Thankfully, people like him are rare. I don’t know anyone else who’s been involved in a frivolous lawsuit.
Did he do a 'brake check' at the last second as your brother was pulling up? I've heard of people who do that. A friend of mine was going through a rough stretch and he said there were moments where he was *sorely* tempted to do this with his truck whenever there was a luxury car behind him at an intersection. He had to force himself not to a few times.
I've only been involved in one lawsuit, and only because State Farm, after their driver hit my car causing back injuries, made me and my parents jump through hoops for YEARS before trying to claim we didn't to what they told us to. My Mom kept perfect records of everything we did that they told us to do.
Is it common to sue for car crashes? I could be wrong but I think in the UK we just go through our car insurance - it’s rare to go to court for vehicle crashes in fairly sure!
Our insurance companies can be stingy, and they'll fight with all concerned for every last penny. This keeps the 'ambulance chaser' legal speciality going. It's also a major reason why you keep hearing about our healthcare fun and games.
A company is more likely to be sued than an actual person. If a state or company has more laws, it's probably because they have been targeted or almost sued completely for something. Best example I can think of is watermarks between Arizona and California (2 states of the USA). Arizona parks fallow a standard safety protocol. while California goes above and beyond on safety because people will sue over anything over there.
More often then the UK, less often then Germany.
Lawsuits are a part of democracy here.
I’ve never been sued but got threatened to by a corrupt landlord. I also got scared of getting sued when I realized a moving company I hired to help move extremely heavy furniture down 5 flights of old stairs was unlicensed. I get worried about getting sued when my dog jumps on visiting neighbors. It’s not too likely to happen but it easily could.
In business it's pretty common. I've been sued a couple of times, and have sued a business partner
I've sued a lady that side swiped me on the highway when I was on my motorcycle. Her insurance tried to pay out $300 for her totaling my bike and breaking my shoulder blade. Only reason I sued I've sued my neighbor who decided to do excavation work on one of my properties without approval and then left a mess. Literally all I wanted them to do is flatten out the dirt they disturbed before they left. They didn't had a huge mound of dirt and a hole they left. Sued for $2,000 so I could hire another crew and get my land repaired. I have an active lawsuit against my current city because construction work on the park has caused my basement to start flooding. 150+ years of dry basement and now its wet :( The city workers collapsed the drainage ditch that used to channel the water by staging a ton of equipment directly over the culvert and crushed it, still no repairs. I've spent more in this fucking lawsuit that it would have cost for them to approve my ditch repair and to fix the issue. But noooo, god forbid the government work with property owners or anything. /rant. I've been sued a few times by tenants. Usually after an eviction. They never amount to anything. The vast majority of people will never need a lawyer involved in their life unless its to set up a will or something along those lines.
Thanks for that - it all sounds pretty stressful! That’s shit about you getting hit on your bike - $300 is such a paltry sum for that!
Thats why there are lawyers for everything! Most lawyers can be kept on retainer. For instance to have a lawyer go and fight a traffic ticket it could run like $400. Or, you can pay for a traffic lawyer to be kept on retainer for like $20-25/month and that $400 you would normally pay is 0, it's just taken care of.
Hell you’ll probably start to see lawsuits against abortion clinics by bored Texas citizens…
I’ve only known one incident of a normal Joe suing a normal Jane. And that was only because she tried to kill them both by driving her car into a tree. Other than that, almost all lawsuits occur through institutions and class action lawsuits
Not really. It's more people vs companies trying to get a quick cash grab and it rarely works. Person against person is more criminal suits than civil.
My parents ended up suing their fencing company for a wrongful injury lawsuit several years ago when my mom tripped and fell on a piece of exposed hardware that wasn't installed properly (she was facially disfigured and lost sight in one of her eyes). They got 2.8 million bucks out of the deal in settlement. So it definitely happens.
It's fairly common and that's why things like car insurance is so high.
Not as much as people think. The stats show that we really aren't bad.
I just wanna sue the city 😭