Daily Blague

yup after WWI the French and English fought like cats/dogs to get area carved into cute little french/english colonies. the rest of us have paid the price since then. The french will not help the rest of the world fix the iraqui problems cuz that would admit they messed it up almost a hundred years ago. sad, what can a rational chap do.

While the French must take responsibility for Syria and Lebanon, the Iraqi problem, I believe, was initially a British mess.

right on rj, like i said, the french stood by with hands folded whilst the english messed up what is now thot to be iraq. if they had been minding their ps and qs, that peter o toole chappy would not have frittered away the store to the hussein family, noted on CNN this am at my hotel in 98degree managua that parque central has tons of snow, sounds great chuck

While I am not uninterested in international news, I tend to avoid the topic because I have a propensity to get my facts confused in an embarrassing fashion (particularly as it relates to the Middle East). I did read the article in the Times about the 'true' story behind 'Million Dollar Baby' and while it is sad, it brings me no closer to comprehending what would move anyone to put themselves in an enclosed space and throw punches at another person; I think that boxing is a barbaric activity and one which I refuse to call a sport. But what I am interested in is litigation reform. I was saddened (but not surprised) to learn that my present home state of Illinois is number 46 on the list of states accused of 'lawsuit abuse.' Personally, I think we should follow the example of the Brits and make the loser pay the winner's costs; further (although this will likely not win me any popularity contests with my litigator brethren), in those cases in which a lawyer brings a loser lawsuit on a contingent fee basis, I'd make the lawyer, rather than the plaintiff, pay the fees. I realize that in most states, there are 'Rule 11'-type sanctions but, in Illinois, at least, it seems to me that the state court judges are too unwilling to use that power to deter frivolous litigation. The ad may be offensive, but something has to be done to stop people from using the legal system as a means of redress for their own stupidity, inadequate analysis or hurt feelings; litigation should be a last resort rather than an initial response.

I quite agree that reform is necessary, but capping recoveries is absolutely the wrong way to begin. Assessing costs to losers who have rejected settlements sounds good to me, as does an intensification of rules against frivolous suits - as some people are aware (ahem), damages are not the only obnoxious aspect of litigation. Personally, I should like to see the return of "nonsuiting" - failure to state a cause of action. I don't believe that anybody (even an attorney) has the right to defend himself, given what we know about where that almost always leads.

Non-suiting was another term I was struggling to remember from civil procedure days, and another concept on which I think the Brits have a much more stringent view than we do. One of the things that I find appalling is the propensity of state court judges to allow a plaintiff to amend, over and over again, a complaint that fails to state a cause of action, another instance in which I would favor penalizing lawyers who, after all, should be in a position to do so the first time around.

Quite!