Frivolous Lawsuits :: Argumentative Persuasive Argument Essays

Frivolous Lawsuits As children our parents tried to instill in all of us good moral judgment and common sense. However, if I was to open the newspaper I would surely find any number of articles on the latest frivolous lawsuit, these being even more outrageous than the ones in yesterday’s paper. How have we as a society, which is completely capable of rational thinking, allowed ourselves to become so intertwined in the blaming game? Americans file about 15 million lawsuits a year. (Cannell) A fourth of all lawsuits filed are either frivolous or fraudulent. Perhaps, the careless point of view about the seriousness of lawsuits is perpetuated by the false representation on the many law shows on TV, such as Ally McBeal and Law and Order, in which the case is neatly rapped up in an hour. In reality most court cases take about 19 months from start to finish. In order to analyze our â€Å"sue happy† society one must first find out, what actually is a lawsuit? A lawsuit is a legal action brought by a plaintiff, a person who claims to have been wronged, against a defendant, the person being sued. If a judge decides that a case has enough evidence to go to trial then the verdict may be decided by either a judge or a jury. Yet, 90 percent of cases reach a settlement out of court. (Cannell) The scary truth about lawsuits is that anyone can file a suit for anything! It is for the judge to decide if the case meets two criteria: there must have been a wrongful act committed and the plaintiff must have suffered. (Cannell) The way in which liability is determined seems to be an irony in itself. The civil law requires people to act with reasonable care, meaning not hurting others or damaging property. Also it requires the defendant to do what a reasonable person would have done. (Cannell) However, my question is, if a person is not using a reasonable mind then isn’t that person insane or otherwise mentally handicapped?