It strikes me that no matter what happens in the world, someone, somewhere will now sue over it. Where do we draw the line.....Should I sue my maths teacher for not making sure I learnt to the best of my ability instead of sitting in the back of the classroom eating? Should I sue the vicar who married me because I'm now getting divorced? Maybe I should sue my parents for everything bad that's happened in my life?(after all they gave birth to me).

Things happen that we have no control over, they might as well put in a claim against Bin Ladin while their at it.It's not going to bring back the people who lost their lives. What will suing accomplish?

Springs to mind that if the defendant looses, instead of the money going into the complainant's bank account it should be used to do some good, rather than what seems to be profiteering on the tragedy. I mean what is $50M going to get him? It's certainly not going to bring him his loved one back, but it *could* be used to fund some sort of scheme to ensure that what happened on Sept. 11th never happens again.

I find the whole American "Lawyer Culture" positively repugnant, I think the only thing it really accomplishes is to line the lawyers nests.
I'm kinda glad I don't live in America - I might have been sued for saying that.. (need.. rolleyes.. smiley.. )

(Edited by Stoo 09/04/2002 19:09)

Well, actually, it would get her a fair amount of financial security, which presumably the loss of her portfolio manager husband has compromised. This could be his fault for being underinsured, but I suspect there may well be a lot of loopholes in insurance contracts covering exactly this kind of thing...

Now I know that no-one on this site would continue gender sterotyping by assuming that the 'highly paid portfolio manager' was a man...

So I'll just politely point out that it is the husband who is sueing and then back away slowly.

I'm pretty sure someone *has* sued Bin Laden. And no I'm not joking. The figure was something like $1.3billion IIRC.

If this person's obviously not satisfied with the donations and payouts given by the various charities I guess there's not much that can be done to stop them

Well, I really might have expected better from Tann...

On the plus side, though, support for the re-enabling of the 'rolleyes' graemlin grows apace. I really believe it's the only emoticon that is consistently employed with sincerity...

Actually, I was taking the (rude word self-centred) out of Stoo, who had for some reason swapped the genders of the plaintiff and decedent. Was wondering if anyone was going to notice...

On other news - why should somebody be satisfied by the "charitable handouts"? Not necessarily agreeeing or disagreeing, merely inquiring. If the airports were negligent, why should they not be held to some sort of account? Whether that account is best settled in personal prosecutions is quite another question, of course.

Or, to put it another way, how does this differ (apart from the fact that the failing was one of security rather than of transit) from the court action taken against Railtrack for the deaths of their customers?

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by Tannhauser
Well, actually, it would get her a fair amount of financial security, which presumably the loss of her portfolio manager husband has compromised. This could be his fault for being underinsured, but I suspect there may well be a lot of loopholes in insurance contracts covering exactly this kind of thing...

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by Spikeo
If this person's obviously not satisfied with the donations and payouts given by the various charities I guess there's not much that can be done to stop them

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From what I heard on the Today programme this morning it's precisely *because* the wife had life insurance that her husband is not eligible for any of the compensation payments. I didn't get the impression that he particularly needed the money nayway.

This strikes me as being a misguided attempt to attach blame in the hope that finding someone to blame will make the loss easier to bear. And at least by filling his days thinking about the lawsuit he will have less free time just to think about his loss.

Although if it is proved that the airlines were negligent I think they should be prosecuted. But that's a tricky question. No-one was prepared for suicide hijackers.

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by Tannhauser
Or, to put it another way, how does this differ from the court action taken against Railtrack for the deaths of their customers?

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I think firstly that Railtrack should have been aware of the problems which were of a pre-existing and easily detectable kind (signals, track). As I said, no-one had really imagined that something like September 11 would happen.

And I may be wrong, but aren't Railtrack being prosecuted in the criminal courts for the offence of corporate manslaughter? One official prosecution for negligence is being brought. I think that differs both in scale and motivation from an individual claim for damages (made through the civil courts) brought by relatives of victims.

Very good points, WH, and I think you're right - litigation as part of the mourning process is not a terribly sensible thing to do...

I think the best response to this is to force the internal flights to improve their security, which is a matter for state regulation rather than the courts. But at the same time I am *wery* hesitant to put the boot in to somebody who has been shown that the system he has enriched and that has made him rich is powerless to protect him and his loved ones from the kind of people his gated community is meant to keep out of his life, and is clearly not dealing with it at all well.


(Edited by Tannhauser 09/04/2002 13:56)

Oh dear, I mis-read Inc's post.. I hereby apologise profusely to all involved if I caused any distress from not being properly awake when I posted