Category Archives: In-Depth Articles
Trial Article
Once again, I am both proud and humbled that TRIAL magazine chose to publish the following article in their July 2006 Issue. This is the original version which is just a tad more biting than the version in print. Trial lawyers are always telling stories about victims. They tell stories of grieving parents forced to [...]
More About McDonalds
It turns out that the most popular way people find this site is searching for something about Stella Liebeck and her McDonald's coffee case. Here is the last article I wrote about Stella. Since then, I've written a little more about her case for a newsletter I'm putting together for Students Against Tort reform. What [...]
The Truth About the McDonalds Coffee Case
Perhaps the most well-known "frivolous lawsuit" is the story of Stella Liebeck – the woman who was burned by hot coffee from McDonalds. Here are the facts about the McDonald's lawsuit; decide for yourself if the suit was frivolous: 1: Stella Liebeck was a 79-year-old grandmother who was the passenger in her grandson's car. 2: [...]
What Is Tort Reform – And Why Is It Bad For The Public?
There’s an interesting dichotomy regarding the public’s perception of lawsuits in America. On one hand, we love the little guys, Erin Brockovich, and the myriad crusaders for justice in John Grisham’s novels. We hate “big tobacco”, and cheer multibillion dollar settlements in the tobacco litigation. Americans, as a general rule, are distrustful of big corporations. [...]
The Myth of the Frivolous Lawsuit
INTRODUCTION: One of the catch phrases of tort reformers is “frivolous lawsuits” – a lawsuit that has no legal basis, or is so petty that the suit isn’t justified. Often, tort reformers cite high profile cases, such as the McDonalds coffee case to try and show that the court system is “broken” and “runaway juries” [...]
