First, Kill All The Lawyers
My parents are being sued under the Americans with Disabilities Act. They own four not particularly profitable store fronts on Hillsborough Avenue built long before the ADA. A serial litigator is suing them for not having the proper parking space, a ramp, etc. According to my parents' lawyer, an attorney teamed with a little old man in a wheel chair (who is a registered sex offender) is suing nearly every commercial property owner in Tampa. Although the "damages" the disabled man can get are very limited, he gets compensation for "reasonable attorney's" fees which the attorney shares with the disabled registered sex offender. That's how the racket works.
My parents might not legally have to comply with the ADA in their tiny, pre-ADA parking lot, but the way justice works in our country, it is cheaper to give in to extortion than it is to defend yourself. So they will probably be out $5,000 for "reasonable attorneys' fees" for the plaintiff, at least $5K for their own lawyer and another $5,000 or more to install ramps and re-stripe their parking lot. This is not chump change for my parents, they aren't real estate moguls. They're two 60 year old middle class people who will be working well into their 70s because of shit like this.
Lawyers, especially plaintiff's attorneys disgust me. How is this even a matter for civil litigation? Why isn't this covered by some comparatively simple administrative process, like building codes? If you are disabled and really want to use that parking lot that is not compliant, you should be able to call the government office of parking lots (or cripples or whatever), and they should investigate and then the responsible person should have to comply if the law indeed applies, with perhaps a reasonable fine. Litigation should only be there when that reasonable process breaks down. The expense becomes astronomical as soon as lawyers are involved, and the lawyers are the only ones who always win, because they always get paid.
The system will never change though because it is created by lawyers, for lawyers. Judges are lawyers and the elected officials and lobbyists who write the laws are also mostly lawyers. They have no interest in changing the system to serve the public good because it would weaken their profession.
My parents might not legally have to comply with the ADA in their tiny, pre-ADA parking lot, but the way justice works in our country, it is cheaper to give in to extortion than it is to defend yourself. So they will probably be out $5,000 for "reasonable attorneys' fees" for the plaintiff, at least $5K for their own lawyer and another $5,000 or more to install ramps and re-stripe their parking lot. This is not chump change for my parents, they aren't real estate moguls. They're two 60 year old middle class people who will be working well into their 70s because of shit like this.
Lawyers, especially plaintiff's attorneys disgust me. How is this even a matter for civil litigation? Why isn't this covered by some comparatively simple administrative process, like building codes? If you are disabled and really want to use that parking lot that is not compliant, you should be able to call the government office of parking lots (or cripples or whatever), and they should investigate and then the responsible person should have to comply if the law indeed applies, with perhaps a reasonable fine. Litigation should only be there when that reasonable process breaks down. The expense becomes astronomical as soon as lawyers are involved, and the lawyers are the only ones who always win, because they always get paid.
The system will never change though because it is created by lawyers, for lawyers. Judges are lawyers and the elected officials and lobbyists who write the laws are also mostly lawyers. They have no interest in changing the system to serve the public good because it would weaken their profession.
Labels: Law Parents Lawyers
posted by Dylan at
9:52 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home