It is not the purpose of this site to suggest that one person or another caused the lawsuit crisis in California. Rather, it attempts to show that a number of potential solutions have been repeatedly rejected, often by legislators who have accepted significant contributions from individual trial lawyers, or one or more organizations comprized primarily of trial lawyers.
Basically, it seems that the legal community benefits substantially from lawsuit abuse-- whether in filing the abusive lawsuits or billing hourly to defend them. Many legislators have cited one concern or another in their repeated decisions to reject proposed solutions. We certainly understand that it is impossible to pass a single, meaningful solution which will please everyone and inconvenience no one.
Given the serious extent to which the statewide lawsuit criris has escalated in California, we believe the situation reaches a point where those who have consistently rejected the very best efforts of citizens and legislators to address this crisis have a duty to do more than continue to "pick at" and reject each successive submission. In the same way legislators who accept money from polluting industries should be doubly motivated to pass measures which will reduce the public harm from such industries, the legislators who accept such large amounts from the legal community should be proactively taking steps to implement solutions to the crisis exacerbated by that community.
Basically, the point of this website is to show that a series of improvements to the law have been consistently rejected by a group of legislators, each of whom have accepted significant contributions from trial lawyers, or organizations which involve them. Since we don't know of other organizations with the power to deal with this crisis, we ask those individuals who have not been satisfied with each of the particular proposals presented to take action without further delay in a manner they consider appropriate. An additional purpose of this website is to alert the news media and voters to those individuals who had an opportunity to do something about the crisis and failed to act.
The comments on this website should not be construed to suggest that we think that those sued in lawsuits alleging ADA and Unfair Competition claims should be relieved of any responsibility for any laws they have violated. The problem we see is that there is no meaningful protection for firms that have done nothing (or virtually nothing) wrong. Given that it can cost as much as $100,000 to $500,000 to defend a lawsuit through trial, which is often the only means a defendant in a frivolous lawsuit has against the plaintiff suing him, we consider this an indaequate remedy for most firms sued in "predatory lawsuits" on fairly small matters.
California is becoming known as the "shakedown state" because so many small firms are being sued in "predatory lawsuits" which use a combination of laws to turn relatively minor concerns or violations into claims from which individuals can personally profit. It is thought that through "private enforcement" (where attorneys are given a financial incentive to bring these suits, instead of paying for a government agency to handle the matter) society is better off. The problem is that the profitability of these lawsuits encourages "nuisance filings" where matters of little consequence-- and often no legal basis at all-- are brought to obtain settlement payments from firms, because it is always cheaper to pay a few thousand dollars to make a matter go away than to pay as much as $100,000 or more to prove you've done nothing wrong.
We believe that the individuals who have profited handsomely from the "lawsuit community" now owe the rest of us the obligation to promptly take action to stop the harm that community is creating. Given the amount of information that has been presented to them about the number of jobs lost, businesses closed and bankruptcies filed because of these abusive lawsuits, the time has passed for them to continue to reject this proposal and delay on that proposal until bills die in committee. The time has come for meaningful action and the purpose of this website is to document the individuals who fail to take it.
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