Insurance class in the early 1980s. The Instructor told what he said
was a true story, paraphrased as follows:

Guy starts to drive home from work one day. His brakes go out so he
stops at a shop. Shop says line is broken to one wheel & they have to
order parts. Guy convinces them to plug off the line to that wheel so
the rest work and he goes on. Stops at a friend's house and has
"several" drinks. Proceeds on to a bar and has "several" more. Cops
notice him driving erratically and attempt to pull him over. He tries
to get away & cops chase. High speed chase through town. Driver tries
to beat a train at a crossing & loses. Train hits the car, killing the
driver. Car flies through the air ands ends up hitting a phone booth
(remember those) killing the guy making a phone call. The guy who was
making the call's family sues. As always they sue everyone in sight.
Big payout in the wrongful death suit. Who paid the vast majority?????










Wait for it....







The phone company. Supposedly they shouldn't have placed a phone booth
where a flying car that just got a full hit by a train would hit the
booth. The reality though was that the driver was poor and had no
insurance, the shop was a little one guy almost shade tree operation,
the "friend" that served drinks had no insurance, the bar was pretty
small and the town was a little poor southern burg, so the phone
company and train company were the only deep pockets and AT&T at the
time was still the huge monopoly with the deepest pockets around. It
doesn't really matter who was at fault when an American jury decides
someone deserves to have hit the lottery.

Dave Hall

On Thu, 06 Sep 2007 08:15:35 -0400, DownTime
wrote:

Bill Kearney wrote:
That's bull****, trying to sue the association too. Money grubbing children
trying to score the lottery.

I am no lawyer, but I recall from a Business Law class, the instructor,
who also happened to be a local judge, commented about a similar
scenario. This is para-phrased as it's been a few years, but the concept
is spot on: "It is not always a matter of who is right or wrong, but who
or what entity in the chain has the most money".

We has been discussing a product liability case in which the local shop
that sold the product to the consumer, along with EVERY company with any
involvement in the processing & production was named in the lawsuit.