From: eric@milton.u.washington.edu (Eric Hirst)
Subject: Re: Law Suits!!
Organization: University of Washington
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1992 22:23:20 GMT

gnray@world.std.com (Garry N Ray) writes:
>The only suit I'm aware of is the turd who sued Chouinard . . .

allen%asylum.cs.utah.edu@cs.utah.edu (Allen Sanderson) writes:
>Actually it was not the climber who sued but his family.  He died . . .

Various others write:
>Kill the lawyers . . . (paraphrased)

In spite of the massive press given in this country to bogus lawsuits, most
of the litigation is in the form of Big Company A suing Big Company B.
Tort reform would just mean Jane Individual could no longer sue Big Companies
A & B because she would risk getting stuck with A & B's BIG legal fees if
she lost.

A lot of the more outlandish lawsuits you have heard/read about have been
publicized with the help of the insurance companies who need to convince
the public that their jacked up rates are a result of evil lawyers and not
of their failed financial dealings in matters which have nothing to do with
insurance.  (E.g. real estate, I think, but I am not familiar with what they
are allowed to deal in.  I'm sure Bush would have had them playing the
ponies if he had been able to keep Lil' Danny running the show.) 

Most of the outragous jury awards you've read about in the insurance company
ads were either a) overturned on appeal or threat thereof or b) the legitimate
result of some extenuating circumstance which gets left out of the version
of events that you or I read about in that insurance company ad.

Of course, there are loads of bogus lawsuits being filed, although I suspect
that a lot of them are a result of the filers' misguided believe that they
are about to win the lottery, a belief largely fueled by the insurance
companies' whining.

What does this have to do with climbing, you ask?  Well . . .

1) It means that in spite of the almost nonexistent record of successful
lawsuits by injured/killed climbers, landowners are rightfully scared
out of their drawers by the possible headaches that any lawsuit, successful
or otherwise, would entail.  (If anyone has a fairly complete knowledge
of a specific suit, an accurate and detailed description would be appreciated --
post said description or a reference to one.  The Chouinard case is the
only one I know of, and I haven't seen the complete details here or elsewhere.)

I doubt that many climbers or landowners have a clue as to what the chance
of a landowner being found liable would actually be, and I suspect that it
is vanishingly small.  I would encourage the climbing mags to educate climbers
on the actual risks to landowners.  Since most climbers know how to work a
Xerox machine, they could in turn educate landowners without much trouble.
The old line "I know I would never sue you, and I can't imagine any of my
friends doing it either" just isn't all that convincing.  The other reason
climbers should know the real odds of winning a suit is to deter them or
their next of kin from filing nuisance claims.
 
2) I sure do like leading on camming devices sold in U.S. stores a lot more
than on the titanium clones a partner of mine bought from a recent emigree
from the not-so-litigious former Soviet Union.


Eric Hirst
eric@u.washington.edu
P.S.  As usual, I am talking out my arsehole.  Correct me if you know better.