Are Cars Worth More than People?

It's always interesting when you stand up in front of a jury and you talk about peoples' actual losses. Sometimes it's a relative thing to what the juror has experienced in their own life, but often it's getting the message across as to the value of a person's loss. Medical bills and wage loss are often the easy issues. They are hard numbers, but what really does it do for someone to just give them back the wages and to fix things by paying for the bills? There isn't justice until a person also gets balance with those things that can't be replaced or fixed. It is the difference between a whole verdict and a partial unjust verdict.

Compare that to a totaled car. Would anyone really be able to say it was fair to just pay for half of the car value? Sure, there would be fault questions, but in looking at the loss isn't the whole value what needs to be used? However, we still find a lot of jurors out there who struggle with the idea of pain and suffering.

I was thinking more about this as I was seeing stories about the most recent "frivolous lawsuit" story:

Frivolous Lawsuit of the Day

Man Killed In Train Accident Sued By Woman His Flying Body Parts Injured

This story is a little different than the usual "frivolous" argument , because often they really don't have much of an injury either. This one is gruesome in that it involves an exploding body. Apparently, this young guy ended up running in front of a train. The train won and he was distributed everywhere. One of his flying parts hit a woman. The woman has now brought a claim for her injuries.

The case was dismissed and has now been reinstated by the appeals court. Looking at it, I will again make a comparison to the car. Say the man had driven into the trial and a tire flew off. The tire hits the woman, or a store, or another train. Would anyone have any problem with the driver of the car being responsible for the damage from the tire?

As with all of these "frivolous claims" , I always believe it's worth waiting to hear the whole story about what really happened and what the damages are. As David Waterbury, a guest blogger at the New York Personal Injury Blog, recently pointed out, you need to ask if they are even real.

Looking at this one, seems like in most cases, it should be something that a jury should be able to make a decision about. They can listen to the facts and distribute justice.