“I am not the kind of person who brings lawsuits” is a typical statement I hear in my first meeting with a client who has suffered a serious injury or had a family member suffer death due to the careless act of another.
The kind of persons who ask me for help are interested in holding the wrongdoer accountable and making sure the same thing doesn’t happen to someone else. When it comes to receiving compensation, my clients are not interested in winning a lottery ticket but in ensuring that medical bills and lost wages won’t devastate their savings and upend their lives.
In a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine, a poll of those who brought medical malpractice claims for injuries caused them cited primarily 4 reasons for seeking legal help:
- To learn why they were injured because the medical profession would not explain it.
- To make sure the injury did not occur to someone else.
- To hold the negligent practitioner accountable.
- AND only as a 4th reason, to receive compensation for damages.
Our great nation has recently celebrated its 248th birthday. Those who signed the Declaration of our Independence from Great Britain recognized the importance of civil trial by jury and made complaints in the famous document of King George’s failure to allow Americans that sacred right: “for depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of trial by jury” was one of the wrongs listed as committed by Britain necessitating our independence.
The right to a jury trial was deemed so important by our founders that it was preserved in two separate Bills of Rights in the United States Constitution, the 6th (right to jury trial in criminal cases) and the 7th (right to jury trial in civil cases).
Persons who bring personal injury lawsuits help deter careless conduct which endangers all of us. One of the main goals of a lawsuit is to deter others from dangerous acts, forcing careless actors to think twice before acting that way knowing that there will be consequences to their actions.
When we have the privilege of driving a car or truck, owning a property or are given a license to practice law or medicine, certain duties control our behavior. We have the duty to drive fully alert, to make sure our properties are safe, and to fully comply with the rules of our professions. What enforces those rules if they are broken and injury results? The only mechanism that exists for that purpose is our civil justice system and the only means to hold others accountable is through the levy of money damages for the harms caused. When safety rules, that protect all of us are broken, if action is not taken to hold that person accountable, we all suffer.
Deterrence of bad conduct is a key purpose in personal injury actions. All of my clients are not the kind of persons who sue. But all of my clients hope by doing so they can help make the world just a little safer for the rest of us.
Thank you for standing up for your rights and holding wrongdoers accountable.
