Christian Living

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Land of Lawsuits
By Dan Blankenship


According to a March 16th, 2006 news report from Breitbart.com, a man recently tried to sue the city of Lodi, California. He wanted the municipality to pay for the damages to his car after it was hit by a city dump truck. Not a big deal, right? Well actually it is. See, Curtis Gokey, the man filing the lawsuit, was driving the dump truck when it smashed into his car. Driving that dump truck was part of his city job. Mr. Gokey, if you think about it, should actually be suing himself, since he was the negligent one. But how profitable would that be?

Proverbs 15:27 (NIV) says, “A greedy man brings trouble to his family, but he who hates bribes will live.” And Jesus warns us, “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.” (Luke 12:15 NIV).

Frivolous lawsuits have become as American as baseball and apple pie. Ever since our population was informed of Stella Liebeck’s 2.7 million dollar “I spilled hot coffee in my own lap” lawsuit against McDonalds back in the early nineties, Americans have become accustomed to seeing outrageous settlements awarded under less than honorable circumstances.

In 1997, a would-be thief broke into a bar that the owner had rigged with an electrical deterrent – a little extreme, I admit. But the owner had posted warning signs all around the establishment, so only a complete moron would take the risk of finding out how much electricity would end up flowing through his body by entering such a place. The family of the burglar ended up suing the bar owner for 75,000 dollars.

More than 70 percent of doctors view their patients as potential adversaries due to the popularity of lawsuits across the country. (The Doctor's Advocate, The Doctors Company, 2004)

Almost every company I have ever worked for has had at least one former employee file a lawsuit of some kind against it. I can only imagine the amount of manpower and dollars that are spent battling those that see dollar signs behind every wrongdoing or tragedy.

Now please don’t misunderstand me. I am not talking about cases where a doctor cut off the wrong leg or the incorrect medication causes someone to become violently ill. But I do believe personal responsibility plays a huge role in many of these proceedings, and that to reward people with financial gain for being negligent implies that it pays to be careless.

Exorbitant settlements in the medical field cause liability insurance to soar, which in turn causes healthcare prices to follow suit (no pun intended). Anesthesiologists’ liability insurance premiums increased by 33 percent between 2002 and 2004! Other professions in medical care saw the same kind of increase in their insurance premiums. One person’s enormous settlement can end up costing millions of others access to sufficient healthcare.

As Christians, it is clear that God has commanded us to not be led by greed. So when tragedy strikes, we need to be ready to examine our course of action from a Jesus perspective. Suing a company or entity, which may have caused you harm in some way, may seem like the normal thing to do these days, but is it always the wisest choice given what we know about the riches of this fallen and temporal world? I don’t think so.








SOURCES:
http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/03/16/D8GCLEN02.html, http://www.legalzoom.com/articles/article_content/article11331.html
http://www.sickoflawsuits.org/content/problem/frivolous.cfm
http://depts.washington.edu/asaccp/prof/asa69_6_6_7.shtml
Domino KB. Availability and cost of professional liability insurance. ASA Newsl. 2004; 68(6):5-6

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