The case of the inadvertent lawsuit, this Fridays case

RayWohlfarth

In this case, I discuss how a contractor was named in a lawsuit even though the company didnt do the work. It will air Friday at 6am

RayWohlfarth

I will be back doing trouble calls next week but thought this would be a good topic. Tom worked for a commercial HVAC company. On nights and weekends, he installed furnaces on the side. One of his side jobs went sideways and he was sued. In addition, they sued Tom's employer. They contended that since the tech wore the company's uniforms and used the company trucks, the employer was also responsible. It didnt help that the commercial company had $2 million dollar policy. Here's the video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shArhgtNYKU

WMno57

How many small business HVAC companies go under because they can't afford their liability insurance?

How many days does the avg HVAC tech have to work to fund the $3,380 bill everyone pays for lawsuits?

The American Tort Reform Association (ATRA) claims "The cost of the U.S. tort system for 2003 was $246
billion, or $845 per citizen or $3,380 for a family of four".

My original post in this discussion was deleted. It was just a link to ATRA. Nothing else.

It wasn't politics. No one told me why my post was deleted. So I'm posting it again.

Jamie Hall

A good cautionary tale, @RayWohlfarth . When I retired from my more or less full time job as a Professional Engineer (Civil) I thought — why not set up a private practice in retirement? That lasted just long enough to call my insurance agents for errors and omissions insurance. I couldn't have charged enough for the small jobs helping neighbours and so on to possibly pay for it.

I think I'm past being sued for stuff I did before I retired… and I don't think that any of us could be sued for comments here on the Wall (though it is a possibility) — but even so, I have arranged my affairs so that I technically own nothing, and have no money of my own.

trivetman

i work for the military industrial insurance complex and see the tort costs in every transaction I deal with.

its a huge industry and there’s a narrative that the costs of the tort system are ‘out of control’.

Theres no good way to measure what the costs of liability ‘should be’ if the system was better able to compensate injured parties in an amount commensurate with the loss when something goes wrong.

i.e. of the $845 per citizen, how much lower should the cost be if the system wasn’t abused. Theres no valid answer.

Jamie Hall

Hopefully this won't hit the spam filter, but @Erin Holohan Haskell , if it's out of place, kindly delete it.

As many of you know, I am now — and have been for some years — a "religious". One of the things I look at is the way law is set out in Torah, and by extension for Christians and Muslims. It's really pretty simple. There are a very small number of commandments (and a very large number of commentaries), but with regard to tort law, there are only two which really count: first, a person responsible for damage or injury must make good on that damage or injury, but only precisely equally (that's often read as "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth", which is not an invitation for vengeance, but rather a command for equality in restitution) and the other is that vengeance — i.e. such things as punitive damages, or pain and suffering — is absolutely forbidden.

Interesting concept…

WMno57

Don't you love the English langauge?

Jamie identifies as a "religious" while I identify as areligious.

Mad Dog_2

If his employer KNEW he in uniform and using the company truck, he should be held liable. If the guy did it on the sneak, only HE should be liable. Hopefully, the Judge practices Common Sense. Mad Dog

RayWohlfarth

Thanks everyone Sorry was crazy busy this week Thanks for the comments