‘Liability Suits--the Money Tree’

If there were a small limit on the plaintiff’s recovery in these negligence and products liability cases, the courts would be so filled up that no cases would ever get to trial.

It is only the possibility that an insurance company may be hit for a shock verdict that entices them to settle other cases to avoid this. If they knew that their verdicts would be limited to $250,000, they would take all of them to trial and our legal system would come to a standstill.

Now if you want a real solution to this problem, it would be to limit the liability to a certain figure, but if the insurance company turned down an offer to settle within that small limited liability figure, that then this would take the lid off and the limit would no longer apply. This would not only cause cases to be settled, but would also limit the number of shock verdicts and would solve the problems you set out in your article.

RICHARD M. HAWKINS

Irvine