Frivolous Lawsuits, Inc.

If a civil case sounds unbelievable, it probably is.

I commented in the comments following the article with several posts like this:

Of course the claims are frivolous. The thing is phony on its face. I don't think a single person on this discussion board understands the low standards in filing a civil suit. All it takes is somebody to find a clever, unethical, or rotten lawyer willing to bend ethical standards against filing false claims and twisting or making up "facts" to conform with the causes of action filed, and a plaintiff is in business. A gullible media compounds the problem because their "reporters" don't understand what is being filed is an insurance claim and goes about naming staff names, which is almost impossible for school staff to fight. They can't sue for libel. There is NO such thing as a "local" case in this age of the internet. Reputations are ruined. People here are calling for people to be fired or jailed without ANY facts at all other than what a lawyer has filed in court and claims happened.

I have been through a similar case which was totally fraudulent. Lawyers who file false insurance claims and defraud a court in this manner should have action taken on their law licenses. It's that serious a violation because lawyers who take these phony cases do not exercise due care or look at these claims with a skeptical eye as kids DO lie all the time and can be especially vicious in their lies. It's all about the money, and school districts are easy targets because they will NOT allow kids to be forced to testify in a civil case and the resulting negative publicity.

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Lawyers on both sides know the goal of the plaintiff's attorney is to get a pretrial settlement, not a trial (few of these cases EVER see a courtroom), so they will drag the case out for years, goldbricking the billable hours and making hundreds of thousands of dollars in the process. The actual plaintiffs get little money by comparison. Staff members named in the suit have no say at all; the school district's risk management department and the insurance company call all the shots. Settlements are almost always the result of these suits. It's a win-win for the plaintiff's lawyer because he or she can claim a "victory" when in fact a settlement isn't actually a victory in the legal sense. They got the money. That's all that counts.

Meanwhile, staff members have their reputations ruined because of the media. But who cares about them in this cynical game?