The Liability Claim Racket

Abstract

Literary circles have recently been preoccupied with a phenomenon called American language. The pungent, racy and colorful figures of speech with which you and I manage somehow to make ourselves understood have become matters of serious organic study at the literary teas. Our phrases, it is reported, besides having zip and punch, pack plenty of meaning, shades of meaning, nuances and attitudes which have the new Websters and the new Johnsons hanging on the ropes. But for my part, the word is a native collossus which requires volumes to define and the Supreme Court to interpret. It is the most general and yet the most specific word in our tongte, thoroughly indigenous to our soil. And its application to conditions which prevail in the prosecution and settlement of third party liability claims is unusually native, unusually apropos. The liability claim racket is an American institution, costing Americans tens of millions of dollars annually, corrupting, together with a number of sound social principles, the American courts, the bar, the jury system, the police, and, in general, threatening the decent progress of honest litigation in America with ultimate extinction. The important social principles involved are (i) that a person must be held responsible for the injury his wrongful or negligent acts may do to others; (2) that a lawyer may in all honor represent a client on a contingent fee basis. In the ensuing discussion it will be readily seen how seriously the practical application of these principles is threatened by widespread abuses.