How sad the responses to my original posting are....to quote Einstein,
"Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more
violent. It takes a touch of genius -- and a lot of courage -- to move
in the opposite direction."
To look into ones own conscience takes courage and honesty. To act on
this takes a spirit of great moral character. Its all too common to
rationalize one's dirty deeds in the name of the almighty dollar, the
barrier which keeps one from even knowing his conscience exists.
With this thought in mind, we must again ask ourselves.....what are we
evolving to?

As far as Peter Harvey goes, this news link says it all:
http://www.thnt.com/thnt/story/0,21282,916059,00.html

I observe that people from your side of the argument often truncate and
mistate the facts of cases that they use as examples to undermine the
ability of the little guy to sue the big guy..........or even other little
guys who themselves would prefer to operate with impunity as they exploit
others and dislike having to answer for their actions in a court of law.  We
shall see how honest you turn out to be in the presentation of the facts.

There will always be chaos...but it will not affect the larger order.  See
quantum physics.

I wish time would permit me to explain in detail the co-existence of chaos
to order as it exists in new understandings of quantum physics....but that
is not the discussion here.  I believe that God alots each of his creations
a certain space of chaos to control or experience as he one chooses, but the
swirls of chaos will not undermine the patterns or order.  See the weather
models and extensions into philosophy.   Nevermind.........just don't doubt
my own understanding of chaos and order.  We can talk of this after my book
is published and you take issue.

For now, let it be known that I see the chaos you see, but I attribute it to
the degeneration of reason and rationality.  I see it as a symptom of the 30
second media bite and a windows mentality where thinking in depth is
sublimated into the paths provided and more and more restricted as a free
flowing event.

Among other things, I have studied law.  I have studied history.  I find the
presense of these corrupt, self-serving politicains to be consistent and
never lacking since the beginning of history.......yet law moves man closer
to the ideal rather than away from it.  Law shines a light on the
imperfections of man and offers a path to a better way.  That is the real
evolution, though you focus on the magnifications of the flaws of the moment
and endanger the accomplishments of thousands of years out of disgust for
things you think you see that exist in lessor detail or not at all as you
present.

I hear far more cries from the politicos than I hear from litigants.  I
think it is a straw man you build.

I have no interest in that case.  It is a single case and one in New Jersey.
It is for people in the state of New Jersey to worry about.  You stated the
facts of that case in a single sentence.  I was pointing out the folly of
doing that.  The facts of a case can be reduced (after due process and
judicial finding) to a paragraph but your sentence did not rely upon any
such findings nor fact.  It was just a heavy weighted opinion with no
meaning.  The case itself is just not important enough to the issue for me
to bother with.  The facts of one case do not reduce the values of our
judicial systems to the low levels you suggest.

I will choose the other case you offer to examine in detail as it is one
that might have been brought in Texas.

Except for the random terrorist event, we mostly walk the streets unharmed
from unhappy consequences of business or accident.  There are the
execeptions involving the lawless, but for the most part we suffer our
losses at the hands of accident and excess to the outcomes of a court or we
walk away from them rather than endure the due process.  Not
perfect..........but not nearly as bad as you protray.  Now if those of you
who desire to quash and make harder the ability to take a question to
court..........even a trivial one......then you would begin to see the
breakdown as a poor system of law and order gives way to less and less due
process.  An angry victim can have his day in court should he invest that
which is necessary to do so.........otherwise he can turn the cheek and save
his legal fight for another day.

Now that would be a case I might be interested in.

Okay, I looked that one up.  Who are the sources for the facts you give!
You mistate the facts.  Did you do the cutting or was it done by your
source.

The judge didn't "order" that, the judge "approved a settlement."  It is
always the aim of a court to get the issues settled outside the courtroom.
This was the case here.  The judge's order was an affirmation in the process
of settlement more than an order against the defendant.  What kind of a
person are you to blame a judge for approving a mutual settlement.

You did not mention that the man had filled out a federal form on which he
admitted to being under a restraining order preventing him for buying guns.
Do you see what I am talking about.  You are trying to destroy our system
and you are willing to lie to accomplish that.  If you mistate because you
listen to false media.........then the responsibility still rests with you.
Wal Mart agreed to pay $16 million because they did not pay attention to
something that society has deemed important.  They ignored the federal form
where the restrictions on this guy from buying firearms were clear!  That is
the tort.  Two people died because of their "negligence".   The tort is
negligence!  It is established in common law that people are responsible
when others suffer injury due to their "negligence!"  It has to do with
ancient law..........nothing to do with evil judges and lawyers.  You on the
other hand do perpetrate  evil by bearing false witness to the principals of
this case.  Shame upon you!

I was pointing out a factual actual historical event that happened in the
days when the circuit cour judge was much less accessable than he is today.
If you take cases out of a courtroom, they will be settled.  You talk of
some imagined evolution. I am just telling you that people settle their
differences either at law or by other means.  You are attacking the system
of law and advocating restricting accesss to the injured and even percieved
injured.   As can be seen even in the inane ten minute cases on the TV
courts (which short cut due process and law most of the time).  People often
have convoluted ideas about their positions.  With courts of law, they are
able to vent and have a consideration of the facts by a jury and a decision
of the law by a judge.  It will be explained to them and in a far far
majority of the cases, the loser goes away, perhaps sore..........but
uninclined to seek revenge.

I see the faces of the cut-throats of which you speak, but the faces may not
be the same faces you see.  I have never sued anyone.  I've been sued a
number of times.  I've won all the cases I should have won, and I lost a few
that I should have lost.  I really didn't fight those cases.  Many times in
all my businesses have I been wronged.  Most of the time, I either let it
go, or the well-reasoned threat of a lawsuit brought settlement.....never to
my complete satisfaction...but enough to stay my considerable warrior
instincts.  The availability of the courts have stilled my anger.  I could
always sue if I felt bad enough.........I didn't........the system worked
pretty good....but then I'm not in the constant habit of screwing other
people by design.

I truly believe you believe the words above.  I think perhaps you are moved
to indignation by talk radio.  It rots the mind!  Remember the case of the
woman who sued because of the hot coffee?  Oh so many were upset about that.
I read that case.  That coffee was not hot......it was super hot!  Because
of a market opportunity from an office building down the street, the manager
kept the coffee at super hot temperatures.  He was accustomed to selling
large orders for delivery throughout the building.  It was superhot to make
sure it was still hot after the long delivery process.  The tort was in
passing such superhot coffee across the drivethru window..........a place a
reasonable person could foresee spilled coffee as a normal occurrence.
Normal coffee would be uncomfortable....we've all experienced that without
law suit.

Normal coffee does not cause third degree burns.  The victim had to undergo
multiple skin grafts to replace the skin that was burned away by the coffee
that was hotter than one would expect.

To talk about this case as if it was just another case of hot coffee spilled
in the lap would be deceitful.  If the skin of your thigh was melted
requiring skin grafts..........you would then understand what the case was
about.  To assume from talk radio that the lady got 600,000 for a coffee
spill would be untrue.  It never happened that way, though the misstatement
of actual facts and the 30 second assumption of the facts of this case fuels
the anger of people such as yourself.

It remains, that one who feels themselves to be the victim of a lawsuit
without merit can sue for damages themselves.  Nuisance lawsuits do exist,
but not in the quantity as presented by those that prey upon the shallow
minds of talk radio audience.  A careful reading of the actual facts of most
of these talked about  cases usually reveal much more than the renditions
offered by the indignant talking head.

Someone with rationality and reason must stand up against those that would
stir up the unwashed and unminded to riot in the streets and vote in the
real corrupt politicians to undermine the systems of law that stand between
the bad and the good.  It ain't perfect, but trust me...if is far better
than to suffer the wrath of people like me that are capable of far more
revenge than we undertake due to our confidence in a better way of law and
due process.

If you take my access to a court of law (even if I have never used it
before) then you will leave me with a far darker solution.  I will walk away
from wrongs.  I have walked away from many wrongs, because they were not
worth the trouble and expense of a lawsuit...........but the existence of
that possibility vented my anger and saved, in the process, as many from
greater damage to themselves than that they inflicted upon me.

Don't underestimate the numbers of people who stay their hand as do I.  We
are multitudes!  We hold ourselves back because of a commitment to law and
order.  Take away the rights to redress, and you would not believe the storm
that would fall upon the land.  Law keeps us from the ancient ways, but we
the blood law still runs in our veins.  Don't do it!  You think you want
that .....but you do not!

Randy R. Cox

Randy R. Cox