Amendment Seven: “In Suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise re-examined in any Court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.”
As the fifth and sixth amendments laid the foundation for America’s criminal courts, the seventh does the same for civil proceedings. It states that any reasonably-sized (twenty bucks was a lot, at the time) financial disagreements could be brought before a jury for resolution and that the findings of said jury would be legally binding without intervention by the judicial system, except in making certain that everything was run as it should have been under common law.
Thus was born the American tort system, by which a wronged party could demand compensation from another. Remember when I said way back that the second amendment was probably the most controversial these days? I added the probably part because this one is running neck and neck. While everyone agrees that the concept is sound and reasonable, its execution has become one of the major issues facing our current legal system.
Americans, being industrious and innovative (and some would say, with good cause, opportunistic), took this law and ran with it. While it has been pivotal in a great deal of social change, drawing attention to a number of insidious issues from civil rights to basic health and safety concerns, it has also done a great deal of harm. Because citizens can sue for just about anything, with few financial or legal repercussions other than the cost of a crooked lawyer, they have. I draw your attention to such infamous cases as the woman who won millions for spilling hot coffee in her lap to the guy who sued the homeowner of a house he was injured while trying to rob.
And those are just two mainstream examples of abuse of the tort system that has led America to be branded worldwide as an infamously litigious culture. While the founding fathers wanted to make certain we were protected, and guarantee that the criminal courts weren’t backed up with deliberating civil matters while neglecting their actual responsibilities, it’s all gone a little out of control, leading to all sorts of unforeseen problems.
They failed to take into account, for one, that we, as a species, when faced with severe emotional distress, want to find someone to blame, even in cases where it wasn’t really anyone’s fault. This leads to frivolous lawsuits that serve only to burden the legal system and both parties with the financial cost and, perhaps more importantly, prevent the person hurting from having to face and cope with the real problems. This mentality is often the basis for medical malpractice suits, something held to be one of the leading causes of skyrocketing healthcare costs. So we all pay. The same with car insurance, as people who are injured tend to try to milk the system for all that it’s worth, rather than just what’s needed to cover expenses.
What’s more, because there is no clause in the seventh that guarantees that the trial in civil matters will be expeditious, as there is in those establishing the criminal system, the system has become heavily biased towards large corporations and the wealthy, both of whom can afford huge legal teams which allow them to file endless streams of motions to drain the resources of wronged parties, thereby running out the clock and waylaying what may be real justice.
This can’t be how the founders intended it to be, can it? So how do we maintain the spirit of the law, that of due restitution for the wronged? Well, first we establish a very clear, concise set of guidelines for motions, so as to prevent the aforementioned abuses of the system and level the playing field on a socioeconomic level.
Next, we levy punishment against those who bring to court suits which have no evidentary or logical basis. Already, in a number of European nations, if the case brought before the court is found to be lacking in substance, for whatever reason, during the initial process, it is summarily dismissed, as it is here, but it also the party who brought forth the case to pay both the costs for the court and the defendant’s legal counsel. This cuts down substantially on the number of groundless suits.
Finally, we institute mandatory minimums and maximums on cash settlements, allowing for only a percentage above the cost of the reparations. No longer will someone who sues for $500 in medical costs be awarded a million on top of it for pain and suffering. At most, we tack on the cost of therapy to the bill, so they can get real help, if it’s that much of an issue.
While those steps wouldn’t solve everything, I’m sure, they would go a long way towards bringing back the kind spirit of the law and, as a side benefit, may help the average citizen by lowering the costs of those things inflated by its rampant abuse.
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