Little Guy Wins Against Hone Depot

[fredfighter]

Oh come on now. It is the government that defines torts, sets standards of evidence, establishes statutory damages and so on. That is a heaping big difference from the attorneys who may merely lobby for such things. Perhaps you missed the witch example?

punitive

How would it be a net positive to reduce suits for punitive damages?

Consider a suit for a low=balled insurance claim. Wyy would anyone sue for punitives they won't get, and therefor why would any insurance claim NOT lowball the claims and settle out-of court for a fair amount ONLY with those who sue?

[Never Enough Money]

Of course we should sue the life out of GE capital so that HD will have to use an Indian or Chinese company who will care even less about the consumer.

I disagree that HD is paying the price for poor management. They are paying (mostly) punitive damages because they have deep pockets. There is nothing wrong with outsourcing. I outsource my lawn mowing, my car repairs, my garbage pickup.

I hope HD's response os to stop taking credit altogether! To just say screw it! But, of course, there's too much money involved and I ain't King.

The reason GE cuts really sharp deals is that there are too many folks out there itching to sue somebody and essentially "win lotto." Too many jurors that are pre-disposed to hate the "big multi-national". Too many judges that think they need to punish the evil capitalistic pigs. And so it becomes a componet of why our companies are outsourcing to Indian and China.

HD lucky it was filed as a class action. No the public is lucky -- that's who ultimately pays the bill.

Mutt wrote:

outsourced

function

outsourced,

[Tim Douglass]

Something like 75% of our elected officials - the ones who make the laws - are lawyers by education and/or trade.

Sometimes people do things for justice. And I wouldn't mind them being allowed to collect a reasonable fee for their time, but this business where the lawyer gets 60% of an award, then the client gets their 40%, but all the expenses come out of theirs, is not the way to do it. I'm not saying that there isn't a place for punitive awards, but I don't believe that they should go to benefit someone just because they are the one who filed the suit.

Tim Douglass

[Mutt]

You can outsource, but have to supervise what is being done in your name. If the garbage company spilled your garbage in the street and it blew on neighbor's property, you'd more than likely pick it up and then call the garbage company to complain. If the lawn service insisted on cutting the lawn while your children or grandchildren were playing kickball on the lawn, you'd likely get the kids off the lawn or tell the mower guy to cut it later. That's my point. You can't avoid liability by simply outsourcing.

By the way, I wonder how you, me, or for that matter, anyone else would feel about having your credit trashed by repetitive credit checks fraudulently submitted over and over after you brought the situation to the credit card company and they refused to even consider what they might do to make it right. This guy was not trying to win the "lotto"

- he just wanted to clear his good name after having done absolutely nothing wrong. I don't see anything sinister, greedy or litigious about that. HD simply ignored the guy's calls, ignored his lawsuit, ignored the judgment and in the end has to sleep in the bed they made for themselves.

Everybody blames those who simply enforce the law, which has been around for a long time and at it's base is designed to protect people from the wrongs of others. The problem is not judges, juries or litigants, its just that nowadays corporate america too often wants to ignore owning up to their responsibilities when their actions directly affect someone else. Then they hire corporate spin doctors to make themselves out to be the victims. Reminds me of this totally obscene medical malpractice insurance debate, which has nothing to do with jury verdicts and a whole lot more to do with the insurance companies's mismanagement of their investment portfolios, and if the yield isn't there to generate profits then they raise the premiums. So, we limit recovery for med-mal plaintiffs - tell that to the brain damaged guy with 4 kids who went in for elective surgery and the anethesia went bad. Oh, gee, I forgot, his family can go on welfare! But that's another debate and entirely symptomatic of the weak minded (or on the take) politicians who happen to be in control of the country right now.

Mutt

[GregP]

Let's suck up to the big nasty corporation, they have....

... especially when the big nasty corporation refuses to do anything to help you *identify* the individual responsible (you *did* see that in the HD article, didn't you ? Or were the pages so drenched with your tears for poor HD that the lines were washed out ? :-)

So the decision is yours: support HD's actions by paying the higher prices resulting from its behaviors, or shop somewhere else.

(Where does the myth that HD's prices are lower come from ? It's advertising ?)

A few "build another seven-figure income." Most don't. The majority of the lawyers that I know make a small fraction of that.

You should ask HD that. If it took no action, you can assume that there will be another suit like this one in the not-too-distant future. And wouldn't that be the correct outcome ? Or do you feel that HD is not responsible for what its employees do on the job?

[GregP]

One reason is that the "Fair Credit Reporting Act" makes it impossible to obtain redress against a credit bureau unless you can prove it intentionally & maliciously tried to damage you.

[Doug Miller]

This is not correct.

The FCRA provides for penalties in the case of "willful noncompliance" (Section 616) and "negligent noncompliance" (Section 617)

sets those sections out as _specific_exceptions_ to the "malice or willful intent" provision of Section 610(e):

Doug Miller (alphageek at milmac dot com)

Nobody ever left footprints in the sands of time by sitting on his butt. And who wants to leave buttprints in the sands of time?

[GregP]

user of information, or any person who furnishes information to a consumer reporting agency," etc, while 616 and 617 appear to make specific exceptions for "persons" only, so that seems to let the brueaus of the hook, no ? Or does "person" in this case also apply to corporations (since there is also a reference to "natural person").

[Doug Miller]

As I understand it, unless otherwise qualified, the word "person" in legal documents is typically used to mean either a "corporate person" (i.e. a business, group, organization, partnership, etc) or an individual (a "natural person"). However, I am not a lawyer, so take that with a grain of salt. :-)

-- Regards, Doug Miller (alphageek at milmac dot com)

Nobody ever left footprints in the sands of time by sitting on his butt. And who wants to leave buttprints in the sands of time?