Woman sues over cancer hug

[Steve B]

link

Doesn't everybody just love suing?!

[Moby-Dick]

sod the suing , its all about those 'burns

[Steve B]

haha those are some healthy pork chops

i like it how she says "its not about the money" then immediately after says "i just want to secure my childrens future" or something

dear, if you're not suing for money, what are you suing for?

[nichomach]

Good for her, say I. Mind you, good for the MoD for admitting liability and moving swiftly to settle.

[badass]

Before everyone jumps on the anti suing tabloid style rant bandwagon, please bare in mind that a mesolthelioma can ONLY be caused by Asbestos.
Anyone that gets it is automatically entitled to compensation form the government, regardless of circumstances and it is a very nasty way to die. Normally, people surivive for a maximum of 18 months after diagnosis and they way they die is by suffocation.

Thos woman caught it through no fault of her own, and is going to die a very unpleasant death because of it. If she wants to get some money for her kids since she will not be earning any more after she has died, then go for it I say.

This isn't a dig at anyone thats posted so far BTW just in case anyone thinks I'm having a go

[Steve B]

Anyone that gets it is automatically entitled to compensation form the government

cheers badass, i wasn't aware of this. I apologise if some of my previous statements appeared flippant, but i hope you can understand that everyone is getting a bit tired of the whole sue-culture.

[badass]

cheers badass, i wasn't aware of this. I apologise if some of my previous statements appeared flippant, but i hope you can understand that everyone is getting a bit tired of the whole sue-culture.

Completely agree. However this sue culture is talked up by the media. Compensation claims have been steadily reducing for the past few years and the papers just report the ones that on the surface seem ridiculous.
They also report on the ones where some pr1ck tries to sue someone for something stupid and fail to mention it gets thrown out before even going to court. E.g. that postie that tried to sue someone for putting a lot of mail in the postbox.
Those adverts that encourage suing really wind me up though.

[Steve B]

or they only give you half the story, like the one about the porcha widow who was suing for the car being too powerful. the media said he was driving at 205mph, but neglected to mention he was on a speedway circuit, testing the car.

[Kezzer]

A "No Win No Fee" basis. The thing that they don't realise in a lot of those adverts is that they're actually suing their own bosses, so good luck being on the good side of the person who manages you day in day out.

[Funkstar]

Good point Kezzer, something i've thought in the past.

I couldn't ever imagine taking the company i work for to court. But then i've never worked for a large corp and been just a number. Also never has an accident that wasn't my own fault.

[chuckskull]

Thos woman caught it through no fault of her own, and is going to die a very unpleasant death because of it. If she wants to get some money for her kids since she will not be earning any more after she has died, then go for it I say.

Hear hear. For once someone suing for something that wasn't caused by their own stupidity.

[Saracen]

Some very good points there, badass.

In my view, the law often sucks in several regards.

On the one hand, there's the "sue happy" culture. People often should take at least some responsibility for their own actions, and some claims are just an attempt at legalised money-grabbing.

On the other hand, if you've been a victim of someone else's negligence or deliberate act, then you often should have a right of redress against them, and a court may be the only way to get it. So if all else fails, you may have no choice but to sue.

"No win no fee" lawyers certainly could encourage frivolous and speculative lawsuits, but the lawyer doing the suing won't get a bean unless he wins, so the fact that he (or she) is prepared to take a case implies :-

- he/she thinks he can win
- there's sufficient compensation in his cut of the award to make it worth while

And if they think they can win, then either that's not only legal but also justice, or if not, then what we should be looking at is the state of the law and legal framework that would permit an unjustified suit to succeed. If the law's broken, fix it so that no-fee no-win lawyers can't see a prospect of success in those frivolous cases, because then they won't take them on.

That second point means it's often personal injury cases they'll go for, because it's where that second critieria is most likely to be met.

However, in the absence of "no win no fee" lawyers, any non-trivial legal action is going to be beyond the practical means of most people, since you'll pretty much certainly face a bill of thousands, probably tens of thousands and maybe hundreds of thousands of pounds.

In the absence of no-win, no-fee lawyers, recourse to the law at all is almost entirely the preserve of the wealthy. And, they can use it not only to intimidate those with a valid claim against them, but as a weapon to use against those not so well-off. Suppose, for instance, you offend a multi-millionaire and are told by his lawyers to either climb down and publicly apologise, or get sued, you have the choice of a humiliating climb down even if you don't feel you're wrong, or facing a court challenge that could cripple you financially, and will certainly cause lots of stress and worry.

There's a very large gap between a law being there, and you (Joe Public) being able to afford to either use it or defend against it's use. 'No win, no fee' law has it's drawbacks, but it does at least offer a chance at legal redress without facing significant and usually up-front costs.


I think it's dangerous to leap to conclusions about whether many lawsuits are justified or frivolous, because until you hear all the facts, it's not obvious whether it is or not and the only place you'll hear all the facts is in the court, and certainly not in the media. The real, full facts often turn out to be rather different from the trite, headline-grabbing interpretation of them that the media often come up with ... the "hot coffee in lap" case against McDonalds being a prime example.