damaged people dot com

Apparently, a sub-contractor screwed up and blew up 3 houses in Allentown, PA.

Sadly... my company hired them.

oops.

Well in all fairness they hired a sub-contractor.

Suddenly I'm pretty comfortable working for a .com. If I screw up massively, I only screw up small parts of the intraweb.

The only flames I see are in forums.

The sub-contractor was licensed, bonded, and insured.

I think we're ok.

Then again.... when people sue, they go where the money is (and we're a multi-billion dollar company).

I can never understand this whole "sueing" business...

The sub-contractor, as you said are insured. So the houses will be fixed, medical expenses will be covered. What more do people want? They don't want what they are entitled to, they want MORE. They want something for nothing. It's infuriating. Granted, if the contractor was not insured, litigation is the only way to insure that they get the compensation they deserve. But that is not the case... just ticks me off. Sue happy idiots.

jc wrote:The sub-contractor, as you said are insured. So the houses will be fixed, medical expenses will be covered. What more do people want? They don't want what they are entitled to, they want MORE. They want something for nothing. It's infuriating. Granted, if the contractor was not insured, litigation is the only way to insure that they get the compensation they deserve. But that is not the case... just ticks me off. Sue happy idiots.

It sounds like you haven't dealt with an insurance company before. They aren't in the business of just writing out checks. They're in the business of protecting money - theirs.

Beyond that, what's the dollar value of having your life blown up? Is it possible to inventory everything in your home? What functionality will never be regained even with the medical treatment of injuries?

It's easy to be callous when you're this removed from the story JC, but really what it looks like you're saying is "Wah wah wah! My house blew up! Feh. Get over it. Pussies."

I believe JC was making more of a reference to the American way of thinking.

We sue for anything and everything.

Put K-Y jelly on toast? Sue the pharmacist (this really happened). Neighbor's dog bite you (even though you were in the neighbors yard, and the dog was chained up, and you were shooting the dog with a pellet rifle)... sue and win $74,000 (yes indeed... true story).

Our society is in a state of denial. We rarely take personal responsibility when we do something moronic. We sue, even through we could have avoided what ever ill befell us if we had only used an ounce of common sense.

Hats off to the guy in this case who made the mistake (he immediately called it in, then made sure the area was evacuated BEFORE it blew up.... all of which happened in a time span of less than 15 minutes). It could have been much, MUCH worse.

His actions saved lives.

I also have a lot of sympathy for the families who lost their homes. I do know that our company is stepping up to the plate on this... even though we aren't liable. We are making sure that they have someplace to stay (a good place... not the Red Cross shelter), we're cutting checks and are working with the insurance company to get the victims back on track as quickly as possible.

It sucks that this has happened... even more so since Christmas is in just a few days, but I'm actually pretty proud of how my company is dealing with it.

Oh, certainly I'm aware of the stereotype that jc is referencing.

I'm saying that it's pretty much anecdotal at best. The out of control lawsuit machine that is the U.S. is pretty much an urban legend.

Your two examples, KY and Dogbite are a pretty far cry from having your home destroyed.

I'm not convinced.

What's the dollar value of having your home blown up? Pby not as much as the lawyers would want.

People's houses burn down all the time.

Hurricanes take homes

Floods take homes.

In all cases the homes are replaced, the contents replaced and virtually no money is given for losing their "life". Why is this any different?

The accident is just that, and accident. Did the guy that opened the 60psi gas line intend to blow up houses that day? I wager that he did not.

I completely support replacing their homes, the contents of them, paying for a different place to stay, lost work time, food while they are displaced, and any medical expenses they have.

Maybe I am jaded a bit, but why should these people deserve to get so much more than the others that have lost their homes to accidents (of nature or otherwise).

When you throw the lawyers in the mix, the cost of them is so high that these poor folks may not even have enough at the end of the lawsuit to rebuild their home or pay the medical bills they incurred.

I had a friend that lost a son to a car accident in a car that had been proven to be unsafe. The company refused to change the car, justifying that the cost to litigate the failure was less than fixing it. His parents sued, and won a 7 figure settlement. By the time the lawyers took their cut, assessed other fees (expert witnesses, FAX charges, travel etc) the family got around $300, that's right three hundred dollars.

Apparently thats the going rate for a son...

So by that standard, I figure that these folks deserve about $3 for the loss of their momentos and suffering.

I think the point that Encap is making (that I happen to agree with) is that the fact that extreme examples exist does not offset the very validity of legal recourse. Why are they to receive more? Because negligence is avoidable. Not 100%, but more than the corporate sphere seems to take responsibility for. In order for negligence to be held to a minimum, it must be punished when proven. When we have a government that values its people more than its purse, punitive damages might not be necessary.

Until corporate America goes bullish on empathy, I'll be going bearish on sympathy. A loose coffee lid obviously isn't negligence. You want to establish a law against frivolous lawsuits? I'm for it. But lawsuit caps are insulting to the intelligence.

What would the tobacco industry be up to by now if they'd never been slapped down? What would be in your ground water? When your children are suffering from cancer and your HMO is saying the treatment they need is excessive because its expensive, how exactly do you make them pay? That's not even the same fucking zipcode as the KY-Jelly-Man. Sometimes, a seven-figure bitch slap is the only thing that will get the attention of a CFO who, in his five figure three-piece suit, has begun to think on himself as a small god.

And R.D., you don't really expect us to believe you have evidence of lawyers being bloodsucking, greedy opportunists, do you? That's a pretty hard sell given their spotless reputations for philanthropy.

I believe that all of these people that lost their homes have also lost a lot of sentimental material things, but they have made it out with their lives. The best part of sentiment for material things is that you can lose the material thing, but not the sentiment; the memories won't be lost in an explosion. This might sound “callous” because I am not suffering in the exact same situation as these victims, but we have all suffered loses, and we can either become stronger from it or we can let it tear us down. If I were to put myself in the same situation, I would be pissed, but I don’t have 7 figures worth of shit that needs to be replaced. Aside from the compensation from the evil insurance companies, these victims will also see a lot of kindness from other people as an outcome of this tragedy: support from friends, strangers and even each other. Some of those people will look at these things and come out of the experience with a whole new positive outlook and appreciation for life, and some of them have already talked to their lawyers and plotted how they can take full advantage of this situation and make as much money as possible. The latter group is too busy being greedy to look at the positive outcomes, and I think that this is the group JC is talking about. It’s a question of people who will seek money for compensatory damages those and who will seek even more for punitive damages. If people are seeking 10 times the compensation necessary to make up for all of their “suffering,” I say to those people “Wah wah wah! My house blew up! Feh. Get over it. Pussies. Look for the brighter side of life.” I too am proud of our company and how they are dealing with the issue.