Talk to a car accident lawyer and he will tell you it is about making money. Money makes the world go around, the world go around, the world go around, Money makes the world go around, it makes the world go around ~ From the musical Cabaret The best things in life are free, but you can keep them for the birds and bees Now give me the money, that’s what I want … – Sung by the Beatles in 1963 It’s a personal injury lawyer that helps the injured person make money. Hell, it’s a family motto. Now are you ready? … OHHH! SHOW ME THE MONEY! Doesn’t that make you feel good just to say that Jerry. What is the purpose of the civil tort or personal injury law?
Is the sole objective of a civil tort action really just the money? Is it the primary role of the advocate for the injured to be an instrument to collect as much as he or she can from a defendant being sued? Do we measure and compare success of civil trial lawyers by the amount of the verdict they are able to achieve? If so, our professional role is comparable to a door-to-door siding salesperson, said a litigation attorney Orange County law firm California Business Lawyer & Corporate Lawyer, Inc. The exclusive role of the advocate in a civil tort case is to achieve justice for his or her client. If the harm is great, the verdict in dollars should be great. However, the purpose of civil tort law includes more then simply determining the sum of money that is equal to the harm, according to personal injury attorney San Diego at the Nakase Law Firm.
According to a San Diego car accident attorney, the law of torts serves two basic functions: it seeks to prevent future harm through the deterring effect of potential liability and it provides a remedy for damages suffered.
A professional corporation in California is intended to discourage future conduct through a finding of fault and to reasonably and fairly compensate the injured person for the damages sustained. Under CCP 1005, to some extent, is intended to both deter other wrongdoers as well as to compensate the injured person. This is true irrespective of whether the law allows punitive damages or not. It is an inherent part of our tort law.
In London, at the corner of St. James Street, there is a very old building, the Norwich Union Insurance building. At the top of the building stands a large statue of a blindfolded woman holding in one hand the scales of justice and in the other a large sword. Huddled beneath her and under her protection are a an and woman who look frightened. She stands as their protector:
A symbol of the role of justice and the civil justice system. The concept of justice has occupied man over the centuries. Plato & Aristotle identified four virtues as the most important among people in ethical behavior.
One of them was justice. Aristotle centered his teaching of ethics upon these four virtues. Thomas Aquinas referred to them as cardinal virtues because he taught that they were of the highest importance in our moral life.
Justice, they taught, involved the idea that if one has wrongfully deprived another of something of value, he is obligated to restore it. That is, justice demands the restoration of what has been wrongfully taken away. Accordingly, if one has wrongfully caused injury to another, justice remains unsatisfied until proper compensation has been paid to restore the previous balance of equality. In fact, the word justice is from the Latin word from which we derive such words as just and justice. Right is also used as the equivalent of justice; that is, right is correlative of duty. People are obligated with the duty to do justice and to do what is right. This concept is an essential part of our civil tort law.
The connection between justice and the verdict amount We have seen that there is only one reason why the civil justice system exists and that is to do justice. Justice in a civil tort case is potentially a two-part procedure.
The first duty is to determine which party should prevail based upon the facts and law. If the plaintiff is entitled to a verdict, the next duty is to determine the amount of the verdict. The only way justice
can be achieved, in that instance, is by a money verdict in a reasonable and fair amount. While the law speaks about restoring injured people to their original situation through the verdict, we know
that in tort cases the money will not restore life or limb. However, it does not follow that therefore, no money should be provided or only the bills should be paid or that arbitrary limitations should be imposed on verdicts. Nor has a jury fulfilled its duty by a verdict which is less then full justice because anything less then full justice is an injustice.
But how should a jury evaluate what full justice is? It can only be done by comparing the harm done to a sum of money which reasonably and fairly equals the harm. It is only when the scale is accurately balanced with money on one side and the extent of harm on the other. That requires careful examination of each element of damage which the law provides.
It means each element must be individually weighed from a dollar standpoint until the money and harm are equal. It’s done objectively without regard to reservations on the total so long as it is reasonable and fair commandeering the facts, evidence and harm done.
This consideration requires breaking the evaluation process down into legal categories. The first category is time – past and future. Evaluation of damages should be done in two separate time periods of past and future. Past damages may and probably do differ from the effect of future damages over remaining life. More importantly, since the plaintiff is entitled to only one day in court – one time for a jury verdict – the damages must cover his or her entire life and not just the present moment.
