By EMT
McGee
I drive
on a highway every single day, as do many other Americans. We’ve probably driven by thousands of
billboard advertisements in our lifetime.
So many that their existence blends in with the landscape. Especially the ones that depict a car
accident victim in a neck brace with 1-800-CAR-CRASH splattered somewhere next
to them. Just another ambulance chaser,
is usually my thought–but not anymore.
David Engel explains through statistics, life experiences, and first
hand accounts why the litigation system in the United States is not actually
what it is perceived to be. After
reading “The Myth of the Litigious Society” my perception of the American tort
system has changed because I now have a much more encircling view of what
actually occurs.
Upon
reflection, my biggest takeaway from reading Engel’s book was my sincere
astonishment that I had knowledge of the majority of famous tort claims that he
delved in to. From Erin Brockovich’s
story to Stella Liebeck’s McDonald’s incident, I had some knowledge of the
specific cases. Since I was aware of his
examples, I had some hesitation in believing Engel’s theory that lawsuits are
not common. However, I quickly came to
realize I knew the examples he was using because there isn't an overabundance of
tort claims that occur, so the few high-profile ones become famous.
More
specifically, though, my mindset on the individuals that don’t bring suit
against a wrongdoer–or as Engel would say the lumpers–changed drastically as I
neared the end of the book. In the
beginning, he was just stating statistics like how “approximately nine out of
ten Americans choose to lump rather than to claim” (pg. 22). I will admit that my initial reaction was 90%
of this population pool is incompetent for not claiming. However, in chapters three and four, Engel
goes into detail about the lifestyle shift that an injured victim has to
adjust to.
Growing
up playing sports I had my fair share of injuries; between sprained ankles to
dislocated fingers I went to the hospital quite often. Each new injury brought a new lifestyle
change, thankfully only temporary, but I still had to adjust. Looking back, I was quite miserable and did
not want to socialize. My injuries drove
my lifestyle. Fortunately, the only
person responsible for my sport-related injuries was myself. Now, imagine an individual who was recently
injured due to another’s wrongdoing and is in no physical or mental condition to
begin a lawsuit. It is quite staggering
to think that an individual adjusting to their new lifestyle can make rational
decisions about the merits of claiming and legal mobilization (pg. 40).
In
chapter four, Engel examines how the mind and body are one. The idea that the mind and body experience
and interpret the injury together is unconditionally true. As Engel described the mental effect that can
be brought on by a physical injury to the body, I began to understand the life
of a lumper. A lumper can be viewed as
many different things but what people, including myself, fail to recognize
sometimes is that he or she is an individual that just experienced a traumatic
event and must cope with the consequences.
A broken arm might not seem all that terrible to some people, but to one
person who needs that arm to work, cook for their children, and drive a car, a
broken arm is a temporary life changing event.
Engel allows his readers to understand the aftermath of an injury from
the injured person’s perspective.
It was
easy to think that a person who lumped was lazy or incompetent, but I failed to
put myself in their shoes. Engel does an
excellent job of portraying the struggle an injured person faces post
injury. The first hand accounts he used
throughout the book were extremely helpful.
Although Miranda Compton’s feature only consisted of five pages (pg.
148), Engel gave an unblemished account of her storyline about her daughter’s
devastating injury. Reading Compton’s
struggle about whether to claim or not and her eventual outcome gave me an
inside look at the aftermath of an injury.
I realized exterior pressures from friends and family, or one’s
community, play a major role when someone decides to lump a claim. After Compton went through with the lawsuit
and only got $2,000 out of the original $150,000 claim, she explained she felt
pressured into it by her ex-husband.
Regardless of the amount of money she was awarded, she had grave regrets
for following through with the lawsuit and wished she had lumped instead. The lawsuit caused her unneeded stress, and she
received social backlash. Compton’s
story is only one example of an individual regretting the decision to claim, but
how many other people are out there who are in fear of claiming for the same
reasons? Culturally, self-sufficiency is
favored, whereas claiming can be considered greedy.
Each of
Engel’s theories convinced me more that the majority of people are lumpers and
not claimers. However, throughout the
book I kept questioning why I was so ingrained with the idea that claiming was
the obvious answer. It was not until
Engel brought up the use of chairs, stairs, and keyboards in chapter seven that
I began to understand lumping. Countless
Americans are injured from everyday tasks like sitting at their desk typing or
walking up the stairs, but they only see the injury as their own fault. The more common of an activity, the less
likely it is that an individual will see claiming as a valid response. Tripping up the stairs seems like a simple
clumsy injury, but it can have serious effects if the stair architect or
engineer did not properly install them.
Most Americans (including myself) are not likely to think of a typical
situation as a potential claim situation.
Engel did an excellent job explaining how everyday Americans interact
with claim worthy situations but become lumpers because they did not know a
tort occurred or the process to claim would be too much of a hassle.
Dr. Greg
Gulbransen chose not to lump and subsequently held a significant role in the
dispute resolution system in the United States.
After facing the tragedy that involved accidentally driving over his son
because of the blind spots in his SUV, Gulbransen started a nonprofit
organization in order to universally equip all vehicles with camera
technology. Prior to Gulbransen’s
efforts, “the tragic deaths and injuries of very young children were considered
inherent in the nature of motor vehicles” (pg. 120). Gulbransen chose not only to claim but also
to fight for changes. His endeavor was
successful, as he was able to get the federal government to support legislation
that would require any new models of vehicles sold in the United States to be
equipped with rearview cameras. Today,
sixteen years after the tragedy involving Dr. Gulbransen’s son, vehicles
without rearview cameras are seen as unsafe and defective.
It is
interesting to see how the act of claiming can affect American society. According to research by federal regulators,
“267 deaths and 15,000 injuries are caused each year by vehicles backing up”
(pg. 120). Gulbransen could have
followed the majority of victims and lumped, but instead his actions had grave
consequences on the civil dispute system in the United States. Now that I’m aware of the effect a single
claimant can have on the tort system, it makes me curious about the voluminous
amount of lumpers. Before reading
Gulbransen’s story I did not realize the outcome that can happen post
claim. In response to the statistic that
90% of Americans don’t claim, we need to implement a system that encourages
claiming and discourages lumping.
The
irony is, before I read Engel’s book I thought there was a plethora of claiming
occurring and now, I’m rallying for an even stronger claiming system in the
United States. If I were able to wave a
magic wand and bring change to the U.S tort system I would. Engel discusses the lack of equal portrayal of
injury victims in mass media. He
proposes that “if media reporting could be focused more consistently on the
most widespread and costly injuries in American society, and if it could
identify new risks through investigative journalism and exposes, that in itself
would contribute significantly to injury reduction” (pg. 194). I would agree, once again, with Engel’s
theory that the lack of awareness only worsens the system and creates no
solutions. By bringing awareness to common injuries, more people will choose to
claim rather than to lump. A simple
solution could be to require the mainstream media to cover more stories on
individuals that trip up stairs and decide to claim rather than the tabloid
catching stories like Stella Liebeck’s million dollar coffee spill (pg. 121).
Although
encouraging the media to actually cover small-scale civil disputes would not cost
that much, it would require substantial reasoning to convince them. Another solution that would require more of a
substantive effort would be to make class action lawsuits easier and more
feasible. When the majority of people
hear “class action lawsuit,” there is not typically a positive response. However, if class action lawsuits were more
prevalent and American citizens had knowledge of their existence, the amount of
claims would increase. Improving the
current class action lawsuit process would bring injuries that are usually
forgotten and repressed to the forefront of the litigation system, which would
raise awareness of claiming.
Subsequently, more awareness of claiming would have an adverse effect on
the single claimants out there.
After
reading Engel’s book, I do believe that there is a significant amount of
people who would decide to claim if they had more knowledge of the process or
were given more support from the dispute resolution system. Injured individuals are coping with a
traumatic experience yet the system expects them to figure out the next proper
step. Without any legitimate guidance or
precedent in the public eye, the result becomes lumping. Engel’s book significantly changed my
perspective on the American tort system.
There is a problem with the lack of people that make claims in our
society, and we must do something to shift the lumpers to claimers. Increasing
awareness and offering procedural information can be our first step in shifting
the way the myth of our litigious society.
Now, when I drive down the highway and see the repetitive advertisements
for tort lawyers, I will question why so many people drive past them and never
give them a second thought.
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