Comments on: A breath of intellectual-property sanity

By: Yuri Seller

Yuri Seller — Tue, 01 Aug 2006 11:28:33 +0000

I think such kind of law should be implemented by every country.

By: Martin

Martin — Fri, 21 Apr 2006 12:16:15 +0000

Same thing here in Germany. You won’t get problems with completely unreasonable court fees to pay though, because there is quite a strict system on how much money a lawyer may take from his client. The sum largely depends on the so called “Streitwert”, which is the amount of money you are suing for, so you can choose yourself.

By: david

david — Fri, 07 Apr 2006 21:31:33 +0000

I doesn’t seem to work out that way here, though — I don’t think there are as many stalling tactics available for overpaid lawyers to use). For example, recently a woman sued a Montreal hospital for CAD 90,000 for a botched abortion (she ended up still pregnant). The judge ruled that the hospital was 50% at fault, but that the woman was also 50% at fault because she had neglected to go to a follow-up appointment, so the hospital had to pay her CAD 45K. The amounts at stake are not usually as large here as they would be in the U.S., partly because civil litigation never involves a jury.

By: John Cowan

John Cowan — Fri, 07 Apr 2006 18:59:57 +0000

Unfortunately, the rule cuts both ways. In loser-pays-costs systems, it’s very hard to get any compensation for an injury from a deep-pockets party no matter how much at fault they are, because there’s no hope that you’ll be able to pay BigCo’s flock of lawyers $100,000 per day, or whatever.