Well, I read that they won't be using the New Mexico location anymore for filming. Maybe they are going to Mexico to save money...
I can’t believe they’re going to finish it. Don’t they have insurance that pays if they can’t finish because of a catastrophe? Even if it’s the greatest movie ever, it’ll be awful, overshadowed by this shooting. Who could watch it without wondering which scene they were rehearsing when he shot her? Could you watch The Godfather if Pacino had killed someone on the set? And this was never going to be Godfather quality, just Alec Baldwin mediocrity. I don’t think I’ll see it.
Aside from the rather significant legal difference, I’m pretty sure they didn’t kill a horse just for that scene.
IIRC, they went to a dog food manufacturer (dog food uses a lot of horsemeat) and got the head from there. Still a lot of people upset about it.... Ron Wanttaja
The incident led to years of civil and criminal action against the personnel overseeing the shoot, including director John Landis, and the introduction of new procedures and safety standards in the film making industry. The parents of the children made tens of millions of dollars from this accident. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twilight_Zone_accident https://www.nytimes.com/1987/05/30/us/all-5-acquitted-in-3-deaths-on-film-set.html I have a feeling the same will happen in the ''Rust'' accident.
I really don't care. I feel sorry for the girl and her family. He's a jerk. That doesn't make him guilty. It doesn't make him not guilty. It just makes him a jerk.
I knew a member of one of the families, I'm pretty certain they didn't considered it a fair exchange. Nauga, acting out
I am pretty certain you are correct. But the lawyers set the price on the childrens lives which the parents accepted. Then again, the lawyers probably took a big chunk out of that money.
The same thing…buried children. How much money does it take to make the death of a child feel ok? If money wasn’t the driving force for the attorneys then why do they charge a percentage?
In some cases, all of it and more. Or maybe to simplify it: There is no amount, but that does not mean there should never be punitive damages. Nauga, and Scott Free
It's not a trade. At the point that you're suing for damages, the kids are already, unfortunately, deceased. Some attorneys work on contingency fees in some cases because in those cases the plaintiffs either could not or would not be able to afford to pay the attorney what it would cost to bring suit with uncertain chances of recovery.
I understand. This forum may recall about a year ago that a PC 12 went down off the North Carolina coast near me. The report is not available yet but the lawsuits have already been filed. While I feel for the grieving families, the pilot and owner dog, his son also died along with the others. My question is, what value is there in suing the estate? The heirs of the estate I’m sure also grieving. And again the report is not out but it does not seem to have been an issue with any mechanical or design issue of the plane. Aside from making the lawyers a bunch of money, what value is there in bankrupting the estate? Sometimes, I can see a value where you need to get the attention of somebody to change the way they are doing things or deliberate negligence but in this case I don’t see a point to it. I also understand that the attorneys on the forum want to defend their profession because nobody wants to see themselves or their chosen profession as evil and greedy. It would just be nice to hear, sometimes, from the professionals that sometimes justice is not served, and that some professional introspection is warranted.
Is "this case" one regarding the incident that started this thread, one that came out of the "Twilight Zone" incident that several of us thought we were talking about, or the one you first introduced in the post I quoted (two posts up) which I suspect none of us realized you were commenting on? Nauga, threaded
I am on the defense side. I rarely have a plaintiff's case, and rarer still do I have a plaintiff's personal injury claim. I agree that justice is not always served. People file lawsuits because it works. At the end of the day, the system rewards filing lawsuits. There is plenty of blame to spread around. If juries did not award verdicts in such large amounts, people would not be incentivized to file suits. When suits get filed, judges pressure the parties to settle so they don't have to make a decision and risk getting reversed. And when they do make a decision, almost invariably, the opinion is tainted by the judge's compassion for the injured, regardless of whether the plaintiff really should recover under the law as dispassionately applied. It's really hard to get a summary judgment. Many judges have a really hard time sending an injured plaintiff home empty handed. It's easy to blame them when you are not the one actually making that call. But I am sure it feels a lot different when you are the one actually making that decision. And the Insurance companies feel pressure to settle the lawsuits so they don't get sued for negligently failing to settle and protect their insured, resulting in additional exposure beyond that which they contracted for in insuring the defendant. The court rules make trying a case incredibly expensive. It's easiest to pay now to close the file and stop paying defense costs. Then there is no risk to that adjuster that management will come asking questions down the road because a judgment goes south. The insurance carriers know that the system is slanted in favor of the plaintiffs. The Courts apply the law differently when it comes to insurance companies. Insurance contracts are so convoluted because every time they get sued, the courts find some tortured way to read the contract language to find coverage where none was intended or increase the limits beyond what was contemplated when establishing the premiums. As a result, the carriers have to re-write their policies to try to address each new court opinion, and over time the policy becomes long and incomprehensible gobbledygook. I get it. I have been at the long conference table when the dead pilots' wives are being deposed, and the dead plaintiff's family is sitting there staring them down. It's not pretty. When the families file suit, it's not always just about the money. They are grieving and they are angry, and it's the only thing that they can do. They want answers, and they want some vindication that their loved ones were wronged. Ok, for the plaintiff's lawyers, it's about the money. But lawyers need to support their families, too. You're mad that the lawsuits are already filed for the PC 12 accident even though the report hasn't come out? Well, the statute of limitations is ticking, and it might run before the report comes out. So, plaintiff's lawyers might as well file. What's the point of suing the estate? Well, probably that deceased pilot had insurance that will respond to the suit. So, there is probably a little pot of gold at the end of that rainbow and some plaintiff's law firm wants 40% of it.
Thank you for the thoughtful and thorough explanation. It did not used to be that way. My perception is that many professions have turned into a way of making individuals money rather than serving the general good.
If I could change one thing, it would be to make getting summary judgments easier. Courts are reluctant to grant them due in part to the feeling that plaintiffs deserve their day in court. But when a court grants an SJ, they had their day in court. They just didn't get to waste the jury's time with something that didn't need their services.
Yes, but if I ship a 1000lb pallet of class 100 worth $1000 bucks vs a 1000lb pallet of class 100 worth $1,000,000 I don't pay more for the second shipment with a common carrier. If a lawyer works 100 hours on a case, maybe he should get paid the same regardless of the settlement amount.
We really need a list of what an arm is worth, a life is worth, etc and pays out only in cases of negligence. No 8 and 9 figure settlements. Heck, maybe not even 7 figure settlements. Trial then only becomes about negligence and not about the amount.
Being charitable to the plaintiffs' bar, (which I am not often inclined to do) do you really think it takes the same amount of labor to handle a soft tissue injury fender bender lawsuit as it does a catastrophic injury aviation lawsuit?
That's largely the way workers compensation works. Except for the negligence part. Negligence is often irrelevant (although this is an oversimplification.) Just whether it's a job related injury.
Another way would be to simply put a cap on tort awards. While the tort process does have its place in my experience, dragging in "big money" defendants with zero direct culpability is more just a money grab especially when the plaintiff attorney casts a wide net with only BS claims.
Is the arm of a highly skilled professional worth more than the arm of a common unskilled grunt worker?
