"It was so cold last winter that I saw a lawyer with his hands in his own pockets." I was reminded of that old joke recently by the dip in the Taipei temperatures and the arrival of a group of US attorneys to represent the victims of the Singapore Airlines crash ("Lawyers preparing civil actions against SIA," Jan. 20, page 2).
I need to state at the outset that the comments that follow are not per se directed at the Nolan law firm. I have never heard of them and I know nothing about them. They may be compassionate angels descended from heaven or greedy little imps who crawled up from hell, or something in between. I need to mention that because libel is a crime in Taiwan and filing libel suits is a popular pastime, even for such notables as Vice President Annette Lu (呂秀蓮). So these comments are not about the Nolan firm.
Having said that, let me give a short course in US tort law. To do this I must first define some phrases. Let us begin with "ambulance chaser," which is, as defined by Blacks Law Dictionary, an attorney who upon hearing of a personal injury which may have been caused by the negligence of another, at once seeks out the injured person with a view toward securing authority to bring action on account of the injury. Notice the emphasis on "at once." Ambulance chaser is a term of contempt and figures in many lawyer jokes. As well it should.
Why do ambulance chasers chase? Because of contingency fees. Such fees are not allowed here in Taiwan so I should perhaps define what they are. If an attorney takes a case "on contingency" the client-victim pays no fees. What happens is the attorney takes a percentage of whatever compensation the client gets -- generally around one third of the compensation amount. Thus the bigger the compensation the more the attorney makes. This fact brings us to the third term to know -- "deep pockets."
Ambulance chasers, once they have secured a contingency fee agreement with the victim now begin to search for the "deep pockets." "Deep pockets" is where the money is; it refers to some entity, be it a real person or a company, that has lots of money. Regardless of how liable that entity maybe, if they have the money and have any possible civil liability then these "deep pockets" are what the attorneys aim for. For hypothetical example, in a plane wreck, the deep pockets do not lie with the aircrew but with the airline. Airlines and their insurers have much deeper pockets than individual aircrew members do. But if the aircrew is found guilty of a crime then that fact tends to establish civil negligence on the part of the airline that has the deep pockets. Ergo, a smart attorney will press the local prosecutor, in this totally hypothetical example, to press charges against the aircrew so that fact of criminal charges can be used to bolster their civil case. And the stronger the civil case the higher the victims' compensation will be. The higher the victims' compensation is, the more money the attorneys make.
Let me close this short lesson in US tort law with one final phrase to know: "runners and cappers." Runners and cappers are frequently the close companions of ambulance chasers. A runner and capper is a person who solicits clients for an ambulance chaser. They are illegal. But oftentimes advertisements, which are legal, can serve the same purpose of drawing out clients. Free advertisements are even better. It has been my experience that many press conferences are often in fact nothing more than attempts to garner free advertising. The public should keep that fact in mind.
I should close this mini-course in US tort law by giving some balance. I say in all sincerity that many of the most compassionate, concerned attorneys I have ever met have been tort attorneys. I should also mention that contingency fees are an important way for victims to get justice, victims who could not otherwise "afford" justice. I recommend that Taiwan adopt a contingency fee system at some point. Lastly I should mention that tough, aggressive tort attorneys do much to make any nation a safer place to live by forcing companies to take responsibility for their actions and inaction. It is an area of the law that draws extremes; avenging angels to evil imps.
Brian Kennedy is an attorney who writes and teaches on criminal justice and human rights issues.
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