A Kitten Defends the Sharks

I am the cutest legal scholar you will ever meet.

I will never become a lawyer, however. In order to sit for the bar in my home state, I'd have to have attended and graduated from an accredited law school. In order to do that, I'd have to have attended and graduated from college. In order to do that, I'd need a high school degree. None of these institutions have litter-box facilities. It's a form of discrimination that has yet to be addressed.

Human Female, not requiring a litter-box, is an attorney. It is with alarm that I have listened to the outpouring of derision and hatred directed towards her and her fellow lawyers. Generally, people are willing to accept that attorneys sometimes serve an important role in society, i.e. when they prosecute criminals, assist in drafting wills, litigate civil-rights, or help to convey property. Mention the terms “personal injury”, however, and the response is along the lines of a feline deep-throated growl.

One belief is that personal-injury attorneys profit on the misfortune of others. Perhaps, but no more so than doctors, disaster-clean-up companies, or mechanics. The difference may be that, while you need a doctor to stitch you up, a company to clean out a flooded house, or a mechanic to repair your car, people believe that attorneys are superfluous. The underlying assumption is that people should, and can, work out their differences, but that profit-driven attorneys complicate the system and foment unrest.

To that I offer two responses: Exhibit A, the size of this shoe-box of an apartment I live in, and Exhibit B, the number of people filing lawsuits, and not just “working things out.”

In order to understand the role of the personal-injury attorney, it helps to understand the purpose of personal-injury compensation. Let's take a hypothetical: I, desiring to catch that Jack Russell once and for all, scamper out to Human Male's car with his keys in my mouth, and proceed to drive the car down the street after the dog. (I said it was hypothetical; there is no way on this green Earth that I'd willingly set paw into the car). Due to my own inability to drive (being a kitten) and a defective brake-line in the car, I crash the vehicle into a telephone pole, which crashes upon my neighbor, Fluffy.

Upon returning from the veterinarian, Fluffy requests that I compensate her for her injuries. I'd like to, but I have no money, (being a kitten). At this stage, all Fluffy wants is to have her vet bills paid for. She seeks reimbursement.

Meanwhile, Fluffy's health insurance company also seeks reimbursement. They've paid a good portion of vet bills, and, being in the business of profit, want that money back. Under a provision in their policy with Fluffy, they can sue me in her name, whether or not Fluffy wants to, which is called subrogation.

The health insurance company files suit against me for negligent driving. They also sue Human Male for negligently leaving his car keys where I can get them (as if he could keep them from me, jingly and shiny!), they sue the car manufacturer for negligent design, the electric company for improper placement of the telephone pole, and the manufacturer of the telephone pole for negligent design.

Human Male, upon receiving notices of the lawsuit, sprays me with the spray bottle, and calls his car insurance company. Under his policy, the insurance company has a duty to defend him. Furthermore, his insurance company does not want to have to pay out anything to Fluffy if they don't have to. The company assigns a lawyer to the case, who sues the mechanic who last worked on the car and didn't notice the defect and Fluffy herself, for negligently running in front of the car.

We now have eight parties to the law-suit, and neither Fluffy nor I ever directly hired an attorney.

Fluffy's insurance company's attorney (for all intents and purposes now Fluffy's attorney), is seeking far more now than just reimbursement. A personal-injury law suit must be filed within three years of the accident. Within those three years, the full consequences of Fluffy's injuries may not be apparent. In order to fully protect Fluffy's interests, her attorney should also consider her potential future health care costs and impairments. She's been unable to work (you think I'm the only cat who has access to a home computer?), and has lost wages and it may be that she is impaired in her future earning capacity. Fluffy has experienced some pain and suffering as a result of the accident, and her attorney seeks compensation for that as well.

Meanwhile, Fluffy's Human has been deprived of Fluffy's comfort and companionship, so she joins the lawsuit, suing for loss of consortium.

The driving force so far in this case has been the insurance companies and not the attorneys or the principal parties. As the litigation progresses, however, Fluffy's motives shift. The car company offers Fluffy money in settlement. The offer is substantial, but Fluffy is mad that the car company let so many defective cars reach the roads. She knows that in the broad scheme of the car company's budget, their settlement to her won't hurt them. She wants to send the wrongdoer a message. She wants the publicity of the trial. She wants to hurt their sales, the way they hurt her. She rejects the settlement, and the litigation continues.

She's also a little more than miffed at the electric company, who, in the years since the accident, has continued to set up the telephone poles in the same exact way. She wants to deter them from causing future harm to others.

Despite the number of parties, this hypothetical is actually a very simplified version of a typical motor vehicle accident case. But, as you can see, there are many more motives and goals than any one attorney's profit. If there is any party serving as the mustache-twirling money-seeker, it's the insurance companies, (who are never the brunt of jokes, I've noticed). Most importantly, many of Fluffy's goals are perfectly legitimate. The legal system serves as an important check on corporate profit-based decision making and public safety: the car company balanced the risk of law suits against the cost of fixing the problem based on an economic formula. The electric company may have continued to place the poles the same way, had Fluffy not sued them. Without an attorney, there is no way she could have reached all these parties and “worked things out.”

The personal-injury system serves an important purpose. And Human Female has a nice squishy belly I like to sleep on and gives the best back scratches. So, please, stop calling her a shark.