in article , Dudley
Henriques at wrote on 7/17/04 11:35 AM:


"Philip Sondericker" wrote in message
...

The problem with any discussion of tort reform or "frivolous" lawsuits
is
that nobody is ever willing to get into specifics. No one's willing to
define what "frivolous" actually means (aside, of course, from the
fact that
it's never THEIR lawsuit) , or what percentage of lawsuits they
consider to
be so.

Well, how about it? Anyone willing to submit some actual hard data?
Let's
get specific for once--what percentage of lawsuits are "frivolous"?
And what
are your precise criteria for determining their frivolity? Remember,
no
anecdotes allowed--I don't wanna hear about the McDonald's coffee
lady.
Let's see some numbers.

Forcing people to produce specifics that they have no access to isn't
the way to deal with this issue. The fact is that a definition of
"frivolous" can't actually be determined since it's subject to
individual interpretation. Who's to say what is frivolous and what's
not? That's the beauty of the lawyer's position; a position BTW that you
have presented so deftly here I might add :-)

Thank you. So, how can we expect to ever enact any kind of meaningful tort
reform if we can't even come up with a definition of what needs to be
reformed? And if forcing people to be more specific is not the answer, then
what is? Being vague?