Reader Mail, 11/21

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November 21, 2002

(Page 2 of 9)

The verdict against Valor Inc., while unpalatable, is really unsurprising, considering the people who sit in jury pools these days. Juries, not judges or lawyers, are the ones who come to idiotic conclusions of fact and hand out ludicrous awards that result in little more than costly appeals and wasted time.

Unfortunately, many educated, hard-working people duck their civic duty for selfish reasons. They can't rearrange their precious schedules for a few weeks to see justice done. What's left are those with an axe to grind and those who have nothing better to do.

Jurors of this ilk do not see that the lottery-sized awards they hand out raise the cost of living and doing business for the rest of us. My advice is for reasonable people to quit looking for ways to duck jury duty - and when deciding a plaintiff's fate, think about how that decision will affect the rest of society.

Anil K. Singh
New York City

Mr. Know-it-all

40 years ago, our family's 1954 Chrysler wasn't defective. Nowadays, a car designed to its standards would be.

No seat belts.
No padded dash.
Etc.

The gun is defective in 2002. Would all of these issues be so easy.

Michael Buxbaum

Take off!

Interesting piece, to say the least. The current mania to assign "blame" to inanimate machines for injuries arising from their misuse seem to support my contention liberals are basically technophobic. Little else can explain what part a properly operating machine has in inflicting harm if misused. Were we to ban all such machines, we would soon find ourselves afoot and starving while trudging to court to seek redress for injuries inflicted by someone's horse or ox.

Patently, all such suits are merely cash cows for various law firms and grandstanding pleaders seeking reputation and wealth at the expense of all of us. Unfortunately, redress seems unlikely so long as present political practice prevails.

Jeff Hoser

Re: Ecumenical Intolerance (11/12)

Impeccable logic