The Asylum

This short(ish) rant brought to you by a rather rediculous court case that a friend of mine happened upon. Bored, he was flipping through television channels when he noticed this. The story goes that some guys were drunk, and drove their friend home with the stereo on full blast. Woken by the noise, the nextdoor neighbor (also drunk, it seems) proceeded to come outside to chuck rocks at the offending car. The idiots in the car yelled at the idiot in the driveway, who yelled right back, and after chorus of drunken roaring which never came to anything, the idiots parted ways. Next week the driver came back to notify the neighbor that he was sueing him for the damage done to the car. And this case was televised no less.

Nevermind that any money the prosecution might be able to squeeze from the accused stone hurler would be quickly outpaced by court fees. Nevermind that this could have easily and civily settled out of court. What amazes me is that it even got into court. What honorable judge would allow such an argument to take over their court?

Here is possible solution that I think would be able to filter out all the petty arguments that people try to take to court. If the two parties were sat down in front of a mediator they could probably sort it out. Since most petty cases these days seem to focus on cash, the mediator could propose a monetary settlement out of court, and possibly stress how much it would cost to actually take the case to court. The mediator would not be able to refuse anyone the ability to sue, because there are often extenuating circumstances and it should not be up to just that one person to decide. Instead, the mediator could report to the judge, and based off of that and the following courtcase, and decision could be made. It wouldn’t be much more than a patch on the system, but it would be an improvement I think.