re: #606 SnowMonster

BTW - Apology accepted.

The system is not perfect. So which side do we error on? The idiot that spills hot coffee on himself or the company who makes a product that I can use, albeit with potential dangers (a ladder can be dangerous) that common sense should instruct you on how to use it? Also, the legal limit for proof is different in criminal vs. civil cases. The former being “reasonable doubt” and the latter being “preponderance of evidence.” I would think that if you are making $30,000 a year at 40 years of age, the max your family can receive for loss of life due to negligence of the defendant is a max of 20 years at that wage (adjusted for inflation), not hundreds of millions of dollars.

What the burden of proof between civil and criminal cases has to do with this discussion is beyond me. Yes ladders can be dangerous - especially if they are designed incorrectly or built in a defective manner - but thats not the problem of the customer right?

I recognize that you are engaging in hyperbole with the hundred million dollar recovery for someone making 30k, but it just shows, as Buzzsaw pointed out above, you do not have a firm grasp on the way the the court system or at least tort cases work, and adds nothing to a topic that few can rationally discuss. Pulling out the standard “McDonalds” case does not help either.