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On 7/15/98 5:35, Mark Grant, markg@pa*.ne* said:
>so if you went further than that in the court system, they must have felt
>that 1) you were at fault (otherwise why push it forward) and 2) you had the
>ability somehow to pay off the lawyers (or the client just wanted to punish
>you because you did something so bad as to deserve the pain and had the
>money to pay the lawyers to pursue it; not likely these days).
> Not likely a suit would continue unless there was a chance of a payout. So
>perhaps that is why you were bored.
They "pushed it forward" at my insistance, because I knew I was OK, and I
refused to settle.
Maybe that's what scares you guys.
You think that once papers are served, it's all out of your control,
when, in fact, it's not. You have choices, all along the way. You can
settle. You can refuse to settle, you can fight, and you can sleep in all
cases.
The ability to pay the lawyers? I don't know. I never paid him. The
people who sued me paid him.
>Screw up with me and i guarantee you it wont be boring.
[Yawn]
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Take a number, get in line.
Look, Honey, we got another bad ass.
>and if you were "held liable for injuries, damages" etc. as you said below,
>tell us, what did you do to deserve it? must have been pretty bad to be
>actually HELD liable, since most cases settle. Want to tell us about it?
Of course not.
Suffice it to say that I was doing something that I shouldn't have been
doing, and one of my guys fell and broke his back while we were doing it.
The State of Washington started homing in, and I settled. Not the
insurance company, me. Clue one, fight your own fights. Clue two, hire
the largest caliber lawyer you can find. Clue three, and perhaps most
important, be right. There is no substitute for being right. You need to
know your business, you need to not be screwing anyone, and you need to
be right. Or you need to settle.
Over the years, I've been sued for everything from breach of contract to
specific performance, and since, of course, I HADN'T breached the
contract, or any other such foolishness, I just turned it over to my
lawyer, and forgot about it until the check arrived.
Settlements are your friend if you're wrong, but I thought we were
talking about frivilous suits?
Lawsuits are great tools if you have a case, but they're really the wrong
approach if you don't. If you're wrong, you need to make nice-nice. If
you're right, blast away.
Frivilous suits, in which the people sueing you have no case, or in which
you've just been caught in the "shotgun" tactic of some new lawyer, (real
lawyers don't use this tactic) simply aren't to be feared.
If you sue me, you need to have a case. Otherwise, you'll be paying my
lawyer, and since that's the case, be my guest.
Sue away.
What I'm trying to get across is that if you're right, if you're a
competent Captain who runs a dive boat in a reasonable fashion, if you
don't interfere with what your clients are doing underwater, and you give
your best assistance to divers in distress, then odds are you have
nothing to fear.
What changes that is if you attempt to dictate some facet of how dives
are done. That simple act will cause you to assume liability.
Liability can be a problem if you're wrong, so why do it? Why not leave
the responsibility, and its attendant liability, where it belongs, on the
diver? Why not let the diver be responsible, make his own decisions,
(even if he's WRONG), pay his own prices, do your best to assist him, and
be at peace?
Speaking as a businessman, it really does seem like the way to go.
------------
"C'mon, you sons of bitches, you
want to live forever?"
-First Sergeant Dan Daly, 1918
------------
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