Instant jackpot

The very best and the very worst in people are revealed during times of misery and devastation. Even while Hurricane Katrina battered New Orleans, human jackals could be seen ravaging the property of evacuated homes and stores. These thieves operated outside the law to benefit themselves and add to the suffering of others. After the hurricane, however, another form of human jackal worked within the law to add to the suffering.

Two weeks after Hurricane Katrina flooded New Orleans, there was a flood of litigators hoping to mop up from the misery. Their plans were to target real estate agents, insurance companies and federal agencies. The potential damages range from thousands to billions of dollars—with much of it going into the pockets of lawyers who promote the lawsuits.

One of the perks we enjoy living in the Commonwealth is that it is practically devoid of callous telemarketers, obnoxious door-to-door salespeople, and unscrupulous lawyers who use raucous ads to attract accident victims. In a 1972 survey by the American Bar Association, 70 percent of U.S. citizens did not have a lawyer and they did not even know how to find one. Today in the U.S. it is almost impossible to escape the tasteless ads of lawyers on TV, newspapers, billboards, and full-page Yellow Page ads incessantly broadcasting their mantra of “sue unto others before they sue onto you.”

It is estimated that there are over one million lawyers in America—give or take a few thousand. The U.S. represents only 5 percent of the world’s population, yet it is estimated that we have between 70 to 75 percent of the world’s total number of lawyers—about one lawyer for every 300 individuals. Supreme Court Justice, Charles Evans Hughes said, “The United States is the greatest law factory the world has ever known.”

F. Lee Bailey, a well-known attorney, once commented: “The public regards lawyers with great distrust. They think lawyers are smarter than the average guy but use their intelligence deviously. Well, they’re wrong. Usually they’re not smarter.”

When individuals have an accident, or after a manmade or natural disaster there will be plenty of people looking to lay the fault on someone with deep pockets. Corporate America spends hundreds of billion dollars each year on litigation costs and efforts to avoid liability. Product innovation has been drastically reduced because of liability concerns. If you are old enough, you may remember when it was unusual to find a pool without a diving board, and almost every playground had a teeter totter. They are practically non-existent today. Fear of being sued has also curtailed innovation and ingenuity, the cornerstones of America’s entrepreneurial drive. In addition, the cost of almost all goods and services has increased to absorb the increasing cost of rampant litigation.

Lawyers have their purpose, and there are many good individuals who practice law to represent their clients in legitimate situations and provide valuable assistance. However, as the economy goes south, those who are down on their luck will try to find ways to make a quick buck by following their counterparts in the United States. Be assured that anyone can sue anybody over anything at anytime. One lawyer told us that when times are good in the CNMI, his business does well, and when times are bad, business is still good—although the work is not as fun because it involves more lawsuits.

As a businessperson you are in trouble if you don’t have insurance, and in trouble if you do. The bigger your insurance policy is, the more it acts as chum to stir the waters full of lawsuit-happy lawyers and their clients. When times get tough, as they surely will in the CNMI, people will get more creative in their ability to think of ways to sue others.

We’ll close with this comment from Fred Rodell, professor of Law at Yale University: “It is lawyers who run our civilization for us—our governments, our businesses, our private lives. …We cannot buy a home or rent an apartment, we cannot get married or try to get divorced, we cannot leave our property to our children without calling on the lawyers to guide us. To guide us, incidentally, through a maze of confusing gestures and formalities that lawyers have created. …The legal trade, in short, is nothing but a high-class racket.”

Review the risk your business presents, carry adequate insurance, find a seasoned lawyer to represent you, and try to reduce your liability as much as possible so your business doesn’t sponsor the CNMI’s next instant jackpot winner from a frivolous lawsuit.

(Rik is a business instructor at NMC and Janel is the owner of Positively Outrageous Results. They can be contacted at: biz_results@yahoo.com)