“Men are most apt to believe what they least understand.”
~ Michel Eyquem de Montaigne (1533-1592), French Philosopher and Essayist
Archive for February, 2009:
Frivolous Lawsuits
We often hear about “frivolous lawsuits” burdening our court dockets. This is just overblown media hype; frivolous claims are prohibited under Ohio law, and are very rare.
RC 2323.51 (effective 2001) prohibits frivolous conduct of any kind in the filing of a civil action. ”Frivolous conduct” is defined in the statute as follows:
- Conduct that serves merely to harass or maliciously injure another party, or is for another improper purpose;
- Conduct that is not warranted under existing law, cannot be supported by a good faith argument for a change of existing law, or for the establishment of new law;
- Allegations that have no evidentiary support or are not likely to have evidentiary support after a reasonable opportunity for further investigation or discovery.
So the next time someone tells you that we need to crack down on frivolous lawsuits, tell them we already did, about a decade ago.
Uninsured/Underinsured Motorist Coverage: What is it?
Suppose you are injured in an auto accident caused by the negligence of another driver, and the driver at fault does not have automobile liability insurance. Hopefully, in this situation, you bought uninsured motorist (UM) coverage when you obtained your own automobile insurance. If so, you are entitled to recover your damages from your own insurance company, under the uninsured motorist coverage.
Now suppose the driver at fault has insurance, but only has the state minimum coverage, $12,500 per person, $25,000 per accident. If your claim is worth more than $12,500, the driver at fault is underinsured. Hopefully, in this situation, you bought underinsured motorist coverage (sometimes referred to as UIM or UDM coverage), which will pick up where the liability coverage leaves off. If, for example, your UM coverage limit is $50,000 per person, you can recover your damages up to that limit: $12,500 from the liability carrier; $37,500 from your UM carrier.
Bottom line: UM coverage is very good coverage to have. And believe it or not, it’s not that expensive, so get it if you can, and ask your agent how much you should have.
The Gettysburg Address
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate-we can not consecrate-we can not hallow-this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced.
It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us-that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion-that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain-that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom-and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
~ A. Lincoln
