Posted By:
Hal Lewis"Loser Pays" really doesn't work well in our system.
What if I sue you and say that you owe me $100,000... but the jury decides in the end that I was only entitled to $1?
Did I really "win"?
Should I get ALL of my attorney's fees paid for a $1 lawsuit??
NO.
BUT... if we had "loser pays"... then there would be even MORE lawsuits because lawyers would file suit in even the smallest cases and bill a ton of hours just to try and get the other side to pay.
With contingency fees... no lawyer worth his salt is going to file suit on a $1 case... because his fee would be $0.33 in the end.
In fact...
there are certain areas of our law where even a $1 verdict DOES entitle someone to receive their attorney's fees (I believe Discrimination Cases are one of these)...
and those areas see a lot of frivilous cases for that very reason.