When I compare the society where I was raised (India) to where I am living currently (UK), one thing I have experienced here is that we are over obsessed with litigation. While in India, one is not too keen on resorting to litigation and would do everything in his control to avoid opting for it, primarily because of inefficiencies of the judicial system there, I think the west, as a society is over obsessed with litigation.
Let me give you some examples, which are my own experiences.
Someone once parked his van in front of my house and did not move it for 2 days. Finally, out of frustration I just put a note on the car that if in future it was found on my parking, I will have to deflate the tires (on the lines of few warnings which I have seen like vehicle will be towed away etc etc). Next thing, which happened, is that I get a call from police saying that I have threatened this guy of violence and he is thinking of suing me for damages! And having come from a ‘not-so-litigation-loving’ country, I had to call that guy and express apologies.
Recently my friend told an interesting case at workplace where he could not keep up the promise made to customer so he was writing an apologetic mail when his manager came to know about it. And whereever he has mentioned ‘I apologise’ he replaced it with ‘ I regret’. The reason quoted by manager was that it could lead to – what else, litigation!
Another friend told me a rather sad incident wherein few friends were in a boat enjoying sunny day when suddenly their boat was hit by a huge wave and one of the person got some injuries. The boat owner took best care of his injured friend and after 3 years he got the shock of his life – his injured friend had sued him for damages!
This leads to the question – while in developing countries people abuse the judicial system for its inefficiency, are people abusing the judicial system in the west for its efficiency?
Is everything, including the business and personal relationships being too much driven by the fear of litigations? Can we have honest relationships in such situations where a friend sues you because he was riding your boat when he met an accident? Are businesses being hypocritical about ‘customer being the king’ when they can’t even ‘apologise’ to their customers because they might got sued by ‘litigation happy’ customers? And is this all happening because judicial system is very efficient here or is it just one more ways of making individual gains at the cost of collective failure as a society where no relationship is beyond short term profitability?
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2 comments:
While I don't disagree with you, what you fail to mention is a proposed change that may be brought about to rectify something that you see as a problem.
I think once you delve into the issue of defining when is it right or not, it will be a hard one to specify.
Also, there are some benefits of this litigation culture.
A way fwd I see is to
a) allow the system to be used(or abused as you perceive it),
b) gather information (hindsight) over time and then
c) at a suitable time in future the legal authorities review that and try and
...oops pressed enter before I completed that. Hopefully you git the gist of what I was saying. :)
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