Something about this seems wrong. Forget MORAL issues and stuff, it just doesn't make sense! If someone steals your car, and smashes it into Joe's Hardware Store, Joe has no basis on which to file a lawsuit against the dealership from which you purchased the car... right?!
It's a litigious society you have there. The lawyers will have their day in court, and charge for it. And they'll profit, win or lose.
Sounds to me like the guy wasn't adequately insured, but the legal system offers him a way out of his predicament and he needs to take it. It's a thriving and profitable business, this legal system thing.
It's hardly surprising - this is a place where a burglar can sue you for cutting himself on the glass from the window he broke in order to steal from you. It's where the record industry spends million suing college kids for sharing mp3s. Hell, it's the place where some halfwit spilled McD's coffee on herself and sued because she got burned. And she won, because McD's apparently should have had the foresight to warn her that the coffee may have been hot. It's a legal system that seems to reward idiocy & ruthlessness disproportionately.
Funny thought: Boeing, AA, UA, Continental and MassPort should countersue him stating that if his buildings weren't impeding the airspace through which the planes were directed, this wouldn't have happened.
One significant problem with the US legal system is that it does not generally require that "loser pays" court and opponent's costs (although this may sometimes be specifically ordered by the court; usually, as a result of a separate litigation). As a result, a lawsuit can be launched, with very little risk to the complainant, and large risk to the defendant, who often settles out-of-court, just to save money. A significantly problematic aspect of such a situation, is that a true resolution is never achieved. Malpractice cases are a particularly troublesome example of this: practitioners can get a reputation for being incompetent, because of being sued, with no opportunity for vindication, since the practitioner's malpractice insurance company settles. This has caused many doctors, especially, to get fed up and quit the profession.
There continue to be calls for "tort reform" legislation, including the establishment of a loser pays principle.
Proposals to implement such a principle, as generally applicable law, are contested with an assertion that this would make it impossible for poor people to "get justice," since it would be a big risk to sue - if they lose, they would have to pay court and defendant's costs - and they might tend to be unwilling to risk it.
Often, currently, lawyers will sue (for a complainant), on "contingency," meaning that it's basically free-of-charge for a complainant; if he loses, the lawyer eats his own costs, while having gambled that he can get a lot of money if he wins, or the defendant settles. If loser pays, were implemented, then there would be much more risk to the lawyer, if doing contingency, since if he loses, he has to eat both his own AND court and defense costs; therefore, lawyers wouldn't likely do contingency, and a poor complainant would be on his own, to take the risks, and would perhaps not sue, even if he supposedly thought that he was right.
Not this again - she sued because it was excessively hot, and as a way of getting out of getting sued again it was McD's who added the "WARNING Contents Hot" label.
How can a cup of coffee be excessively hot. You want a coffee, you want it straight out of the kettle/machine, and therefore it's going to be pretty close to boiling. Stupid woman.