Pointing the finger
Posted under Witterings
Round and round, this way that way, ducking and diving and pointing the finger….HE DID IT….HE DID IT!! That’s my definition of litigation, you won’t find it in any legal dictionary but I think it sums it up in a suitably pithy way – don’t you think?
I appreciate this is a million miles away from the random crap insightful commentary that usually fills my blog. But I’ve been at work today and, apparently, they won’t pay me for dressing up and playing with my funnies. Sigh.
I spent the afternoon researching and writing about developments in the litigation funding market which is about as much fun as it sounds. Should you need to know, litigation funding is getting someone else to pay for you to sue someone else for a slice of any money that you might or might not get. Doesn’t sound very ethical does it, bit seedy. And it’s not just those personal injury claims either (“Have you had an injury at work?”…those adverts you see on the TV)…last week the law lords handed down their judgment in a £70million professional negligence claim against a firm of auditors, the largest ever case funded by a third party in the UK.
The case was brought by the creditors of a trading company who claimed that the company’s auditors were allegedly to blame for its collapse, by failing to spot that a massive fraud was going on. “Ha!”, said their Lordships whilst admiring their wigs in a way to taunt me, ‘Ex turpi causa non oritur actio’ (bless you!) and laughed at the creditors and their money grubbing third party funders out of court whilst the auditors breathed a big sigh of relief and used all their fingers and toes to calculate their legal bill. ‘Ex turpi causa non oritur actio’ basically means that you can’t bring a claim based on your own criminal conduct. In this case, the creditors (or, more accurately for the pedants out there, the liquidators since we don’t allow class actions in the UK…yet) couldn’t bring a claim for damages when it was the company itself that was responsible for the fraud. Pretty heady stuff hey? Still with me?
So, litigation funding is no longer the preserve of the ambulance tailgate chasers, it’s gone mainstream, and it’s big business. It’s also pretty much unregulated but that’s a whole other issue. Right now, they can’t even decide WHO is going to regulate this rapidly evolving and huge market…never mind how they are going to do it given that it consists of a complex blend of insurance, finance and the law. Is it me…or is that a disaster waiting to happen? Haven’t we learnt yet that ‘light’ (or non existent) regulation can come round and bite us on the bum?
Anywhooo…whilst reading around the subject [Carrie Bradshaw] I got to thinking [/Carrie Bradshaw] about culpability and the culture of blame we have created. This is especially poignant in these credit crunched times with financial collapse and personal ruin all around us; someone has to be responsible, someone needs to take the blame, someone needs to say sorry and pay up. We are all in the gutter, it’s just that some of us are pointing the finger…or something along those lines.
I’m generalising in a wildly dangerous way here…but why does it always have to be someone’s fault? Because sometimes, just sometimes, surely it’s no one’s fault… it’s a chain of events, a collective omission or oversight or just plain old bad luck that is to blame. Of course I’m not referring to criminal acts like murder, rape and the like. But in the case I outlined above, the creditors needed someone to blame because they wanted their money back (and who wouldn’t)…so they blamed the auditors…who blamed the company and said they couldn’t be held accountable for the actions of a determined criminal…who said he was having a bad hair day and it wasn’t his fault anyway etc etc.
Finger pointing. We all do it…my boys have started telling lies and blaming wrong deeds on the other. ‘Who did that?’, I hear myself say about ten times a day…knowing I’m unlikely to get to the bottom of it. Next time A Wrong Doing is done and no one will own up and I’m going to get me an army of lawyers, a third party funder (or, spice it up, some After The Event insurance) and one of those big, foam, pointy fingers. And a wig. Oh yes, there will be a wig.
Here endeth the dull lesson. Normal lunacy will be resumed tomorrow. On which note, I wasn’t lying when I said I can’t handle it when people use my stuff without asking. And look what those minxes in the office have done to my stapler since I was last there….it’s a rubbish photo, it reads ‘Judith’s: Don’t Steal me!’ in my writing and they have ‘hilariously’ added, “We moved you four times. Evil laugh”
I didn’t really understand the litigation stuff, my brain is tired or should that be retired. Please don’t put me in the grudge book but I laughed at the stapler being moved 4 times.x
Did you heard of that American who sued her College because she hadn’t found a job after graduating? It was on the BBC a couple of days ago!
I can’t believe I actually read and understood (I think) all of that!
You just reminded me why I went to pharmacy school and not law school! Thank you! By the way, I really didn’t understand much of what you said, but it could have been all those “whilst” words you threw in there to confuse me.
And, just fyi, I live in Madison County which has had the most tort cases won here. And a lot of lawyers getting super rich. And I’m not married to a lawyer either.
No wonder you need to clown around! I had a friend in acting who became a trial lawyer. She said there wasn’t much difference, she just got paid a lot better. She’s in therapy, suffering from depression…I wonder why? Bless you. I pray you love what you do, we need everyone to pull together now more than ever!
Exactly! Exactly-exactly-exactly! Why is this so hard for so much of the world to understand? It Is Not Always Someone Else’s Fault.
Whew! I feel better.
This is a serious question. Do lawyers (or judges) still wear wigs in England? Well? Do they? And, I don’t mean swishy blond ones either.
Sadly I was interested in the outcome of the legal case. As a now-ex Auditor involved in the disciplining of Accountants it is rather relevant to me. And I COMPLETELY agree with your comments about it not always being someones fault, although I do wish some of the complainants I deal with could accept that!
But on the more serious matter – how irritating is it when people steal your stapler??! I hate it. I used to lock things in my drawers when I went on holiday to make sure I had things to use when I returned. As to when I went on maternity leave……….It was a similar scrummage to those seen at Take That concerts to see who would get custody of my stapler while I was away!
To the people who didn’t understand it…fret not, i barely understood it LOL!! Anyway, the stapler tale is way more interesting.
My blog looks weird, I messed with the settings without MrSpud’s supervision and now the text has gone all small and squished. Gah.
….playing with your funnies….
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
Yah.
Given I work in debt restructuring its good to see that creditors haven’t found a way to access deep pockets elsewhere yet – doesn’t caveat emptor still hold for debt ?
I bet there’s nothing left on my desk now … I had to leave in a hurry and never got around to nailing down all my precious stuff, sob
you are a total brainiac, spud, i was sure you had it in you, but i didn’t know if you’d blog it. you go girl!
at our house, blame is immediately assessed. at all times. it’s a way of life. clearly what we need is a 3rd party…
Finally someone was able to say it. Not everything is due to just one person. Sometimes it’s a serious of events caused by several people unintentionally causing a certain event. No one’s fault, it just happened. Great blog post!