Claiming Justice

Description

Carlos - a Honduran construction worker - got his leg mangled in a rock crusher. He will never be able to do physical labour again. His lawyer seeks a few million dollars in damages. Barbara - an anaesthesiologist - developed severe latex allergy from the use of latex gloves. She takes medicine but could easily die from any exposure to latex. Her lawsuit is part of a mass tort in which hundreds of latex allergy victims join forces in one product liability case. In the United States high-risk-high-reward legal battles are as common as Big Macs. In this equation, 'contingency fee lawyers' are a special breed. No-cure-no-pay is the name of their game. They advertise at every corner of the street to find personal injury victims. If the case is won, the lawyer gets a large chunk of the pie. If not, his clients walk away free of charge. But civil law suits are also soaring in Europe. And like Americans, European victims increasingly claim financial damages for their injuries. Personal injury lawyers are flooding the European scene to help them achieve their goal. No-cure-no-pay practices are also rapidly seeping into the Old World's legal systems. Is Europe heading towards the American system? To answer this question Claiming Justice portrays two pending cases in the United States. Furthermore one European and one American expert put this into a European context.

Runtime

53 minutes

Subjects

Genre

Database

Alexander Street

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