Episode 04: Tort Perspectives - How Events Can Change a Life
One of the oft-overlooked questions between attorney and client in the context of civil litigation is the question: ‘What are you hoping to achieve?’ Surprisingly, this question often goes unasked, and even when asked, the answer is not always clear. Even so, it’s an important question aimed at a simple point: What do we hope for when we try to fix the past?
It can be said that the whole purpose of law, in the broadest sense, is to ‘fix’ things. Transactional law exists to fix [in place] the rights and responsibilities of transacting parties. Trial law exists to redress wrongs — quite literally to ‘fix’ what has been broken. Along the way, there are a variety of questions having to do with causation, value, duty, deterrence, marginal utility and the like. But the first question — “what are you hoping for?” — is often the hardest to answer.
In this episode of Misjudged, we discuss two cases: One, the little known story of a simple tort; the other, the well-known and yet largely unresolved case of the Bhopal Gas Tragedy. These stories illustrate the weakness of the protections established for certain injuries, but more than this, they highlight the inherent inability of the law to turn back the clock, or to ever truly ‘fix’ what has been broken. Ultimately, this is one of the most important facts any attorney can share with their client. Regardless of the outcome of the client’s case — no matter how much richer they become, and no matter how much their circumstances are improved — it is important to remember that when all is said and done, life will be different, and never quite the same.
Do not say, “Why were the old days better than these?” for it is not wise to ask such questions. — Ecclesiastes 7:10
