Propensity to Sue in England and the United States of America:
Blaming and Claiming in Tort Cases
By Herbert M. Kritzer
In this article, Kritzer takes an in-depth look at the likelihood that Americans will file suit in comparison to the litigiousness of the English culture. While the findings do determine that Americans are more likely to go to court because they associate injury/harm done by others with compensation, the degree to which we sue is not much greater than our neighbors from across the pond.
While I was able to come to this conclusion, I found it to be a very rocky road in getting there. I don’t know whether I simply couldn’t comprehend aspects of this article or whether or not the argument wasn’t effective enough, but I found it difficult to make sense of Kritzer findings until he summarized everything. The statistics were presented in rather confusing way, and he tended to make statements that seemed rather contradictory.
For example, on page 414, Kritzer, begins a paragraph: “Regardless of the kinds of comparisons I make, the claiming rates in England exceed those in the United States.”
This seemed to be a bit surprising to me. Then, right at the very bottom of the paragraph, Kritzer says: “However, even ignoring this element of difference, there is a lower claiming rate across the board in England than in the United States.” Huh. That wasn’t what you said a minute ago. Statements like this, coupled with a seemingly endless list of statistics and repetitive legal rhetoric just confused the hell out of me throughout this piece, though I was able to gather and agree with his conclusion that our culture in general is more likely to attribute blame to others than the English, and that we tend to associate blame with compensation. But I guess it was tough for me to get there.
Blaming and Claiming in Tort Cases
By Herbert M. Kritzer
In this article, Kritzer takes an in-depth look at the likelihood that Americans will file suit in comparison to the litigiousness of the English culture. While the findings do determine that Americans are more likely to go to court because they associate injury/harm done by others with compensation, the degree to which we sue is not much greater than our neighbors from across the pond.
While I was able to come to this conclusion, I found it to be a very rocky road in getting there. I don’t know whether I simply couldn’t comprehend aspects of this article or whether or not the argument wasn’t effective enough, but I found it difficult to make sense of Kritzer findings until he summarized everything. The statistics were presented in rather confusing way, and he tended to make statements that seemed rather contradictory.
For example, on page 414, Kritzer, begins a paragraph: “Regardless of the kinds of comparisons I make, the claiming rates in England exceed those in the United States.”
This seemed to be a bit surprising to me. Then, right at the very bottom of the paragraph, Kritzer says: “However, even ignoring this element of difference, there is a lower claiming rate across the board in England than in the United States.” Huh. That wasn’t what you said a minute ago. Statements like this, coupled with a seemingly endless list of statistics and repetitive legal rhetoric just confused the hell out of me throughout this piece, though I was able to gather and agree with his conclusion that our culture in general is more likely to attribute blame to others than the English, and that we tend to associate blame with compensation. But I guess it was tough for me to get there.
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