Issue Brief
You maybe thinking to yourself “who cares if attorneys fees are limited”. Well think again. The majority of people in this country cannot afford to pay an attorney on an hourly basis. In a complex product liability case an attorney can spend countless hours. What happens is that attorneys will front all of the costs of a lawsuit in exchange for a percentage of the recovery.
Wisconsin is at it again. They tried to pass a bill that would prevent consumers from suing Big Pharma if their product as FDA approved. Now they want to limit attorney’s fees. This limit will prevent attorneys from taking small cases. The bill was introduced after a car owner sued a dealership over $5000.00 in unauthorized repairs. The car owner won $12,500 and the attorney representing the car owner racked up $151,250 in legal fees and $5,284 in costs. While this may seem excessive, consider this – the case went through discovery, trial, appeal and almost trial again. A HUGE amount of time and effort went into this case.
So at the end of everything, once the attorney produces his product (just like anyone else) we are told “sorry we are deciding that your product is not worth that much.” Consider that in your own life. You are going to work everyday. On every other Friday the boss can say to you “your productivity was down this week, so we are only going to pay you half of your salary.” Sounds good right?
Read more about this here.