Thank you again for the response.

I have to say that you lost me when you said “In KY, you are forced to sue people based on rumors and possibilities to meet an unrealistically short deadline for taking legal action.”

I don’t think that a year is “unrealistically short.”

I would offer the old adage of “justice delayed is justice denied,” but I know you know that one.

In the recesses of my mind, I think that the delay of more than a year in merely filing a lawsuit results in more billable hours rather than an actual hard wall deadline that is impossible to meet. Yet as you have been kind and cordial in this discussion, I will keep that thought to myself as I don’t want to insult you.

Bob

One fact is the applicable statute of limitations. In TN we have only one year to file suit. Now, there is a special provision in the law (which I helped draft) to extend the deadline for filing suit if the defendant blames a non-party to the litigation. This is a good rule – it makes it unnecessary for plaintiffs to file suit against those who might be responsible, allowing them to wait to see who the defendant blames.

But that is not true in KY. In KY you have one year to file suit in PI and WD cases and if the defendant later asserts fault against someone else you the plaintiff is left holding the bag. In KY, you are forced to sue people based on rumors and possibilities to meet an unrealistically short deadline for taking legal action.

But, as I said, I don’t know the law in CA. If the plaintiff had plenty of time to file suit against Telsa I don’t know why the suit was filed against Telsa at this time.

Boblipton – whether a claim or defense is frivolous is readily defined by extensive case law.

Thank you for the response.

I can understand the plaintiffs suing Tesla if as you and others have said, the defendant points to Tesla and assigns some or all the blame to Tesla.

My problem is that when the plaintiffs file the lawsuit, they don’t know what the defendant is going to claim as a defense. They may have an inkling of the defense, but for all the plaintiffs know the driver is going to claim there was a light from a black helicopter that blinded the driver whose tin foil hat sold by 7-11 was not properly made by Reynolds Aluminum. (And they didn’t sue Reynolds or 7-11 as far as I aware.)

To me, at issue is the idea that the plaintiffs sue everyone no matter whether they actually can prove anything in order to bring other parties into the lawsuit just in case the defendants claim another party had anything to do with the accident.

To me, it seems fundamentally wrong to have a lawsuit plopped in front of someone because someone may or may not claim you contributed to the accident.

If the plaintiffs want to add Tesla after the defendant’s response in order that the defendant can’t “point to an empty chair,” that is fine. Until the defendant does that, the plaintiffs suing Tesla seems wrong in a scatter gun or shotgun where they are just firing at random is wrong.

That’s Tesla. Your average guy confronted with a frivolous claim like this has neither the resources nor inclination to get involved with this sort of bs. Instead of having some recourse to this legal mugging of reputations, your idea of how to deal with it is to wait until the whole thing settles out and then a bunch of lawyers go into a back room, wink at each other and come out again.

Bob

But the recourse most people recommend is to punish the plaintiff and his lawyer who, under Tennessee law, have no realistic alternative but to add Telsa to the case and permit the defendant driver to try to prove his case. (I don’t know about CA law so I cannot comment if such a course of action would be required there.) This was not true twenty years ago – TN had joint and several liability, and when defendants made outrageous claims about the fault of others a plaintiff could and often would choose to ignore them. Today, several liability governs, and an unintended consequence of such a law is that defendants have an incentive to blame others and plaintiffs are forced to sue the newly-blamed to prevent “empty chair” liability. Thus, I have seen defendants now make arguments on the liability of others that most plaintiff’s lawyers would be ashamed to make.

Bob

I am having problems following the logic here.

It seems that you are saying that the plaintiff should sue Tesla not because they believe that Tesla is guilty of anything but rather because the car driver is going to blame Tesla in court.

I see that as Tesla being dragged into court not because there is an actual case against them, but because of a legal strategy by someone who is looking to shift the blame for their actions or inactions.

Are we really at the point were we are defending the idea of a lawsuit being not a surgical instrument of justice, but rather a shotgun looking to spread mayhem and carnage at every turn?