Week 9

So I am officially more than halfway through my first semester. I finished my last midterm on Saturday! Woohoo!

Last week I learned all about car insurance policies in my torts class. And I would definitely NOT ever get my own policy just because it is cheap. The way that car insurance companies can make insurance cheap is by not covering you for some things. The terms in my policy were very specific as to what was covered and let me tell you coverages are NOT the same...Like my policy would pay out if my family member was injured in the accident but other policies might only pay out for the insured driver listed specifically on the policy. Some policies cover accidents that other drivers have while driving your car but others say tough luck and they won’t cover because you don’t have permission to let someone else drive your car with your insurance. If nothing else that class taught me to read my policy in depth...I am happy with State Farm's policy and in comparison to some other big companies I think I have good coverage. I also learned that insurance companies are not very interested in giving you a copy of the policy. In general it has to be fought for because the insurance company is suspicious as to why you would want it. That really bugs me because when I pay for a service I should have access to any and all contracts that I have entered into. A few of my classmates asked for their policies at the end of August and still hadn't received them. It took a few times of asking for me to even get mine! I know now that when I have to get my own insurance I will be able to ask specific questions about the policies and make sure that I am really getting what I think I am getting.

I also learned a little about wills and trusts. I basically know how to ensure that my money won’t be used to pay debts once I am dead. I will learn a lot more when I take the actual class (which I am very excited about now) but it was helpful to have a basic idea of what to do.

My torts class is starting to make me VERY aware of what could happen if someone gets hurt on my property or by my actions. I can see torts everywhere!! We discussed wrongful death the other day and how much someone’s life can be turned upside down if they are involved in an accident where someone dies. I am soo much more aware of how I act in any given situation just because of this class.

Contracts is still one of my favorite classes. There are things about contracts that are essential to know but you would never know them until it is too late. Most people never read the fine print and those who do probably don't understand what it means. I realize that it will be my job to ensure that my clients know what they are getting into but often times the people most affected will be coming to me for help after the contract has already been signed. Anyone who has said the world needs fewer lawyers obviously had no idea what they were talking about. If anything more people should get a legal education!

The one thing I learned that is most helpful and scary is the misconception about Good Samaritan laws. I hear it all the time: If you help someone in good faith you are not going to be held liable. This is not entirely true! In fact its usually the opposite...If you help someone you could be held liable for wrongful death or for making the injury worse.

The statute in Wisconsin is
895.48 Civil liability exemption; emergency medical
care.
(1) Any person who renders emergency care at the scene
of any emergency or accident in good faith shall be immune from
civil liability for his or her acts or omissions in rendering such
emergency care.

At first glance it looks like this says you can't be held liable if you act in good faith. However, it actually says that there must be an emergency, the emergency care must happen at the scene of the emergency, AND the emergency care must be in good faith. This turns into a three prong "and" test that means you can be held liable if one of the three is not met. If I had read this statute 3 months ago I would have assumed that as long as I was trying to help someone I wouldn’t be held liable for wrongful death or increased injury. Just knowing that I might be sued I will probably think twice before I help someone.

The fact that I now have a legal background, I understand a lot more when I read a statute and that is why I really think a legal education is so important for everyone. Even if it is just a class or two in high school that explains what it means when you enter a contract and also stops the most common misconceptions that people have about laws and statutes. There really needs to be a class on common laws that are applicable in most states if not a class that is dedicated to teaching Wisconsin laws.

It’s a fact that we live in a "sue happy" country and while I might agree with every lawsuit I also know that the justice system is not honor based. People don’t tend to turn themselves in when they do something wrong and there needs to be a method for people to get what they deserve. It is easy to say that the woman who was burned by the McDonalds coffee should not have been awarded any money but once you read the case and hear both sides you start to think that she should have been awarded more. The lawsuit looks frivolous but it really wasn't. The woman wanted to settle with McDonalds for her 3rd degree burns for a very small amount and McDonalds basically laughed at her and it turned out that McDonald's coffee was so hot that it caused the 3rd degree burns through sweatpants in a few seconds and to top it off no other fast food place served their coffee as hot. The killer was that the CEO of McDonalds basically said on the stand that he wouldn't lower the temperature of the coffee and that he didn't care how many more people were burned as a result. The woman was initally awarded the coffee sales from one (maybe two) days of business for McDonalds which was over 1 million dollars. Then the judge lowered the awarded amount to 600,000 and I am guessing the lawsuit costs took a huge chunk of that. Also McDonalds tried to claim that they didn't know their coffee was too hot and it turned out that the woman's lawyer had settled a McDonalds hot coffee spill case a few years earlier and had found over 700 cases on file of people being burned by the coffee. McDonalds got what they were asking for but I do agree that she should have been more careful with her hot coffee. It is hard to be objective though when the ceo says he doesnt care how many people get burned.

I hope this week leads to more interesting school related stories so I dont have to go research what I want to write...(I will admit that I spent half the time it took me to write this looking up the Wisconsin statute. But mainly because I then looked at court cases and tried to figure out what exactly was meant by emergency for my own knowledge)