I am in litigation support. I have a project that I hope someone or
everyone on this list might be able to help me since you have
apparently been involved with water well drilling equipment or
involved in the industry. I am interested in any incident at anytime
since 1970 thru current. I am searching for those that were injured or
almost injured because of a falling or flying object. I am seeking
knowledge of incidents wherein injury has been suffered by anyone of a
water drilling crew member by a falling object even through to the
current time. I am also interested in reports of near misses as well.
Please feel free to call me at 1.800.308.7716 ext 4010.

Robert Townsend, CLI

RH tOWNSEND wrote:

I am in litigation support.

In other words you want the individuals in this newsgroup
to help you sue someone.

TORT REFORM PLEASE wrote:

RH tOWNSEND wrote:





I am in litigation support.



In other words you want the individuals in this newsgroup
to help you sue someone.


To quote Walter Matthau's line from some show who's name escapes me:

There are no other words. Those are the words.

(Or maybe it was a Jack Klugman line from "The Odd Couple TV series.)

Jeff

"RH tOWNSEND" skrev i en meddelelse
om...
I am in litigation support. I have a project that I hope someone or
everyone on this list might be able to help me since you have
apparently been involved with water well drilling equipment or
involved in the industry. I am interested in any incident at anytime
since 1970 thru current. I am searching for those that were injured or
almost injured because of a falling or flying object. I am seeking
knowledge of incidents wherein injury has been suffered by anyone of a
water drilling crew member by a falling object even through to the
current time. I am also interested in reports of near misses as well.
Please feel free to call me at 1.800.308.7716 ext 4010.

Robert Townsend, CLI

Heres an impressive one for you:

Geothermal borehole exploded in the Krysuvik area in Iceland.. Most likely
due to rising preassure or component faliu

Pictures he http://www.hot-springs.org/myndir.htm
http://www.os.is/krysuvik/myndir.html

The explosion threw grey mud up to 700 meters away from the blast point..

I dont know if anyone was hurt in the blast, but I definately wouldnt want
to be around an explosion like that..

You may want to use the emailadresses on the sites to get more precise
information..

I can guess / translate some of the icelandic language, but I cant do
anything precise with it..

/peter

RH tOWNSEND wrote:
I am in litigation support. I have a project that I hope someone or
everyone on this list might be able to help me since you have
apparently been involved with water well drilling equipment or
involved in the industry. I am interested in any incident at anytime
since 1970 thru current. I am searching for those that were injured or
almost injured because of a falling or flying object. I am seeking
knowledge of incidents wherein injury has been suffered by anyone of a
water drilling crew member by a falling object even through to the
current time. I am also interested in reports of near misses as well.
Please feel free to call me at 1.800.308.7716 ext 4010.

Robert Townsend, CLI

The most common incidents IIRC, were those involving heavy pump
components striking visiting personal injury lawyers on the top of the
head. Many times the lawyers were assisted in maintaining the proper
position in relation to the falling objects.....

How can you hit a lawyer in the head, when they always have there head up
their collective ass's.
gary

"Bob Robinson" wrote in message
...
RH tOWNSEND wrote:
I am in litigation support. I have a project that I hope someone or
everyone on this list might be able to help me since you have
apparently been involved with water well drilling equipment or
involved in the industry. I am interested in any incident at anytime
since 1970 thru current. I am searching for those that were injured or
almost injured because of a falling or flying object. I am seeking
knowledge of incidents wherein injury has been suffered by anyone of a
water drilling crew member by a falling object even through to the
current time. I am also interested in reports of near misses as well.
Please feel free to call me at 1.800.308.7716 ext 4010.

Robert Townsend, CLI

The most common incidents IIRC, were those involving heavy pump
components striking visiting personal injury lawyers on the top of the
head. Many times the lawyers were assisted in maintaining the proper
position in relation to the falling objects.....

Lots of lubricant?

||How can you hit a lawyer in the head, when they always have there head up
||their collective ass's.
||gary
||
||"Bob Robinson" wrote in message
.. .
|| RH tOWNSEND wrote:
|| I am in litigation support. I have a project that I hope someone or
|| everyone on this list might be able to help me since you have
|| apparently been involved with water well drilling equipment or
|| involved in the industry. I am interested in any incident at anytime
|| since 1970 thru current. I am searching for those that were injured or
|| almost injured because of a falling or flying object. I am seeking
|| knowledge of incidents wherein injury has been suffered by anyone of a
|| water drilling crew member by a falling object even through to the
|| current time. I am also interested in reports of near misses as well.
|| Please feel free to call me at 1.800.308.7716 ext 4010.
||
|| Robert Townsend, CLI
||
|| The most common incidents IIRC, were those involving heavy pump
|| components striking visiting personal injury lawyers on the top of the
|| head. Many times the lawyers were assisted in maintaining the proper
|| position in relation to the falling objects.....
||
||
||
||

Texas Parts Guy

"Gary Owens" wrote in message
...
How can you hit a lawyer in the head, when they always have there head up
their collective ass's.
gary


What do you call 500 lawyers at the bottom of the ocean?.
..A good start!

Rex B wrote:
Lots of lubricant?

That gave me an aweful mental image.

On Wed, 28 Jul 2004 22:32:34 +0200, "Q" wrote:

I can guess / translate some of the icelandic language, but I cant do
anything precise with it..

Yes, learning the Icelandic language.... the second thing I'd
recommend to a "litigation support" spammer.

Wayne

On Wed, 28 Jul 2004 22:41:34 -0400, Jonathan Ward wrote:

||Rex B wrote:
|| Lots of lubricant?
||
||That gave me an aweful mental image.

Me too, had to share it
Texas Parts Guy

wrote in message
om...
(RH tOWNSEND) wrote in message
. com...
I am in litigation support. I have a project that I hope someone or
everyone on this list might be able to help me since you have
apparently been involved with water well drilling equipment or
involved in the industry. I am interested in any incident at anytime
since 1970 thru current. I am searching for those that were injured or
almost injured because of a falling or flying object. I am seeking
knowledge of incidents wherein injury has been suffered by anyone of a
water drilling crew member by a falling object even through to the
current time. snip

================================================== ===========
With or without product liability, people will still be injured and
killed when using any type of mechanism, even fire or a stone axe.

Product liability cases are generally taken on a contingency basis.
This means that a good attorney will carefully examine the
circumstances and will take a case only if it appears the [potential]
plaintiff has at least a plausible action, i. e. the plaintiff is not
primarily responsible for their own injuries and some proximate
assignable cause exists.

While we all like to hate lawyers, it is good to remember that «
product liability » is simply the « iron fist » inside the « velvet
glove » of the invisible hand of the much touted « free market. »

While product liability litigation is perceived to be a major PITA,
never-the-less it appears to be the only way to beat common sense into
individuals, companies and corporations that are too cheap, too stupid
and (mainly) too arrogant to change their products when field
experience clearly indicates an ongoing, immediate and unreasonable
danger.

Without product liability litigation, the direct and consequential
costs of such injuries are born entirely by the unfortunate victims,
their immediate families, and society-at-large, unless traditional «
extra-legal » proceedings such as assassination or extortion of the
parties thought to be responsible occur. There are several problems
with this (other than the moral ones). (1) The vic (or their
representative) is never sure they are getting the party actually
responsible, and in the case of a corporation, « there ain’t
nobody home » to hit. (2) They have to be strong/ruthless enough to
carry out the retribution. (3) Products never or only very slowly
improve. (4) Society-at-large must still absorb most of the
considerable cost because of reduced earnings by and public assistance
to the victims, etc., i.e. revenge rather than compensation is
obtained.

When actual cases are examined, rather then relying on media hype and
sensation, (which should be suspect as most major media outlets are
now owned by mega- corporations) it is clear that in almost all
product liability cases (assuming defendant liability), large
compensatory and consequential damages are only awarded when the
plaintiff is substantially and possibly totally disabled, normally had
and will suffer excruciating pain, and will require around-the-clock
care. == Failure to make such awards does not eliminate the
expenses involved, but simply transfers the costs from the responsible
entity to society-at-large because of public assistance, Medicare,
etc., payments.

Large punitive damages are very seldom awarded the first time a
product liability case goes to trial, unless gross incompetence and/or
egregious/malicious behavior can be proven. Indeed, the responsible
entity generally gets multiple « bites at the apple » before
significant punitive damages are awarded. As the intention of
punitive damages is to « get someone’s attention » these must be
extremely high to accomplish this with companies or corporations with
large incomes. For example, for the typical US adult with 30,000$US
annual income a 5,000$US fine is about 1/6 of their gross annual
income. For a corporation making 10 billion $US per year, the
equivalent prorated amount of 1/6 of annual income would be
1,600,000$US. When parity purchasing power [PPP] (1 additional dollar
to a person making 10,000$ per year is worth much more than 1
additional dollar to a person making 50,000$ per year) is considered,
the award must be even higher to have equivalent perceptive effect. I
am not aware of any product liability case (other than a few class
action suits with tens of thousands of plaintiffs) where such an award
has been made and upheld.

In the case of accidents resulting from water well drilling activities
and/or equipment, it may be there is no product liability exposure,
however if it is like most activities, considerable unnecessary and
avoidable risk exists because of the failure of the equipment
manufacturer and/or owner-operator to remedy known existing faults or
deficiencies and/or apply newly available techniques (such as finite
element analysis) and materials.

The choice is not between costs/expenses or no costs/expenses
resulting from industrial accidents, but *WHO IS TO BEAR THE COSTS*:
Society-at-large and to a smaller extend the victims and their
immediate families, or the individuals and organizations who profited
from the manufacture and operation of the equipment which resulted in
the accidents. Its your choice and your (tax) money.

For the record, I am not a lawyer (and never played one on TV). I
spent 30 years as an engineer and QC manager in automotive and
heavy-duty truck component manufacturing before recycling myself into
academia.

Unfortunately this analysis ignores the billions taken out in the process in
attorney fees as well as the deep pockets concept where the small individual
directly responsible for the accident is bypassed in favor of the larger,
frequently blameless, entity with money. Or the jurors who use the same PPP
concept as you and conclude that the plaintiff was 99% at fault but they
need to be compensated by the "Evil Corporation" since it won't really cost
the EC anything anyway.

I used to work for an insurance claims adjusting firm and I think among my
all-time favorites was the home owner whose three year old thought the
ceiling fan blades going around was fascinating. So the guy holds the kid
up over his head who promptly holds his hand up and gets it broken when the
next blade comes around. Filed a lawsuit, our insured had us settle to make
them go away. Exactly where was the "cheapness, stupidity or arrogance" of
the ceiling fan manufacturer?

Steve.

Who, being from North Carolina, watched John Edwards become an EXTREMELY
wealthy man chasing ambulances, then buy himself a seat in the Senate on a
platform of promises impossible to verify since he had no voting record, who
is now possibly going to become Vice President after spending almost his
entire Senate career running for higher office and STILL not having much of
a voting record and not doing a damned thing for his constituents.

wmbjk wrote:

Yes, learning the Icelandic language.... the second thing I'd
recommend to a "litigation support" spammer.

Sentence him to 5 years in Iceland. Consider: According to a reliable
source (my wife), if you accidentally leave your camera on a park bench
and come back in a couple hours, it will still be there.

Ted

Ted Edwards wrote:
wmbjk wrote:


Yes, learning the Icelandic language.... the second thing I'd
recommend to a "litigation support" spammer.


Sentence him to 5 years in Iceland. Consider: According to a reliable
source (my wife), if you accidentally leave your camera on a park bench
and come back in a couple hours, it will still be there.

Ted


That's because it's frozen solid to the bench...BG

In article , SteveF says...

I used to work for an insurance claims adjusting firm and I think among my
all-time favorites was the home owner whose three year old thought the
ceiling fan blades going around was fascinating. So the guy holds the kid
up over his head who promptly holds his hand up and gets it broken when the
next blade comes around. Filed a lawsuit, our insured had us settle to make
them go away. Exactly where was the "cheapness, stupidity or arrogance" of
the ceiling fan manufacturer?

Blame the lawyers - they made a decision that it would cost less
to settle (odd that you don't mention the amount) the case than
to take it to trial. Sure a jury would laugh at the case, but
then there's a one prercent chance they would award something.

They might award $100K, and it might cost $10K to bring the
case to trial for an exoneration. So why not offer the 10
up front, says the lawyers. Your company said 'settle' I
suspect - after a bit of prodding from the insurance company.

If you want to 'fix' this (is it really broken??) then
first off you shoot all the lawyers. Then you shoot all the
insurance company execs (why spread risk? - if you find the at-fault
person, you pin it on them) and then you abolish the court
system.

Just remember though, you need consider the case where a
company really is negligent. So we make the CEO of the
corporation PERSONALLY LIABLE - remember, no insurance,
right? - for any damages. Pierce the corporate veil and
let folks who are really harmed recover from the individuals
concerned.

While we're shooting folks, we take the CEOs and CFOs out
and do the same to them as the lawyers, if they can't
pay out when they do wrong. Fair's fair here.

You'll see the company execs whining and blubbering for
their insurance safty net after all. But ONLY if it
benefits them.

Jim

==================================================
please reply to:
JRR(zero) at yktvmv (dot) vnet (dot) ibm (dot) com
==================================================

SteveF wrote:

wrote in message
. com...


a ton o snippin


I used to work for an insurance claims adjusting firm and I think among my
all-time favorites was the home owner whose three year old thought the
ceiling fan blades going around was fascinating. So the guy holds the kid
up over his head who promptly holds his hand up and gets it broken when the
next blade comes around. Filed a lawsuit, our insured had us settle to make
them go away. Exactly where was the "cheapness, stupidity or arrogance" of
the ceiling fan manufacturer?

Steve.
mo snippin.



Exactly Steve. I typed something earlier that I disposed of because it
became a ramble but the main point was the stupidity clause that should
apply to liability.

"If your stupidity is the proximal cause of the damage, it doesn't
matter if the manufacturer could have done better or put more warnings.
You were STUPID and that makes it 100% your fault".

People complain about rising compensation in liability suits...however
if this clause were applied, it would eliminate all the suits that are
frivolous and leave only those in the gray or black areas that do have
merit and should be heard.

Negligence is NOT that hard to pin down. Negligence requires that you
DID know or SHOULD HAVE known of a problem and still released the
product. It should not be up to a manufacturer to second guess how/what
every stupid person will do with their product, only a broad range of
average use for a reasonably prudent public.

Koz

On Thu, 29 Jul 2004 20:51:09 GMT, Ted Edwards wrote:

||wmbjk wrote:
||
|| Yes, learning the Icelandic language.... the second thing I'd
|| recommend to a "litigation support" spammer.
||
||Sentence him to 5 years in Iceland. Consider: According to a reliable
||source (my wife), if you accidentally leave your camera on a park bench
||and come back in a couple hours, it will still be there.

But send a lawyer there, and that will change
Texas Parts Guy

In article , SteveF
says...

I used to work for an insurance claims adjusting firm and I think among my
all-time favorites was the home owner whose three year old thought the
ceiling fan blades going around was fascinating. So the guy holds the kid
up over his head who promptly holds his hand up and gets it broken when the
next blade comes around. Filed a lawsuit, our insured had us settle to make
them go away. Exactly where was the "cheapness, stupidity or arrogance" of
the ceiling fan manufacturer?

Blame the lawyers - they made a decision that it would cost less
to settle (odd that you don't mention the amount) the case than
to take it to trial. Sure a jury would laugh at the case, but
then there's a one prercent chance they would award something.

They might award $100K, and it might cost $10K to bring the
case to trial for an exoneration. So why not offer the 10
up front, says the lawyers. Your company said 'settle' I
suspect - after a bit of prodding from the insurance company.

If you want to 'fix' this (is it really broken??) then
first off you shoot all the lawyers. Then you shoot all the
insurance company execs (why spread risk? - if you find the at-fault
person, you pin it on them) and then you abolish the court
system.

Just remember though, you need consider the case where a
company really is negligent. So we make the CEO of the
corporation PERSONALLY LIABLE - remember, no insurance,
right? - for any damages. Pierce the corporate veil and
let folks who are really harmed recover from the individuals
concerned.

While we're shooting folks, we take the CEOs and CFOs out
and do the same to them as the lawyers, if they can't
pay out when they do wrong. Fair's fair here.

You'll see the company execs whining and blubbering for
their insurance safty net after all. But ONLY if it
benefits them.

Jim


No, don't blame the lawyers. They are only doing what they are paid to do.
Doesn't mean it's right, but that's their job. If they didn't push even the
groundless suits on behalf of their clients, they'd be sued by them.

Part of the blame falls on human greed, and there is not much that can be done
about that.

More of the blame belongs with our legal system, and with dumb juries. The
juries who, on looking at someone's injuries, decide on that basis rather than
on liability. Get smarter juries, who have the guts to say "You are a real
dumbass and that was a real dumbass lawsuit and you get nothing". And who have
the guts to then say "And because it was such a dumbass lawsuit, not only do
you get nothing, but you and your lawyer are going to have to pay the legal
expenses of the person you sued". And a legal system that will allow them to
do so.

Yeah, I've heard the arguments against that sort of system. The worry that
large corporations (such as the tobacco companies) would deliberately incur
astronomical legal expenses that would scare off anyone attempting to sue them.
But I'm not suggesting that the loser always pay - only when the lawsuit is
deemed frivolous and without merit.

Chasing ambulances when they have the right to stop and back over you wouldn't
be much fun.

John Martin

Jeff Wisnia wrote:
TORT REFORM PLEASE wrote:

RH tOWNSEND wrote:





I am in litigation support.



In other words you want the individuals in this newsgroup
to help you sue someone.


To quote Walter Matthau's line from some show who's name escapes me:

There /are/ no other words. /Those/ are the words.

(Or maybe it was a Jack Klugman line from "The Odd Couple TV series.)

Jeff



Walter Matthau and Jack lemmon in the classic "The Fortune Cookie".
Matthau plays the crooked laywer.

--
Samiam is Scott A. Moore

Personal web site: http:/www.moorecad.com/scott
My electronics engineering consulting site: http://www.moorecad.com
ISO 7185 Standard Pascal web site: http://www.moorecad.com/standardpascal
Classic Basic Games web site: http://www.moorecad.com/classicbasic
The IP Pascal web site, a high performance, highly portable ISO 7185 Pascal
compiler system: http://www.moorecad.com/ippas

Being right is more powerfull than large corporations or governments.
The right argument may not be pervasive, but the facts eventually are.

On 30 Jul 2004 06:29:26 GMT, (JMartin957) wrote:
More of the blame belongs with our legal system, and with dumb juries. The
juries who, on looking at someone's injuries, decide on that basis rather than
on liability. Get smarter juries, who have the guts to say "You are a real
dumbass and that was a real dumbass lawsuit and you get nothing". And who have
the guts to then say "And because it was such a dumbass lawsuit, not only do
you get nothing, but you and your lawyer are going to have to pay the legal
expenses of the person you sued". And a legal system that will allow them to
do so.

You've got that right. I was on a jury recently. The settlement demanded
was obviously inflated beyond belief, but when we got in the jury room the
first thing discussed was how much we should award, and they were talking
6 figures. I was outraged, and made that *very* clear to the other jurors. It
took a lot of talking, but I finally got them to reduce the award to actual
proved cash losses, about $1500.

Yeah, I've heard the arguments against that sort of system. The worry that
large corporations (such as the tobacco companies) would deliberately incur
astronomical legal expenses that would scare off anyone attempting to sue them.
But I'm not suggesting that the loser always pay - only when the lawsuit is
deemed frivolous and without merit.

Georgia recently passed a frivolous lawsuit bill. It calls for treble damages to
be paid by the parties bringing the frivolous suit, but only the judge can impose
it. Judges are *very* reluctant to do so (they're part of the same club as the
lawyers).

Chasing ambulances when they have the right to stop and back over you wouldn't
be much fun.

Heh, heh.

Gary

In article , JMartin957 says...

No, don't blame the lawyers. They are only doing what they are paid to do.
Doesn't mean it's right, but that's their job. If they didn't push even the
groundless suits on behalf of their clients, they'd be sued by them.

Most of my post was discussing how the legal system (and the
lawyers, part of it) actually works pretty well, and protects
the companies by giving them insurance to cover their risks,
and a corporate veil so that whatever they do, the officers
of the corporations are never held personally liable for
whatever their company does.

I was being a bit ironic when I suggested that you could shoot
the lawyers and dismantle the existing system. The CEOs
would *not* want that because it is mostly to their benefit.
Again the irony is, they complain about the one aspect of the
existing system that causes them financial loss, and would lobby
to change that, while keeping the rest of it intact.

The companies being sued can *indeed* fire all their lawyers and
insurance companies, and operate without their protection.

They won't do that. :^)

So I think it's disingenuous for them to insist that the public
give up the same protections they enjoy. In short I agree with
you 100%.

Tort reform. Sure. I'll go for that - as soon as they
pierce the corporate veil and make execs personally liable
for malfeasence.

Jim

==================================================
please reply to:
JRR(zero) at yktvmv (dot) vnet (dot) ibm (dot) com
==================================================

JMartin957 wrote:
In article , SteveF
says...


I used to work for an insurance claims adjusting firm and I think among my
all-time favorites was the home owner whose three year old thought the
ceiling fan blades going around was fascinating. So the guy holds the kid
up over his head who promptly holds his hand up and gets it broken when the
next blade comes around. Filed a lawsuit, our insured had us settle to make
them go away. Exactly where was the "cheapness, stupidity or arrogance" of
the ceiling fan manufacturer?

Blame the lawyers - they made a decision that it would cost less
to settle (odd that you don't mention the amount) the case than
to take it to trial. Sure a jury would laugh at the case, but
then there's a one prercent chance they would award something.

They might award $100K, and it might cost $10K to bring the
case to trial for an exoneration. So why not offer the 10
up front, says the lawyers. Your company said 'settle' I
suspect - after a bit of prodding from the insurance company.

If you want to 'fix' this (is it really broken??) then
first off you shoot all the lawyers. Then you shoot all the
insurance company execs (why spread risk? - if you find the at-fault
person, you pin it on them) and then you abolish the court
system.

Just remember though, you need consider the case where a
company really is negligent. So we make the CEO of the
corporation PERSONALLY LIABLE - remember, no insurance,
right? - for any damages. Pierce the corporate veil and
let folks who are really harmed recover from the individuals
concerned.

While we're shooting folks, we take the CEOs and CFOs out
and do the same to them as the lawyers, if they can't
pay out when they do wrong. Fair's fair here.

You'll see the company execs whining and blubbering for
their insurance safty net after all. But ONLY if it
benefits them.

Jim



No, don't blame the lawyers. They are only doing what they are paid to do.
Doesn't mean it's right, but that's their job. If they didn't push even the
groundless suits on behalf of their clients, they'd be sued by them.

Part of the blame falls on human greed, and there is not much that can be done
about that.

More of the blame belongs with our legal system, and with dumb juries. The
juries who, on looking at someone's injuries, decide on that basis rather than
on liability. Get smarter juries, who have the guts to say "You are a real
dumbass and that was a real dumbass lawsuit and you get nothing". And who have
the guts to then say "And because it was such a dumbass lawsuit, not only do
you get nothing, but you and your lawyer are going to have to pay the legal
expenses of the person you sued". And a legal system that will allow them to
do so.


For the record, I've reported for jury duty five or six times over the
course of the last 45 years, and each time the lawyers learned I was an
MIT grad and an engineer I got preempted right out of there.

Only once did I feel that being shut out was reasonable, and that was
because I happened to know socially a doctor in my town who was listed
as being one of the witnesses in a liability suit. The judge said that
if any potential juror knew any of the litigants or witnesses they
should speak up. I did, and was excused.

Just my .02, but I sure hope I can live out the rest of my life without
ever having to depend on the wisdom and fairness of a jury of "my peers".

Jeff (Who's noticed that life is like a roll of toilet paper; the closer
you get to the end the faster it goes....)

--
Jeff Wisnia (W1BSV + Brass Rat '57 EE)

"As long as there are final exams, there will be prayer in public
schools"

Rex B wrote:

But send a lawyer there, and that will change

He'd probably starve to death before he had time to change anything.

Ted

I have had similar experiences, but in my case they did not care where
I graduated. Just being an engineer and likely to use logic was
enough.

Dan



Jeff Wisnia wrote in message news:9rGdneNlusN_-pfcRVn

For the record, I've reported for jury duty five or six times over the
course of the last 45 years, and each time the lawyers learned I was an
MIT grad and an engineer I got preempted right out of there.


Jeff (Who's noticed that life is like a roll of toilet paper; the closer
you get to the end the faster it goes....)