Court of Common Sense…

Have you ever read the warning list of disclaimers on ladders, microwaves and anything else you’ve ever purchased? You just know that all the stupid things they warn against is the result of someone suing for doing something stupid.

For years I have felt there should be some way to reject all those groundless, baseless, obviously wrong, money and time wasting legal exercises of our sometimes peculiar legal system.

Anyone can sue for anything.

• Got fat while eating fast food? Sue!
• Got cancer after smoking for twenty years when common sense should tell you it’s not good for you? Sue!
• Got hurt on a ladder while standing in a pig pen full of slippery pig-poo? Sue!
• Tried to dry your cat in the microwave? Sue!
• Pick up an old computer in the trash and it doesn’t work right? Sue!
• I’m stupid so it's someone else’s fault?, Sue!

Winning or defending against a suit is a time consuming and expensive process. Most of the time it seems that whoever hired the better liar lawyer, is the one who comes out on top. Other times, jury selection seems less like a “jury of your peers” and more like a “jury of the most gullible and/or uninformed”.

I have long felt that there should be some process to weed out the obvious.

Maybe a “Court of Common Sense” whose job it is to pre-examine the facts and accusations of selected lawsuits to decide if it passes the smell test of “common sense” before allowing it to proceed farther up the legal food chain.

Possibility a panel of individuals, generally considered to be “rational and relatively intelligent”, would by majority vote decide if a legal filing is reasonable enough proceed or be rejected on the grounds as “just plain stupid”. I’ll forego any ideas, for the moment, of how the selection of “rational and relatively intelligent people” should be accomplished, but I’m not ready to give up on the idea.

In the case of Julie Amero and the recently announced third sentencing delay, it appears that there are so many things wrong with the original indictment that the D.A. and the court seem to be looking for ways to just make it all go away while saving as much face as possible.

I’m sure if my “Court of Common Sense” currently existed; the case would have been dispatched long before it ever reached the level a trial let alone the conviction and possible 40yr. jail sentence.

My “Court of Common Sense” would have surely concluded, before indictment, that computer porn pop-ups are a fact of life these days and Julie was just the innocent, victim bystander of the day.

My “Court of Common Sense” would have had the school “Say sorry” to Julie and maybe send her home with some instruction on what to do with the computer next time if it ever happened again.

My “Court of Common Sense” might also suggest the school remove the computer from the classroom until they get someone competent enough to maintain the computer with up-to-date software.

Case dismissed…