No one gave it to him. He earned it.
And what makes you think the health care providers shouldn't have been found negligent? A jury determined that, not Edwards. Are you saying you are not in favor of a jury system?
I work in the legal profession, on the defense side. i've seen and read about horrendous cases. Believe you me, there are cases that warrant a finding of negligence on the part of care providers. Remember the man in Florida a decade ago who had a foot amputated? He was supposed to have a foot amputated, but the doctor and hospital amputated teh wrong foot. That's bad enough, but then the man had to have another surgery to have the other foot amputated. You can imagine how severely that would impact your life. You should have at least one foot to get around on. But you would, because of someone's negligence, have no feet to get around on.
Malpractice and negligence happen. When it does, they should pay for their negligence. Otherwise, there would be reason for them not to be negligent. There is no "making someone whole," once a care provider screws up.
People are often anti-personal injury lawsuit, until something happens to them or someone they love.
Big Republican Jim Baker. Friend of the Bush's. Owner of a big law firm. One can assume he was pro tort reform. But he sure as shootin' sued people when his grandaughter died from her hair getting caught in a pool drain. Did you know that a number of children have been killed like that? The problem is apparently location of the drain; it should be higher up. Second is the force of the sucking action; it's not to be so strong that a child can't break free. One child died when his rear end got sucked to a drain. It sucked some of his innards out through his anus. I worked on a case where a girl drown when her hair got caught in a pool drain. It was such a sad story. Her younger sister tried to help and finally ran inside to get scissors, but when she got back with the scissors, her sister wasn't moving anymore. The drain was too low for the girl to get air while trapped by the drain. (Well, it's not a drain...it's that sucking thing on the sides of pools.)
As for the elderly lady hot coffee case, you should read up on that sometime. Once you know the facts of the case, you'll see why the jury did what it did. I would have awarded the plaintiff big time, too. McDonald's had over 700 people seriously burned by their coffee, but they paid $ to those people and kept the coffee the same temperature. Until this large jury award. Finally, McDonald's turned the temp down. That's what it took to get them to act reasonably and stop hurting people. The woman in this case who was injured was seriously burned, requiring several surgeries. She was permanently scarred and had suffered quite a lot (you've heard of how awful burn injuries are? And how terrible the treatment is?)
I'm no Edwards fan. But as for what he did for a living, he performed a worthwhile service and was apparently very good at it. He earned every dollar he got. He also had invested quite a lot of money in getting the education to become a lawyer, as well as untold hours studying to get good grades and pass the bar.
I say these things, even tho I make my living helping to defend against plaintiff lawyers. But truth is truth. The REAL reason the courts are clogged are BUSINESS lawsuits. They sue each other back and forth daily. They refuse to settle, they bicker, they have pissin' contests, the drag the lawsuits out for years. They want to win at all costs and are willing to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars doing that. But that's the clients. The lawyers are just performing a service, just like an auto repairman. They work for their money. And it's a very hard job.
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