Going to Court

Peter,

What happened is two fold.

  1. The tenfold increase of trial lawyers and judicial activism since the 1960’s. Much of it has come from judges that see people who have lost money. Many times they caused their own misery by ignoring reccommendations, but the judge has decided to reward them anyway. They often have done this even though the law was against them. They just decided that the legislature was wrong and created a new interpretation out of whole cloth. Even worse is the culture of creating laws from the bench. The US Constitution and every state constitution gives that power exclusively to the legislature, not the judiciary. In short, judges need to reined in and law schools need to scaled back. Many of us went along because we decided that we were sticking it to ‘The Man.’

  2. We continue to elect lawyers to our state legislatures and the Congress. Many of them are trial lawyers. Best recent example is John Edwards. The man is running for President on the platform of poverty and 2 Americas, and the SOB just finished building a multimillion dollar palace? How does this huckster know anything about poverty?

There are two reforms that would immediately end the abuse of our judicial system. First is tort reform. Limiting judgments to a fixed amount would take the greed factor away and prevent juries from wild awards. Second is a loser pays system. I would modify that to a slightly different system that if you file a suit and lose, you pay your costs, the court costs and the respondents costs, as well as penalties for wasting the court’s time. How many people would look to the judicial lottery under those circumstances?

The biggest arguments against these reforms come from ‘public advocacy groups’ and the trial lawyers themselves. They argue that ‘big’ business will be able to operate with impunity were it not for them. Really? So how come Wal-Mart is the only major company that has a public policy of vigorously defending all lawsuits? Everyone else has money budgeted for nuisance suits and a policy of paying to make it go away. How many billions are drained from our economy by the hucksters?

Lawyers should be barred from public office or running for office. They know how to manipulate the rules. Therein lies the problem.

In Tennessee if someone breaks into your home you better shoot them - once to knock them down and two more to make sure they don’t run off. Make sure they die - if you don’t they can sue you for the hospital bills, pain and suffering etc. I suppose that’s why I am a believer in HOLLOWPOINTS and CENTER MASS.

Of course, the law changed in Florida and you no longer have to prove you were a victim - or about to become one. If someone makes a move on you, you now have the right to blow them away on the spot - no need to have to become a victim first and then fire. I love Florida law!

Every law-abiding American has the right to keep and bear arms. Every law abiding American should do so.

IMHO, of course.

Oh, geeze, did I get off topic?

Doug, so called ‘Duty to Retreat’ laws are the dumbest self-defense laws I have ever heard. I’m sorry, but if you’ve crossed my lawn and illegally entered my home, I guarantee you’re going to face an armed homeowner. Why should I retreat, its my home! “Well, you should just run away and let them take what they want. No need for violence,” said with a haughty, superior tone. Oh really? How about discouraging criminals instead of facilitating their criminal behavior? Criminals like unarmed victims. It has been proven by a sociologist, who set out to prove guns were ‘bad’, that more guns in the hands of law-abiding citizens makes for a safer society. And again, FL is the perfect example. After they changed their carry law to a shall issue permit, criminals changed their targets to the airports where they knew the victims would be unarmed. GA is a shall issue state, and several magistrates have tried to deny permits without cause and have acquiesced when faced with a legal challenge.

I think the issue is that if the property has a major defect, the inspector should find it. If the buyer buys, then later finds a defect the inspector missed, he can say it is the inspector’s fault - “I wouldn’t have bought the house if I’d known the ___________ was defective.”
If that happens, you have all the makings of a suit -

  1. negligence - it should have been caught
  2. damage - purchase price to buy the dump
  3. Your negligence caused the damage.
    It’s not whether the ____ was installed properly or not.

What about blaming “certified” inspectors that only qualifications are taking an on-line quiz and claim they are the best, because they take the same quiz every year for renewal, or inspectors that claim to be
"certified master inspectors " that have less qualifications than what most states require for an inspector to be “certified” ???
oh yea what about inspectors that are guable enough to certify a home, :roll: :roll: :roll:
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How about some facts you keep giving your openion and we all know they just might be slightly slanted .
Tell us about this CMI who has been sued. and the facts to back up your statements.
… Cookie

Hi Roy…My opinion just might be slightly slanted ? you must have me confused with somebody else.:wink:

I don’t have the facts, I have seen the statement made here several times , by members of your org, that new inspectors are more likely to get sued than experienced inspectors…
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I think you know that hear say information is usless and of no value .
Sort of makes me think of all your posts usless and of no value.
Good night, sleep tight , Don’t let the bugs bite.

… Cookie

  1. By “certified”, I assume you mean NACHI members. New members of the other associations have to take no test. By this, I mean that ASHI and NAHI members do not have to take the tests (the NHIE) untill they go for “full membership”. This means that, right out of the box, NACHI members have taken 3 tests where the other guys have not.
  2. It is not ‘the same quiz’, it is a test, just like the NHIE with a randomly numbered population of questions so the test is rarely the same, each time it is taken. In Illinois, the state license exam is the same as the NHIE (I even have a completion certificate), so I passed the three NACHI tests AND the one that you claim is superior. BTW: In Illinois, the NHIE is a joke because everybody has a copy because so many older ASHI members, when licencing came into being, simply taugh the test to the pre-licensing candidated. Also, when ASHI full members were required by the state to take the state version of the NHIE, when licensing first came in, only 41% of the experienced, full members pass it. Says a great deal about their qualifications, if one only uses tests as a metric.
  3. CMI is a standard. It is not a NACHI standard, but standard designation open to any inspector. I believe that the 1000 hour experience qualification is pretty good. If you don’t agree, you are entitled to your opinon (even if your wrong). Could you please note the states that have higher requirements than CMI does? If not, please take this statement back, publically.
  4. As to the value of having your house “certified”, the market will determine that, as it has already done so with regards to the major national associations.
    Hope this helps;

Why don’t you post someting helpful, next time.

lol…Mr. Harris knows all that I think. He just likes getting the RISE out of NACHI members is all…lol

Bear in mind the better your advertised credentials the greater your potential liability. If you just said “I know very little about houses but I will take a look” you might still get sued but at least you would have a defense if you missed a glaring but unseen defect.

Yep and you can be the best inspector in the world and wrote up that glaring defect and still get sued and have the insurance company pay and raise your rates because you had a claim .

This has happened more then once that I know of.
… Cookie

Read the Nachi Agreement, client has 14 days to bring up any issues. After that you are off the hook.