One of the reasons our legal system is so overburdened and screwed up is because of guys like this.

When this was first filed, the guy should have been sent packing with a bill for wasting the courts time.

The girl should pay for the damages to the SUV and any damages to Police cars or other vehicle as well as any property damage that happened during the chase. After that, she should get a HUGE fine and have her license revoked for at least 2 years.

Then, if she is put in rehab (which it sounds like she needs) she, not the tax payer or daddy's insurance company, should foot the bill for that too.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,264653,00.html

Dad Wants Insurance Company to Foot the Bill for Daughter's Wayward Behavior

Saturday, April 07, 2007

Daddies, it seems, can forgive their little girls for just about anything — especially when there's an insurance company to fall back on.

That seems to be the case of a Marietta, Ga., father who not only was willing to forgive his then 19-year-old daughter for leading police on a high-speed chase while she was high on drugs, but also figured she wasn't responsible when cops were forced to smash in the car's windows to make an arrest.

That was in 2003, but now Michael Natbony wants someone to compensate him for repairs to his car — and, of course, it's not going to be his daughter, Jennifer.

Natbony wants his insurance company to foot the $12,612 repair to his Lexus SUV, according to a lawsuit filed by his attorney Robert S. Windholz. A trial in Fulton County State Court is tentatively scheduled for next week.

Click here to read full story in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/cobb/stories/2007/04/06/0406metchase.html

Attorney Steven J. Angles, who represents Progressive Casualty Insurance Co., claimed in court documents that the insurance company isn't responsible for "lawful damages"; in other words, for the pounding the car took when the cops rammed it. The Natbonys have declined to comment.

J.E. Van Alstine, the Cobb County officer who chased and ultimately stopped the Lexus, laughed that the girl's father would sue over an incident caused by her wild ways.

He remembers that Jennifer Natbony had pushed the Lexus to speeds past 100 mph and turned off her lights during the 5 a.m. chase. And though there wasn't much traffic, she was speeding and going the wrong way on a one-way street when she passed Wellstar Kennestone Hospital, where there could have been a shift change or ambulance en route, the officer said.

"The chase was certainly worthy of something more than probation," Van Alstine said Thursday when he learned of Natbony's sentence. "I thought she did some time."

If the insurance company and the Natbonys can't reach a settlement, a Fulton County jury will have to decide who should pay for the damage.

So how is our legal system screwed up?

This is a stupid case. I agree on that.

What would be the fix?

I'm not sure it's the legal system that's screwed up, it's the idiot father.

The fix here is that the daughter should get a job and pay for all of the damages. Seems simple to me.

The insurance company should not be liable and no one else except the daughter.

Why is it these days that it's always someone else's responsibility.

That's pretty much in line with what I was thinking.

The job is exactly what I would do. Put her on a monthly payment, sign a family contract and hold her to it.

Lots of ways to work that off too. Help on the house, yard work, etc... Maybe trade some work for other services ---like helping to fix the car?

Working things off is highly effective. When my kids have done something lame like that, working hours to pay me back does wonders. You would be surprised to see how few missed weekends with friends, spent adding value to their family situation it takes to really get them thinking.

A frank discussion about the real costs of things does not hurt either. My oldest recently learned his week of hard work would likely run the family for a coupla days at most. And that's running lean.

He's (the dad) a fool for letting her drive his SUV in the first place! I know I've already planned that bit out for my kids. I'll get a solid, but rather ordinary and safe car, that's shared. They can drive that, if they deserve to be driving. I don't have nice cars, but they run well and are valuable! Replacing them would be really tough right now. Putting ones livelyhood at risk by allowing a less than stable kid to drive the work car is just not smart.

(My oldest didn't deserve to drive and I made sure she got her license and insurance on her own. She actually tried to force me into that and college payments, by calling the state and claiming abuse too! Good grief. That really sucked.)

Maybe Dad can drive around in a $3k or so car for a while, thinking about what a fool he was to allow somebody like that to use his good vehicle...

Might not be a bad idea to let the friends and neighbors know what happened too.

Both of them save up, leave the insurance company out of it, and get the thing fixed when it makes sense.

That's exactly what I would be doing, had I been that stupid!

The difference in policy payments, over the next few years, makes that 3K car seem like a great deal too.

Who knows? Maybe this will be one of those activist judges that renders an interesting judgement!

I agree with both Deane and Missing on this. But allow me to hijack this thread with a recent outing I had with my daughter's 8th grade Basics Class.

My daughter's teacher who is a passionate teacher took the class, along with several adult chaperons myself included, to downtown Portland to visit the court systems. I had never done this and like many of the students it was an eye-opening experience.

The cases we were able to sit on we pretty sad really. And ALL of them were either drug or alcohol related. Most were in front of a judge and only a few had a jury. One case was two years old and had police officers looking through their notes to answer questions from the defense attorney. You could even sense with some of the attorney's that they a loser of person they were defending.

But on a good note when someone was before a judge and admitted guilt and gave an explanation most judges were more than fair, but often gave stern warnings. I really believe they wanted some of these people to get their acts together. But just hearing the stories and seeing some of the people you knew they would be behind bars within a year or less.

Glad to apart of this educational opportunity and realize that other side of the law is not very glamorous. It can be downright awful.

You may have your thread back again.

Missing, my statement about the legal system being messed up is that this should never even make it into the system.

When the person filing it takes it to the court clerk (if that's what they are called), after the clerk recovered from his/her fit of hysterics they should have stamped DENIED across it and sent them away.

Its lawyers that pursue these kinds of suits and juries that award ridiculous sums to people that really have the system hosed up.

I think one fix for the system would be that the looser of any lawsuit pays for ALL attorney and court costs as well as any fines, judgments, etc.

I think that if you know going into a lawsuit you are going to be responsible for that, if you lose, there might be a lot less of the frivolous suits.

Deanne's comment about taking responsibility is so right on these days. It’s almost like it’s a game. I do something wrong, now, who can I blame my actions on?

It's a mess. It's the best in the world, but it's still a mess!

"I think one fix for the system would be that the looser of any lawsuit pays for ALL attorney and court costs as well as any fines, judgments, etc."

BAD idea. It's not lawyers you should be worried about, but corporations. Given your proposal, a person of average wealth wronged or injured by a product from a major manufacturer would never sue them for fear of losing the case and causing themselves financial ruin. The corporations would throw the most expensive team of lawyers at you, knowing they would likely win due to sheer legal wrangling, and they would not have to pay a penny of their fees.

Yea, it would shut down frivelous lawsuits alright - along with all the justified and necessary ones.

Don't forget that most frivolous lawsuits don't get past the petition stage - they are thrown out of court immediately. Anyone can sue anyone for anything, but only those cases that have merit as determined by a judge actually make it to court.

on the other hand, the fact that ANYONE can file a lawsuit keep many a manufactor from making unsafe products, many a doctor/dentist on their toes, et al. Weaken the court system, you might find an undesireable rise of slackers killing you and/or your loved ones.

Both bad fixes.

We have courts to decide the merits of things. Stamping DENIED would be an infringment on rights, and would be abused.

This is gonna have to play out. Can't have our cake and eat it too.

I would SO love to see some sort of tort reform ...

Why is it that people cannot (or WILL not) accept the actions of their behavior? Why is it that any time someone goes down the wrong path of life, whether it's drug addiction, prostitution, theft, what have you, that they so often blame their environment, their upbringing and parents, how they grew up? Don't we ALL reach an age where we make our own damned decisions and we have to deal with the consequences?

Give people just enough rope to hang themselves with.

If I seem cold, I'm sorry, it's just a big beef of mine. Grow the heck up!

"Don't we ALL reach an age where we make our own damned decisions and we have to deal with the consequences?"

Perhaps someday juries will become wiser and start nipping these people in the bud.

I think that it's probably just a case of too many pissing in the gene pool.

This comes down to the old saying, you can sue anyone for anything. After the lawyers ahve made their motions a judge can throw it out.

It is cases like this that remind me how civilized and well-behaved kids were back when belts were for more than just Dockers.

"Why is it that people cannot (or WILL not) accept the actions of their behavior?"

Any system that is useable is going to be abuseable. there is no way around that.

The welfare system is NOT in disarray because 3% of the claimants defraud the system. Most who receive welfare benefits deserve them under the rules of the system.

In the same vein I would think most lawsuits are valid and an appropriate way to right a civil wrong. Where did this attitude come from in society that when anything bad happens to you, it is ultimately your fault? People get screwed by others all the time in ways that arent' addressed by criminal law. Plus, if you are hurt by someone else breaking the law, the criminal justice system will only address the lawbreaking - not the injury to you.

Civil courts are part of the balanced system of justice we have in America, and I think it's a pretty good one. The problem you are describing is in our culture and social morals, not in the civil justice system.