While it does seem like we now live in a sue-happy country with lawsuits being filed for everything from dry cleaning issues to pension scandals, there are certainly some sectors of business that see more legal suits than others.
Service sector businesses encounter law suits on a fairly regular basis. Many of these suits are for fairly trivial things in this impatient society of ours and others are over huge amounts of money caused by loss of business and faulty workmanship. Most businesses do carry liability insurance that can protect them from such claims, but this insurance is pricey and does not provide compensation for all types of lawsuits. Any time a business provides service to the general public or to other businesses, they must unfortunately, accept a certain degree of risk of being sued, whether it is a just lawsuit or not.
Physicians, surgeons and others in the medical field are especially susceptible to being sued in this current society’s’ way of thinking. Malpractice suites are a huge business for lawyers now and the suits simply keep on increasing. These professionals carry malpractice insurance as a matter of course, but this insurance is almost prohibitively expensive for many doctors. In fact, the exorbitant fees charged by physicians and specialists are often due to the fact that their malpractice insurance is so costly and must be passed on in their fees to you.
Another large source for business law suits is in the case of injury. Personal injury lawyers are in constant demand to help individuals pursue their lawsuits once they have been injured. Those injured in the workplace, in car accidents or just from tripping on a crack usually find it necessary to hire a lawyer to sue someone on their behalf whether the incident was an “accident” or not. Any business, employer or property owner can be the recipient of a personal injury suit filed by some disgruntled person who feels they should be made to pay.
Damage to property is another top ranked reason for pursuing a law suit. People who have had their property or vehicle damaged by another person often have no other recourse but a lawsuit to settle these matters and get their property repaired or replaced. Insurance often does not cover enough of the expenses to make the lawsuit unnecessary.
Basically, any person or business that deals in contracts of any sort may find themselves at the end of a lawsuit at some point. Contracts are meant to clarify business arrangements, sales and other agreements. Unfortunately, they often cause misunderstanding due to misinterpretation and unintentional breach of contract. Lawsuits address such problems but can be expensive and in many cases are pricier than a simple settlement between the contract signatories would have been. Again, these cases do, however create a lot of work for business lawyers.
While these are the top reasons for lawsuits, there are many, many more and most types are sadly only increasing.
