Does Anyone Else Think this is Crazy?

There is a whole lot of crazy going on in South Carolina.  First, there was the settlement for $975,000 to a woman who was thrown from a car driven by a DRUNK friend (I mean, what crazy person knowingly drives with a known drunk person?).  Then there was $3.4 million awarded to a guy who broke his neck whilst riding a bicycle on a sidewalk?!?  Something fishy is going on there, let me tell you!

Then just as I was about to get my law Librarian groove on, I happened to open a past edition of the South Carolina Lawyers Weekly and noted on the front cover a story about a 3-year old kid who had drowned.  OK, what caught my attention wasn't so much the fact that a kid died as it was they family of the kid settled with the apartment complex where the kid died for $6 million dollars.  That's right, SIX MILLION (and I'll bet bionics weren't even involved).

So, as the story goes, this 3-year old kid (who was being "watched" by  his aunt and grandmother) is playing around this apartment complex.  At some point, aunt and grandmother get engrossed in their conversation that they don't bother keeping an eye on kid who had wandered  through an unlocked gate into the apartment complex pool and subsequently drowned.  That's some serious contributory negligence, right there - which should have negated any recovery by the family.  Yeah, the gate wasn't locked but really, not watching a 3-year old is just stupid.

My question is, why isn't parents being charged with child endangerment?  I mean, grandmother and aunt can't get off their backsides ato keep an eye on their nephew/grandkid and now the family (and, I suspect aunt/grandmother are recipients of the windfall, too) get to revel in their new found wealth?  What a freaking crock!

So, the problem with all this is that the laws in South Carolina are so skewed to the crazy side that it's not safe to do business here.  Crazy politics aside, California (who follows a comparative negligence standard) got it right when they abolished contributory negligence as a standard.  

In California, if someone is 51% at fault, they don't get anything - as it should be.  Here in South Carolina, if someone is 99% at fault (as aunt/grandmother was), they can still collect 1%.  So, picture it, someone gets injured and they sue for a billion dollars.  Evidence comes in and it is found that they were 99% at fault.  If the matter goes to trial, they still stand to make $10,000,000 (that's 10 million) in South Carolina.

Is this crazy, or what?!?

And this happens all the time in South Carolina.  Someone stubbs a toe, they settle for $1,000,000.  Someone gets offended by a blog post, another couple million.  Who in their ever lovin' mind would ever want to do business in a jurisdiction where they could lose everything at the drop of a hat is beyond me.  I'm thinking that maybe time to delve into this legal insanity and change some negligence laws?

Just maybe.