PERJURY.
Not every civil action that fails can be presumed to have been grounded on perjured evidence.
Civil actions can fail because the plaintiff failed to discharge the burden of proof.
In a civil action the burden of proof is that of the balance of probabilities. That means proving that something is at least 51% more likely than not.
IMHO perjury should be put on a formal statutory footing. That said, some determined liars will roll the dice anyhow because the likely gain makes it worthwhile.
DAMAGES.
The judges bear a big responsibility for the level of damages as they set them.
You could make a decent offer to a plaintiff's lawyers. However, if they know that the judge on that circuit or the HC judge before whom the case is listed will give more they will just laugh at your offer. I suspect that is also why some PIAB offers are rejected and contested in court. Incidentally, some HC judges don't seem to find the PIAB book of quantum to be helpful
Damages fall in to two broad classes ;
Special damages cover identifiable out of pocket expenses like lost earnings, doctor's bills, car repairs and the like.
General damages cover the rest of the contingencies like pain and suffering to date, pain and suffering in to the future if justified on the medical evidence, future loss of earnings / future lost earning capacity and such like.
Cases involving future financial/economic losses are a source of difficulty as the capital sums required to compensate future losses in serious incapacity cases have become high - this is a whole novel in it's own right. This aspect of serious incapacity cases cannot be reduced without destroying future needs of people who are genuinely disabled.
The general problem with assessment of damages is that you must indemnify or make the plaintiff whole again. In principle, this means putting them back in to the position that they enjoyed at about one second before the accident.
In relation to special damages there is no rational justification for chopping those back. If your actual financial losses to date are € X that is what you should receive.
The level of damages for pain and suffering seems to be the basic problem. As a society we seem to want to be paid high levels of damages but not to be prepared to pay for the cost of it given that the primary source of funds for these matters is the insurance industry.
How does the insurance dimension work ? In round terms, insurance operates on a primary premise that all insured parties contribute to a central pool from which claims costs are financed. Pay high levels of claims costs out of that pool and the contributors must pay commensurate premiums to sustain it.
What would happen if insurance underwriters decided that it was no longer financially viable to underwrite certain classes of business and they simply shut their books ? I suspect a fairly savage collapse in compensation levels would ensue as there would be no fund to sustain the present position.
