This is, IMO, the problem with loser-pays systems. While I understand that there are ridiculous lawsuits that we would want to be reasonable about and cut down on so that people are not sued into bankruptcy for ludicrous reasons, it also means that huge corporations can use it as an intimidation tactic against other potential lawsuits.
To be clear, I think the lawsuit was ridiculous. I understand people were hurting, but this is a movie theater, people come and go all the time to it, there are no metal detectors and no one patting people down, just like the vast majority of public places. And it is ridiculous to demand so, could you imagine that everywhere you go, you’re subjected to “security searches”? No, the lawsuit was dumb, it was never going to work. I’m not defending the lawsuit itself.
However, there does need to be access to the system. If Cinemark did do something wrong, it shouldn’t be able to say “Are you sure you’re going to win? Because if you don’t, you’re going to get a 700,000 dollar bill!”. It’s a form of financial intimidation to prevent people for filing lawsuits in the first place. This is the failure of the loser-pays model. It allows those with means to use those means to intimidate parties into compliance.
The other thing is that number is rather obscene. Let’s say that OK, we’re doing loser-pays. What prevents the big corporations from just running up the bill? If they lose, they can likely afford it, but if they win they can stick the plaintiff with crippling debt that will discourage others from suing in the future. 700,000 for a State civil court? Justice cannot be allowed to evolve into a system for the rich, and the money levels involved seem to be moving in that direction. Perhaps even if we do a loser-pays system, it should be a loser-kind-of-pays, and what can be extracted is limited.
In the end, I just find the loser-pays model of lawsuit to be too easily corrupted and abused and used as a tool to close access to the courts.
