How do you feel about it? I know sometimes when I watch the news and hear about bad things happening to people and hear how the victim is taking the person at fault to court for X amount of money, I can't help but think this is kind of stupid.

Now I understand bad stuff happens and life can suck a lot at certain times, but does that justify this over-compensation? Is it over-compensation? American's (and other nationalities as well) seem more than willing to cash in on their bad fortunes to make a large sum of money. Oh no I spilled hot coffee on my lap I want 1 million dollars. Oh I was beat up by a thug I demand 20 million dollars. I was strip-searched and humiliated at McDonalds, I deserve 200 million dollars.

We say this is justice but is it? Does no one stop to think "Hey, life isn't fair, that sucks", instead of demanding cash prizes for their misfortune? I'd say it's one thing to demand a drunk driver to pay to fix the front of your car, but it's a bit extreme to start demanding huge sums of money for your own financial gain.

There is no way I can address this briefly so this is going to be an incomplete response.

When someone negligently damages your car, I think it is a good thing for the legal system to find that they need to compensate you to fix it. You are not supposed to profit, only made 'whole' or have things return to how they were.

But when someone damages your body/mind/spirit, there really isn't a way to fix the damage and make you 'whole', so instead they tend to say that the damage is 'worth' millions of dollars, and that really is the problem because it is like comparing apples to oranges with respect to what can 'fix' the problem. So in a way, money is a pain killer instead of a cure.

Certainly victims can also be vengent and make someone want to suffer and that is why they also sue for a lot of money.

I don't think a 'just' solution is for victims to be vengent or try to profit, but neither is it 'just' to require the victims to shake it off and be unsympathetic to the very real and damaging pain that they have experienced.

I'm not sure what would be a 'just' solution.

There are some very stupid sues out there IMO. I knew someone (I refuse to call hima friend for other reasons than this) that deliberatedly looked for things he could sue everywhere. That was so annoying.