Thunderous Menace

statehate:

fucknoliberals:

This is the funniest damn thing I’ve seen in a long time.

Taco Bell stuck it to a litigious society by putting this full-page ad in a bunch of newspapers following the dismissal of a class action suit against them by money-hungry plaintiffs seeking a settlement windfall on the basis of absolutely nothing.

See, the idea behind most of the lawsuits like that is that companies like Taco Bell will give in to avoid bad press and legal defense fees. Good for them for not kowtowing to it. Good for them for sticking to their guns. The plaintiffs got their butts handed to them and withdrew the claim, and their attorneys (who were probably expecting to soon be having quite the fiesta when they filed the complaint) are strangely quiet. They’re probably busy licking their wounds.

Is this a petty move by Taco Bell? Maybe. But you know what? Who cares. It’s about damned time someone stood up and rubbed everyone’s faces in it. And it’s long-past time when big companies with deep pockets (Taco Bell = Yum! Brands = PepsiCo) stopped living in fear of lawsuits. The fact is that they had to drop $3-4million to defend against this malarkey in the first place; I say they deserve a victory lap.

And, really, aren’t they right? Would it kill Beasley Allen and the number of class action plaintiffs to say they’re sorry? They were in the wrong, after all. Doesn’t Taco Bell deserve an apology? And what does it say about the plaintiffs and attorneys when they refuse to?

I’ve long said that one of the biggest problems facing this country is that the courts need serious, serious tort reform. But that’ll never happen so long as wrongfully accused corporations allow themselves to be bullied by damages-hungry plaintiffs. Good for Taco Bell for standing up to bogus plaintiffs (and plaintiffs’ attorneys) who were seeking (no pun intended) a free lunch.

I’m also genuinely curious—though no statistics will ever exist for such a thing—of the people who were suing them, how many of them continued to eat at Taco Bell despite being in the process of suing them?

If yesterday weren’t Good Friday, I’d have gone and gotten myself a Double-Decker Taco with Lava Sauce—just to support them. (Yes, I know I’m not a practicing Catholic, but it makes my mother happy that I pay reverence to her and her religious traditions.) And I don’t even really like Taco Bell that much.

But today, they earned $1.99 from me. If out of nothing but my pride in and support for them for their actions yesterday.

While I do agree that frivolous lawsuits (or vexatious litigation in general) are a problem, as a libertarian, I’m not so sure about the tort reform bit.

Nevertheless, this ad is great, and I will be eating Taco Bell for lunch tomorrow in support of their victory.

PS. I hope the plaintiffs in this case were ordered to reimburse Taco Bell’s attorneys fees.

this is awesome.