Another substantial reason for expanding liability claims is the financial remuneration available to plaintiff lawyers who pursue their victims’ claims.  Most plaintiff lawyers take cases on a contingency basis so the victims don’t have to come up with any financial reserves in order to initiate and sustain the claims.  The lawyers who take on these cases are willing to finance them because of the alleged “pot of gold” waiting in the form of expensive jury verdicts at the end of the case.  Moreover, the courts, under pressure from aggressive plaintiff lawyers, often give in to the victim oriented mentality discussed above, and have greatly expanded theories of liability against business owners, physicians, other professionals and others of high net worth.  This, of course, is part of the deep pocket theory.  The rationale being, if someone has some wealth that it really doesn’t hurt to extract a portion of such wealth to compensate an alleged victim and to correct the so-called impropriety or act of negligence.

Finally, many business owners and real estate investors have found it necessary in order to capitalize their projects to become personally liable on loan documents to financial institutions.  If the economy turns sour, like it did over the past few years, all kinds of legitimate business people and real estate investors face financial ruin through no fault of their own.