Skeptical of U.S. frivolous lawsuit statistics

[Ladewig]

I heard a radio commercial that said that last year, $1.6 billion was spent on settling frivolous lawsuits out of court. I am skeptical of anyone's ability to calculate such a figure. Many, if not most, corporate out of court settlements require non-disclosure agreements. Furthermore, while the legal system has a very specific definition of what frivolous means ("presenting no debatable question to the court") a lot of people have broaden the meaning. The McDonald's coffee burn case is often cited as a frivolous lawsuit and yet the facts presented in court demonstrate that a debate was appropriate and that McDonald's rightly lost that debate.

[corplinx]

Not to mention as has been mentioned here many times, the McCoffee settlement was reduced greatly on appeal.

I'm not sure if the numbers you saw are real or not. It seems that at best the evidence will be anecdotal in this situation. Remember the 60 minutes story about the county that ran all the doctors out because of frivolous lawuits, and then people of that county sued 60 minutes?

For collecting data for a frivolous lawsuit rounded number, I think it would be hard to figure out "what is frivolous" and then try to glean that from all the state and federal court cases. Perhaps it is this obfuscation that has led to no real progress being made on this issue.

[Smalso]

Simple:

If you're suing me, it's frivolous; if I'm suing you, it's legitimate.

[subgenius]

Originally posted by Smalso
Simple:

If you're suing me, it's frivolous; if I'm suing you, it's legitimate.
So true.
The current campaign is spearheaded by the insurance industry.
If there are "frivolous" lawsuits, then solve the problem that's causing them or the supposed excessive verdicts, whether its better judges or better educated juries, or severe economic disparity.
The answer is not to create another problem by punishing those truly and most severely damaged by caps on damages, or other nonsense limiting or eliminating causes of action.

[pgwenthold]

Originally posted by subgenius

So true.
The current campaign is spearheaded by the insurance industry.
If there are "frivolous" lawsuits, then solve the problem that's causing them or the supposed excessive verdicts, whether its better judges or better educated juries, or severe economic disparity.
The answer is not to create another problem by punishing those truly and most severely damaged by caps on damages, or other nonsense limiting or eliminating causes of action.

At the risk of opening a huge can of worms, I think a potential solution that would help would be to change the way we handle punitive damages. As it is now, punitive damages go to the plaintiff. But that never made sense to me. If I am in a car accident with another drivier, and he is at fault and is charged with Reckless Driving, he doesn't pay his fine ("punitive damages") to me, the victim, he gives it to the government. Now, he does have to pay actual damages, but the government is in control of punishing, not me.

So what I suggest is that we don't have any limits on anything, but that we just limit the plaintiff's share to actual damages (and maybe lawyer fees, but we can address that later). Allow for punitive damages, but give them to the government (and maybe limit lawyer commission on them). This will stop lawsuits from being a windfall for the plaintiff, but still allow them to serve their purpose, to compensate a plaintiff who has been damaged. Moreover, punitive awards can be used for deterent purposes, but in that case, they are treated like regular fines and go to the government.

Damage suits are necessary in our society. However, I don't see that the plaintiff should be making out like bandits. Throw in all the real damages you want, physical, emotional (whatever they are worth?), lost wages, etc to compensate for a person's loss. But punitive damages? Not to an individual, they belong to the entire society.

[subgenius]

This is a valid point.

[Michael Redman]

We should sue those insurance lawyers for frivolous use of the word "frivolous". Of course, we would probably get throw out of court . . .

(settling frivolous cases? Give me a break!)

[Gregor]

I see them every day.

A few examples:

1. Insurance company allows consumers to pay their premiums in 4, 6, or 12 installments. When they divide the bill into 12ths they get fractions. They rounded up to the next penny, without state regulatory approval. Even if wrong, the most anyone ever paid too much was 4 cents - that's right 4 cents. Class action lawsuit - result: (a) company stopped rounding up & (b) plaintiff's lawyers received $20,000,000. That's right 20 million.

2. Man was an alcoholic. Sued his employer claiming that under the ADA they had to accommodate his disability by allowing him to come in late, miss assignments, etc. Verdict: $500,000.

3. East Coast law professor sues McDonalds because its food to high in fat - no kidding. Dismissed (but the court granted him leave to re-file).

4. Filing suit in Mississippi - everyone wants to sue a pharmaceutical company, and do it in a particular county in Mississippi. Accordingly, they're always suing the one, little mom and pop pharmacy for selling the drug, then bringing a class action against the manufacturer.

5. Filing suit in Alabama - a guy buys a BWM. While in transit, the hood got dinged, so the dealer repainted it. The buyer was not told about it, but what's the big complaint, it was fixed before he received it? Verdict: $3 million in punitive damages.

6. School bus crash in South Texas kills several kids. The fighting between absentee fathers claiming that they were the natural fathers of some of the kids in order to sue the parties involved spawned may separate paternity suits.

7. The billions spent on breast implant litigation that 100% of science shows is meritless.

8. Cell phone litigation - est. in the hundreds of millions in defense costs.

Settlements are sometimes confidential, but those are rare. Verdicts are never confidential, class action suit settlements are never confidential.

I don't know the number's accuracy - but it sounds concervative to me.

[Michael Redman]

If the judge finds that there are issues to be decided and lets the case go to trial, and the jury finds in favor of the plaintiff, and the judge enters the judgment, finding that the jury had sufficient basis to make that decision, then the case is not, by definition, frivolous.

[Gregor]

The fact that a trial judge does not dismiss a case or render judgment not withstanding the verdict does not mean that it is not frivolous. Plenty of appellate decision have found a case frivolous that passed completely through the system.

However, do you really think an elected judge will risk disfavor by dismissing cases? How about dismissals against 'connected' lawyers?

Further, the typical, procedural definition of frivolous "not grounded in law or fact" is not the vernacular definition.

[Watcher]

Originally posted by Gregor
1. Insurance company allows consumers to pay their premiums in 4, 6, or 12 installments. When they divide the bill into 12ths they get fractions. They rounded up to the next penny, without state regulatory approval. Even if wrong, the most anyone ever paid too much was 4 cents - that's right 4 cents. Class action lawsuit - result: (a) company stopped rounding up & (b) plaintiff's lawyers received $20,000,000. That's right 20 million.

Let's see, 20 million dollars is 2000 million cents, and with 4 cents for each person, that's 500 million people, which is greater than the population of the US.

I do hope that number is wrong.

[Michael Redman]

Originally posted by Gregor
However, do you really think an elected judge will risk disfavor by dismissing cases? Yes. I still believe that the system is not totally corrupted.How about dismissals against 'connected' lawyers?Less likely, unfortunately. Connected lawyers on both sides get better outcomes than others.Further, the typical, procedural definition of frivolous "not grounded in law or fact" is not the vernacular definition. True. And the insurance industry likes it that way. In fact, they would like us to define all lawsuits against them as frivolous, it seems.

You are right, some frivolity probably does sneek through the trial level. (On the other hand, legitimate cases get thrown out as well.) But are those the cases they're complaining of? Or are they claiming every loss is due to frivolous cases? I certainly think they are attempting to create a false impression.

[Smalso]

Whenever I hear or read about high awards to a plaintiff, the thing that strikes me is that they are made by juries composed of six or twelve people pretty much like me and agreed upon by both parties.

[subgenius]

Originally posted by Smalso
Whenever I hear or read about high awards to a plaintiff, the thing that strikes me is that they are made by juries composed of six or twelve people pretty much like me and agreed upon by both parties.
There you go.
The "frivolous lawsuit" scam is brought to you by those that don't trust the people to vote either.

[The Don]

Mrs Don was in a workers comp. jury.

The actual damages were easy to calculate (loss of earnings, medical bills etc.) but when it cam to punatives people went $10k..why not $100k... $200K etc..

If it's not your money (and people do not equate huge settlements with spiralling insurance costs) then you don't mind. Maybe the judge should determine the punative figure.

[Reager]

Originally posted by Gregor
I see them every day.

A few examples:

I must go on the assumption that all of the examples you cited below are true. However, you've only provided a gross summary of the facts and legal theory behind each case, plus the damages awarded. That's a very blunt way of figuring out if a lawsuit was truly frivolous. But even so, I have a few comments:


1. Insurance company allows consumers to pay their premiums in 4, 6, or 12 installments. When they divide the bill into 12ths they get fractions. They rounded up to the next penny, without state regulatory approval. Even if wrong, the most anyone ever paid too much was 4 cents - that's right 4 cents. Class action lawsuit - result: (a) company stopped rounding up & (b) plaintiff's lawyers received $20,000,000. That's right 20 million.

I don't know about your numbers, I'm trying to figure out how the most anyone lost is only 4 cents. But anyway, just because each plaintiff may only have lost a few cents doesn't mean this was a frivolous suit. Assuming the attorneys took the case on a contingent basis (at 30% + expenses), that means the insurance company may have taken its customers for over $60,000,000. Does this suit still seem frivolous? Or should the insurance company have been allowed to keep the $60 million it overcharged?

2. Man was an alcoholic. Sued his employer claiming that under the ADA they had to accommodate his disability by allowing him to come in late, miss assignments, etc. Verdict: $500,000.

The ADA requires employers to make reasonable accomodations to employees suffering from a disability, including alcoholism, unless such accomodations place undue hardship on the employer. I fail to see why this suit is necessarilly frivolous.

3. East Coast law professor sues McDonalds because its food to high in fat - no kidding. Dismissed (but the court granted him leave to re-file).

Just wondering, who cares that it was an "East Coast" law professor? Is there something wrong with East Coast law professors?


4. Filing suit in Mississippi - everyone wants to sue a pharmaceutical company, and do it in a particular county in Mississippi. Accordingly, they're always suing the one, little mom and pop pharmacy for selling the drug, then bringing a class action against the manufacturer.


There are many jurisdictional reasons why plaintiffs may wish to find defendants in particular states (for example, removing the case to federal court). However, I seriously doubt that everyone suing a pharmaceutical company chooses the same diversity defendant every single time.


5. Filing suit in Alabama - a guy buys a BWM. While in transit, the hood got dinged, so the dealer repainted it. The buyer was not told about it, but what's the big complaint, it was fixed before he received it? Verdict: $3 million in punitive damages.

Are you sure you "see these every day," instead of simply cut and pasing these from some tort reform website?


6. School bus crash in South Texas kills several kids. The fighting between absentee fathers claiming that they were the natural fathers of some of the kids in order to sue the parties involved spawned may separate paternity suits.

7. The billions spent on breast implant litigation that 100% of science shows is meritless.


At the time the litigation occured, was it known that the science was meritless?


8. Cell phone litigation - est. in the hundreds of millions in defense costs.


Same point as above.

Mike

[subgenius]

Originally posted by mfeldman


I must go on the assumption that all of the examples you cited below are true. However, you've only provided a gross summary of the facts and legal theory behind each case, plus the damages awarded. That's a very blunt way of figuring out if a lawsuit was truly frivolous. But even so, I have a few comments:

[B]

I don't know about your numbers, I'm trying to figure out how the most anyone lost is only 4 cents. But anyway, just because each plaintiff may only have lost a few cents doesn't mean this was a frivolous suit. Assuming the attorneys took the case on a contingent basis (at 30% + expenses), that means the insurance company may have taken its customers for over $60,000,000. Does this suit still seem frivolous? Or should the insurance company have been allowed to keep the $60 million it overcharged?

[B]

The ADA requires employers to make reasonable accomodations to employees suffering from a disability, including alcoholism, unless such accomodations place undue hardship on the employer. I fail to see why this suit is necessarilly frivolous.

[B]

Just wondering, who cares that it was an "East Coast" law professor? Is there something wrong with East Coast law professors?

[B]

There are many jurisdictional reasons why plaintiffs may wish to find defendants in particular states (for example, removing the case to federal court). However, I seriously doubt that everyone suing a pharmaceutical company chooses the same diversity defendant every single time.

[B]

Are you sure you "see these every day," instead of simply cut and pasing these from some tort reform website?

[B]

At the time the litigation occured, was it known that the science was meritless?

[B]

Same point as above.

Mike
I'll bet that some of them are urban myths.
Eg., the "absentee fathers" thing smells and I'm sure there's another side of that. If a person is in fact a parent, they have certain rights. It probably was the defendants that required the proof.
The ADA/Alcoholism thing, I doubt highly. If the judge didn't dismiss it based on the inablility to do the essential functions of the job that's the judges fault. I also believe there are specific exceptions regarding active substance abuse vs. a perceived disability as a rcovering addict.
Without cites to real cases, I shall remain a skeptic.

[Michael Redman]

Originally posted by Gregor
Filing suit in Alabama - a guy buys a BWM. While in transit, the hood got dinged, so the dealer repainted it. The buyer was not told about it, but what's the big complaint, it was fixed before he received it? Verdict: $3 million in punitive damages.By the way, there's nothing frivolous about this situation. Knowing that the purchaser wouldn't pay the same price for a damages car (repainted cars are of less value on the market than original paint cars), the seller chose to withhold the information in order to make the sale at the higher price. This is illegal. Hardly a frivolous claim.

Are the punatives too high? That's for the jury to decide, and I would think $3 million isn't too much of a hit for BMW, especially if you are trying to make them change their ways (i.e. avoid getting sued for ripping people off in the future). Either way, however, the size of the punative damage award doesn't effect the frivolity or legitimacy of the case.

[bignickel]

Here's a solution to frivilous lawsuits: Make it illegal for lawyers to get a percentage of the settlement as their payment. Only a fixed fee, whether they win or lose.

This, of course, will never happen, since the law would never survive the first round of lawsuits against it. :rolleyes:

[subgenius]

Originally posted by bignickel
Here's a solution to frivilous lawsuits: Make it illegal for lawyers to get a percentage of the settlement as their payment. Only a fixed fee, whether they win or lose.


That might well have the opposite effect.
Watch what you wish for you might get it.

[shanek]

I still think the best solution is a variant of "loser pays." The loser would be required to pay legal fees incurred by the winner, based on how much the loser paid for his own lawyer.

[Gregor]

All true. No urban myths. Personal experience or reported cases.

1. Insurance companies in state of Texas - assume 10 million customers chosing separate payments. Max damages 10 cents per person. - Company received $1,000,000 too much. And who says its wrong to round up a penny anyway? The Texas Dept. of Insurance did not. Only the Plaintiffs' lawyers say it was wrong. Yeah, but $10- 20 million in lawyer fees is fine. See Max Boot, May 22, 1996 Wall Street Journal, "Texas-sized Class Action Fraud."

2. ADA - United States Dist. Ct. Dallas, Texas.

3. East coast law professor - using litigation for social engineering.

4. Suit in Miss - review 20/20 broadcast 90 days ago.

5. BMW of North America, Inc. v. Gore, 517 U.S. 559, 116 S.Ct. 1589, 134 L.Ed.2d 809 - $4,000 actual damages, Alabama jury awarded $4 MILLION punitives. (Luckily supreme court said it was too much, but how many cases from Alabama can the supreme court review yearly)

6. South Texas bus crash - personal experience.

7. Breast implant litigation - personal experience.

8. Cell phone litigation - cite me one peer-reviewed journal linking them to brain cancer. One. That's all I ask.

[Gregor]

I respectfully disagree with the liberal, ex post facto justifications

(e.g. "yeah, punish BMW 'cause they didn't tell you a door ding was re-painted" - I call BS on diminution in value. "Breast implant wasn't frivolous at first" - come on, you don't sue first and ask the science to catch up with you.)

[Reager]

Originally posted by Gregor
I respectfully disagree with the liberal, ex post facto justifications

(e.g. "yeah, punish BMW 'cause they didn't tell you a door ding was re-painted" - I call BS on diminution in value. "Breast implant wasn't frivolous at first" - come on, you don't sue first and ask the science to catch up with you.)

If you're responding to my post (difficult to tell without a reference), they were not "liberal ex post facto justifications." They were observations that, given the palty facts you presented about the cases, it's impossible to definitively call them "frivolous." Further, they provide no basis for making an ideological judgment about anyone, and judging from the piss-poor legal accumen displayed above, I doubt you have any idea what a frivolous lawsuit is anyway.

Mike

***I just realized this was a response to Michael Redman's post, not mine. Either way, it could just as easily apply to my post. Gregor seems to think that his own personal beliefs are somehow valid legal opinions. Hint, they're not.

[Smalso]

At the time the litigation occured, was it known that the science was meritless?

Yes.

[Reager]

Originally posted by Smalso


Yes.

Although I'll have to do some research on the matter, I believe the first breast-implant suits were brought in the early or mid-1980's, and the earliest definitive studies on the matter did not appear until the 1990's.

Mike

[Patrickt]

I was rear-ended by a truck. My new car was totalled but other than being kind of stiff and creaky for a day or two I wasn't hurt. I got a letter from a lawyer saying he'd seen the accident report and while I thought I wasn't injured I should see his chiropractor, a specialist in determining permanently disabling injuries. Then in caps the letter said, "YOU MIGHT NEVER HAVE TO WORK AGAIN." It went on to explain that none of this would cost me a cent.

I think it's out of control and getting worse.

[Reager]

Originally posted by Patrickt
I was rear-ended by a truck. My new car was totalled but other than being kind of stiff and creaky for a day or two I wasn't hurt. I got a letter from a lawyer saying he'd seen the accident report and while I thought I wasn't injured I should see his chiropractor, a specialist in determining permanently disabling injuries. Then in caps the letter said, "YOU MIGHT NEVER HAVE TO WORK AGAIN." It went on to explain that none of this would cost me a cent.

I think it's out of control and getting worse.

Where did you get this letter? The US, or Mexico? Just wondering, since your location says you're in Oaxaca.

Mike

[Smalso]

Originally posted by mfeldman


Although I'll have to do some research on the matter, I believe the first breast-implant suits were brought in the early or mid-1980's, and the earliest definitive studies on the matter did not appear until the 1990's.

Mike

You may be right. I think I misunderstood the question. Sorry.

[Ladewig]

"Breast implant wasn't frivolous at first" - come on, you don't sue first and ask the science to catch up with you.

I disagree. If a woman develops some type of illness that may be related to the implants, then she has a right to sue before conducting a study to determine if implant recipients have higher incidents of such illnesses. The purpose of the first level of civil courts is to determine the facts. Granted, every study performed since then has shown no increase in illnesses and it is a crime that damages were awarded; but, bringing a case to court to determine the facts in a debatable issue is appropriate.

[Gregor]

Most state rules of civil procedure and Rule 11 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure require that a lawsuit have a basis in law and fact before it is filed.

For a case based upon scientific evidence, there must be a scientist who establishes that to a reasonable scientific certainty that exposure to silicone through a leaking implant causes auto-immune disease. To file suits before epidemialogical tests showed causation is frivolous. It took tests and scathing articles in JAMA (the Journal of the American Medical Assn, The NEJournal of Medicine, and other institutions, and years for courts to wise up that it was a scam.

The American legal system is not the European one. In some countries of Europe, courts have an investigative role. You prepare your case, you present it to court, and then investigations occur through court-appointed consultants. That's not the case here. Courts are not bodies of scientific inquiry.

So, I must disagree with your position.

[Gregor]

MFeldman

Your defense mechanism to jump to ad hom when you've been proven wrong is telling indeed.

[Patrickt]

MFeldman:

The letter was delivered to me in Colorado before I moved to Mexico.

I suppose I think the relevance of the letter is that there has been nothing done that would prevent them from being mailed now, prevent the expert chiropracter from finding his permanently disabling injuries, or prevent these bogus cases from proceeding.

[Michael Redman]

Originally posted by Gregor
yeah, punish BMW 'cause they didn't tell you a door ding was re-painted" - I call BS on diminution in value. I call BS on your BS. Check any objective source of vehicle values. Damaged and repaired vehicles sell for less on the market than undamaged vehicles, all esle being equal. It isn't some runaway jury's crazy opinion, it's the truth. There is nothing whatsoever frivolous about the claim in this case. The BMW with the damage and repair is obvectively worth less than one never damaged. BMW knew this, and withheld that fact for that very reason. They knew that they couldn't sell the car for as much with the damage, so they deceived the buyer so they could get the full price. They should, obviously, have made an insurance claim for the damage, charged the carrier, or accepted the loss themselves.

The statutes of most stated (and presumably the law sued under in this case) specifically states that it is illegal to withhold information for the purpose of making a sale you know the buyer wouldn't make with the knowledge of the withheld information. There's nothing ex post facto about it.

There's nothing liberal about demanding compensation for actual economic damage inflicted on a party. It's called justice. Or are you implying that justice is a liberal idea?

[Gregor]

I'll cut you some slack because you may not have access to the Supreme Court reporter. This was NOT a dealer selling a totalled car as "mint condition."

Prior to delivery, the car's hood's paint looked splotchy, maybe stained. BWM decided to repaint the car in full prior to delivery to the dealership. It hadn't been in an accident. It was not totalled. The paint looked poor, so it was repainted. (I had originally mistakenly recollected that the hood's paint was dinged rather than splothy - but the merits were the same - but I apologize for the slight error)

Let me quote the opinion:

"Because the $601.37 cost of repainting Dr. Gore's car was only about 1.5 percent of its suggested retail price, BMW did not disclose the damage or repair to the Birmingham dealer."

Again - frivolous and BS.

[Reager]

Originally posted by Patrickt
MFeldman:

The letter was delivered to me in Colorado before I moved to Mexico.

I suppose I think the relevance of the letter is that there has been nothing done that would prevent them from being mailed now, prevent the expert chiropracter from finding his permanently disabling injuries, or prevent these bogus cases from proceeding.

Different states have different ethical rules addressing issues of attorney solicitation and advertising. I'm not familiar with the Colorado ethical cannons, unfortunately. The letter you received may very well have violated them. I disagree with your second statement, however. There is at least one mechanisms in place to prevent similar letters being sent: Report the attorney who sent the letter to the state disciplinary authority. If the letter does indeed "cross the line" the attorney can be disciplined or even disbarred (depending on how egregious the violation). As for the merits of the claim, the judicial system itself acts as a gatekeeper wrt frivolous claims. True, it is not perfect. But the alternatives may be more problematc.

Mike

[Michael Redman]

Originally posted by Gregor
This was NOT a dealer selling a totalled car as "mint condition."And no one claimed it was. A repainted car is worth substantially less than a car with original paint. That's all there is to it. It is a fact of the marketplace. The car, as they sold it, was objectively worth less money than the car as they told him he was getting it. This difference in value is the actual economic damage found at trial. The cost of repainting is irrelevant, as is the fact that the paint job was bad. That was BMW's problem to deal with, and the loss should have been theirs. BMW knew full well that they were selling a vehicle of diminished value, and they pretended that they were not.

[Reager]

Originally posted by Gregor
MFeldman

Your defense mechanism to jump to ad hom when you've been proven wrong is telling indeed.

Interesting, I didn't realize I had been "proven wrong" about anything. Would you care to elaborate?

Mike

[Reager]

Originally posted by Gregor
Most state rules of civil procedure and Rule 11 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure require that a lawsuit have a basis in law and fact before it is filed.

Although I don't have the text in front of me, I believe there is a provision in Rule 11 allowing an attorney to file suit where there is a reasonable basis to suspect the claim has merit. I don't know the details of the cases you're referring to, so I don't know if there was a Rule 11 violation. Frankly, it's tangential to the point I was trying to make.

For a case based upon scientific evidence, there must be a scientist who establishes that to a reasonable scientific certainty that exposure to silicone through a leaking implant causes auto-immune disease. To file suits before epidemialogical tests showed causation is frivolous. It took tests and scathing articles in JAMA (the Journal of the American Medical Assn, The NEJournal of Medicine, and other institutions, and years for courts to wise up that it was a scam.

The American legal system is not the European one. In some countries of Europe, courts have an investigative role. You prepare your case, you present it to court, and then investigations occur through court-appointed consultants. That's not the case here. Courts are not bodies of scientific inquiry.

So, I must disagree with your position.

You're assuming that because the science turned to be wrong, the claim was therefore a "scam" and frivolous when brought. That's a very unfair statement. State and federal courts have, at different times, articulated different tests to determine the admissibility of scientific testimony (and some still do). The Frye test (presumably in use when these cases were brought) was an inadequate gatekeeper for filtering dubious scientific claims and usually resulted in a "battle of the experts." This prompted the Supreme Court's 1993 Daubert decision (which has its own difficulties - including, contrary to your assertion, turning courts into bodies of scientific inquiry). At the time the cases were brought, the plaintiff's probably had adequate basis for proceeding, given the scientific knowledge available and the court's threshold of admissibility (or the case should have been dismissed).

My point was, you provided hardly any details about the implant (and other) cases you referred to. Where were they brought? State court? Federal court? On what theory? Which test of admissibility was in use at the time? I'm not asking you for all this information, I don't feel like getting into a debate over the actual merits of the cases. But it's impossible to state that a given claim was "frivolous" given only that the case was resolved one way and the science was ultimately resolved another way. Hindsight is always 20/20.

Mike