I agree. The law authorizes only the attorney general to crack the whip, and limits that prosecutorial discretion with an blanket affirmative defense. Who wins here?
This is toothless. Without a private cause of action available to the consumer, prosecutorial discretion means offenses will go unpunished based on political winds.
Many of the issues raised by your comment are the result of civil procedural rules. These rules are not intentionally designed to postpone rulings on the merits, and instead were built on historical understandings of how a dispute should be fairly addressed: 1) communicate problem to adverse party 2) adverse party responds 3) fact-finding 4) written arguments aimed at resolution 5) trial by judge/peers (if necessary).
I don't believe that moving #4 (or even #5) earlier in the process maximizes the possibility of a logically/legally sound conclusion, which IMO, is the purpose of the justice system. Then again, your comment has identified speed as a priority, not a thorough examination of the merits.
If the procedural rules don't offend you, then we might just be talking about expensive lawyers. Not all lawyers are expensive.
>We do not have equal access to our judicial system in the United States.
I agree, but I think we can be more specific.
Criminals (or those accused of a crime) are constitutionally guaranteed an attorney. Civil plaintiffs/defendants, by contrast, have no such right. The anecdotes and experiences of HN users overwhelmingly describe the civil side of things.
Civil lawsuits, IMO, should carry no guarantee of counsel at the constitutional level. Imagine if they did: free lawyers mean frivolous lawsuits and over-burdened courts. But, I don't think anyone is actually clamoring for such an arrangement.
So, specifically, how can we more efficiently allocate limited legal resources to ensure that the average civil litigant is not disadvantaged by a wealth disparity with his opponent?
Well, what's the perceived disadvantage to a resource-poor litigant? What's the perceived advantage to a resource-rich litigant? Good facts make good cases much more frequently than good lawyers make good cases.
Note the paper's definition of medical error:
"Medical error has been defined as an unintended act (either of omission or commission) or one that does not achieve its intended outcome,3 the failure of a planned action to be completed as intended (an error of execution), the use of a wrong plan to achieve an aim (an error of planning),4 or a deviation from the process of care that may or may not cause harm to the patient."
This isn't a strong argument to me. Student debt might not be collateralized the same way mortgages are (i.e. there's no house to repossess), but student debt is still an asset on a bank's book. If anything, student debt default seems to me more troublesome, as defaulted debt without collateral is more damaging to a balance sheet than debt with collateral.