Should the loser of a civil lawsuit be bound to pay all the costs of the lawsuit, including the winner's expenses?

Wouldn’t it also scare people with just grievances? I think the amounts of the damage they get or has to pay is the culprit here. Millions for tripping on the sidewalk outside a rich franchise is not rational.

I agree with @oratio, but at the same time, I think that the loser should pay all expenses (so long as the lawsuit isn’t retarded).

definitely, for exactly the reason you stated.

I know I won my suit against someone, and they’re supposed to pay me what they owe me plus all the money I’ve had to shell out to sue them. It’s been two years and I haven’t seen a dime.

I thought this was already the case.

Yes, @augustlan is right isn’t she?

I see a few problems with this idea. First one is, most lawsuits never make it to trial. They’re settled out of court. One of the reasons they’re settled out of court relates to the legal expenses. It’s far cheaper to pay the plaintiff $100,000 dollars then to pay three times that in legal fees. This is one of the major flaws with our legal system, IMHO. With your idea, more cases WOULD go to court, jamming up the system and costing people all of their earnings when they loose. By settling out of court, this all can be avoided.

In addition, you can’t get “blood out of a stone”. If the defendant is poor or bankrupt, the plaintiff will probably not get very much.

funny, I just talked about this with an American lawyer who went to Hong Kong to practice out there, they apparently do this (according to him) also the plaintiff must front some of the legal fees in escrow before he/she can file a suit.

He said that this significantly reduces the amount of “hot coffee” types of lawsuits going on. Although, it also sounds kind of like the up-front fee escrow thing can bar people with little or no money from filing suit when its justified.

This was all learned from the conversation, please do more research if you are interested, this could be totally inaccurate.

Here is an explanation of a civil lawsuit: http://www.lawleaf.com/lawsuit-funding/civil-lawsuits.html

Typically the person that caused the injury has an insurance company. The insurance company will be responsible for paying the damages (car accident, slip and falls etc.). In a civil lawsuit a company could be at fault or partial fault. This will determine the amount paid based upon the victims expenses.