August 26, 2004

In yesterday's Wall Street Journal (sub - $), historian John Steele Gordon observes that two of the salient features of the American litigation system -- the rule that each side bears its own costs, and the popular election of judges -- have been emulated virtually nowhere else on earth. It's a fair inference that these ideas have not been found particularly attractive as compared with the many American innovations that have spread widely to other parts of the globe. And the European WSJ today editorially criticizes the case (see Overlawyered, Nov. 17-19, 2000) in which American attorney Ed Fagan (more), apparently undaunted by charges of forum-shopping, is suing in New York over a cable-car tunnel calamity in Austria.