3rd Degree Films

While there’s no real call to action in the film, the details of cases that ended up being called “junk lawsuits” are heart-twisting and human. By meeting the people on the other side of the docket, we are shown a truth that the plaintiffs aren’t greedy asses trying to tie up the legal system in order to get millions for doing something stupid. The people profiled (the woman who sued McDonald’s, a family whose son was brain-damaged because of genuine doctor error, and a young woman who was gang raped by co-workers) are us. They aren’t lazy leeches sucking off the public dole who want a quick buck. Their stories could just as easily be our stories (and often are considering the amount of complaints registered to different corporate entities).

Admittedly, this documentary is one-sided, but the filmmakers did due diligence in trying to get statements from the companies on the other end of the table. All declined. In their stead, a few publicly available depositions from the cases are offered – a particularly damning one from a McDonald’s representative who seems uncaring despite a mountain of complaints that their coffee is kept hot enough to destroy flesh and a laughable counter-testimony from a lawyer claiming that forced arbitration helps consumers.

(The reduced story of a woman spilling coffee and winning millions is funny, but the reduced idea of selling coffee that you can’t drink is even funnier.)

Between the stories of people being affected by the corporate community’s assault on a normal citizen’s ability to go to court (which they called tort reform), Saladoff does something ingenious by doing man-on-the-street style questions with people not at all involved in the court cases. Their astonishing ignorance of the elements of these stories and modern history is second only to what ignorance the audience might find in itself. It’s an eye-opening, humbling move, and you find yourself trying to answer the questions alongside the layperson talking heads. My batting average was admittedly lower than I would have hoped.