Study shows $865B/year in U.S. Legal Expenses
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[##_1L|1156448708.jpg|width="140" height="157" alt=""|_##]The U.S. legal system imposes a cost of $865 billion a year on the U.S. economy, or $9,800 a family, a San Francisco "free-market" think tank reports. The costs associated with civil lawsuits, and the fear of them, is 27 times more than the federal government spends on homeland security; 30 times what the National Institutes of Health dedicates to biomedical research; and 13 times the amount the U.S. education department spends to educate children, the Pacific Research Institute says.
The institute's "Jackpot Justice" study is the first to calculate both the U.S. legal system's direct and indirect costs, study author Lawrence McQuillan says.
Direct costs refer to damage awards, lawyer fees and defense costs -- as well as administrative costs from lawsuits arising after someone breaks a contract or violates a trust resulting in injury to another's person's body, property, reputation, legal rights and the like.
Indirect costs refer to the legal system's impact on research and development spending, the cost of so-called defensive medicine and the related rise in healthcare spending and reduced healthcare access, McQuillan says.
Lost sales of new products "from less innovation" amounts $367.1 billion, the study concluded.
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Grounds for Divorce in Ohio - Sylkatis Law, LLC
A divorce in Ohio is filed when there is typically “fault” by one of the parties and party not at “fault” seeks to end the marriage. A court in Ohio may grant a divorce for the following reasons:
• Willful absence of the adverse party for one year
• Adultery
• Extreme cruelty
• Fraudulent contract
• Any gross neglect of duty
• Habitual drunkenness
• Imprisonment in a correctional institution at the time of filing the complaint
• Procurement of a divorce outside this state by the other party
Additionally, there are two “no-fault” basis for which a court may grant a divorce:
• When the parties have, without interruption for one year, lived separate and apart without cohabitation
• Incompatibility, unless denied by either party
However, whether or not the the court grants the divorce for “fault” or not, in Ohio the party not at “fault” will not get a bigger slice of the marital property.