That’s honestly a terrible system. Not being able to proceed without actual damages gives polluters a huge boon that takes years to litigate and can be impossible to definitively prove. For the “success” of the tobacco settlements in the 1990s, they were knowingly poisoning people for decades after the first suits were filed, but since it’s hard to point to smoking as the cause of a specific cancer, they could defer and defer and defer.
Strong whistleblower rewards would go a long way toward making the worst offenders at least work a little harder.
I am very much in favor of whistleblower rewards. I am just pointing out that as a society, we've sort of passed the buck (literally) to the tort lawyers.
Strong whistleblower rewards would go a long way toward making the worst offenders at least work a little harder.