I suspect that what has happened to complicate the law so much is that there are more and more laws, rules, regulations, etc. (referred to in this article as “laws”) have been, and continue to be, added daily by each government entity, as it is easier to create new laws than then to scrutinize or repeal existing laws. This is very similar to the process in which presidential candidates promise in the election campaign that, if elected, they will eliminate or consolidate government departments and cabinet positions. This rarely happens because of the enormity of the task, power struggles between the various departments, and because the federal government is not good at laying off staff (or balancing budgets).

The serious downside to our layered system of laws is that it is nearly impossible for the average person and small business owner to navigate the legal process. It is also a problem for large commercial entities, but they have the resources to seek help.

I am constantly amazed by reading about the existence of laws that I never heard of, and I learn about these laws by reading various legal publications or hearing about them in legal seminars. I recently read about a class action lawsuit that had been filed against an amusement park because when credit cards were used to purchase entry tickets, the expiration date was also printed. This apparently violated some law. The end result of the class action lawsuit was that the amusement park had to give out free tickets to past customers, as well as the community, if enough past customers did not benefit from the free ticket offer. The only ones who received money from the lawsuit were the lawyers. The attorneys were doing a public service by protecting the privacy of amusement park customers, but one wonders if all amusement park operators are aware of this law, and if not, should they have their attorneys look at the law? law these kinds of laws? ? The answer is yes, they are so necessary.

The law has become so complex that even a small matter, such as a buyer discovering a defect in a home they purchased, faces some complex laws. Researching remedies for a client in a similar situation recently, these were the issues we encountered:

State law exempts an estate (the house was sold for an estate) from the responsibility to sell real estate unless the manager / executor knew about the condition.

If the buyer complains about a problem, the sales agreement requires mediation, rather than a court hearing. The mediator must be paid by each party involved.

The buyer had an inspector inspect the property. If the buyer feels that the inspector did not do a good job, the inspector’s agreement requires that the matter be arbitrated first and the buyer cannot take the matter to court, at least initially.

As we were not sure if the buyer could prove that the seller was aware of the defect, or if the inspector should have informed them about the leak, which means that every part would be pointed fingers and because we could not initiate a claim even on a small claims court, where it would probably have been resolved quickly, we advised clients to just absorb the expense of repairing the problem, which was not large and certainly much less expensive than paying for a mediator, arbitrator, or attorney.