Germany: Court

Walking around Berlin, one of the things that might occur to you is that they must have different liability laws in Germany as compared to the United States. Walking in the city this week has been nothing less than treacherous. When we arrived it was snowing and about -4°C. Naturally there was snow on the ground making the sidewalks a challenge. In the days since, the temperature has risen and fallen, occupying boths sides of 0°C, the freezing point. That's a bad thing, especially if they don't clear the walks, which they don’t. The snow melts and refreezes and you have ice. It creates a real hazard for pedestrians and in the US this means it creates a significant liability risk for property owners. In the US you would hustle out and clean up (a.k.a. mitigate the hazard) lest someone slip and end up owning your business.

That's not how the law works here. Their system has a very different perspective and that reality shapes life a many ways. In the US we use liability law to intimidate and punish and in the case of an action each side sets its legal team loose in search of the most advantageous (for them) settlement possible. No one seeks justice - justice is supposed to be the result of the clash of self-interest adversaries and neutral judges.

It works very differently in Germany it seems. The other night I had the good fortune to dine with a pair of attorneys who explained to me how they see their work. The first practices labor law and the second trained as an attorney but works as a judge. His career path has been quite interesting. He was recruited right out of school for his judicial position, which he understands to be administrative in nature. His appointment did not require, first years of service as an attorney, then the development of political ties to facilitate nomination. He is a judge. He hears the facts as presented by the litigants, consults the law and the others on his team and together they seek an equitable solution to the issue, under the law. In the US this process most closely resembles binding arbitration which is commonly used in disputes to stay out of court. In Germany this happens under the auspices of the court.

The goal is justice and does not seem to produce dramatic winners and losers. If you slipped and fell and broke your arm today at the Sony Center at Potsdamer Platz* you would not end up owning a big piece of Sony. They would figure out what your losses were and they cut you a check.– it won't be much, everybody has health insurance. (more on that later)   Because the eventual payday is small,  the impulse to sue is also.  I fear the same goes for the impulse to clean the streets.  Pluses and minuses to everything.

* Odds of slipping at Sony Center?  Pretty high.  The flooring seems prone to slips and they don’t clear snow.