Avoiding Litigation: Are We Generalists or Specialists?

Truth can be difficult to determine, but its proof is commonly established by numbers, by authority, or by tradition. In other words, we tend to believe that something is true if enough people say it is, or if a ruler or a sacred book says it is, or if it has remained unchanged for generations. However, this still doesn’t mean that it is the truth. What I’ve noticed is that most people tend to remember the simple truths they learned as children, and many even try to live by them in the hope that the world will become a better place. Indeed, the truth is often plain and simple, so simple in fact that even children understand it, so when I hear someone spouting a lot of fancy words I start to suspect that I might not be hearing the truth. But what has bothered me most in recent years is to see how the plain and ordinary truth, or what most of us would call common sense, is repeatedly ignored in our courts, ignored in the one place where you would expect to hear it spoken, and where in the interests of justice it should prevail. And this has to do with words, and explains in part how inspectors can be victimized.

I’ve read quite a few lawsuits, and I’ve rarely found any that showed an appreciation for the beauty of the common tongue, or any that were clear and easy to understand, let alone any that spoke simple truths. Attorneys seem to favor Latinate words over plain old Anglo-Saxon ones. For instance, instead of asking someone to “stop,” they ask that they “cease and desist.” They must think that Latinate words and phrases sound more important, and that the people who use them must be more intelligent. Nothing could be further from the truth. The secret of good writing is simplicity, always has been, and always will be. However, the truth in most lawsuits, and indeed in the law itself, is often smothered by Latinate diction in convoluted sentences that we call “obfuscation,” which is typically as ugly and obscure as the word itself. There would be no point in giving examples of this, just read George Orwell’s essay Politics and the English Language, or try to read and understand any lawsuit for that matter. Most include ridiculously overstated accusations and cluttered nonsense, which totally obscures the meaning as well as the truth. Regardless, let’s look for some truth as it relates to inspectors.

For years, our standards have commonly defined inspectors as “generalists,” but is that the truth? Thirty years ago, when the industry was in its infancy, this label was justified and intended to sensibly limit an inspector’s liability. But, based on many of the lawsuits that I’ve become familiar with, I can assure you that clients and attorneys, and indeed the courts, actually regard inspectors as “specialists,” in other words the exact opposite of “generalists,” and not without reason. The truth is we’ve come a long way since the early days, and most of us really are specialists. We’ve studied and worked long hours to become professional inspectors, and along the way most of us have bought literally thousands of dollars of sophisticated equipment and specialized tools. Besides, calling ourselves “generalists” has never stopped us from being dragged into lawsuits. Attorneys don’t care what we call ourselves. I was dragged into a lawsuit in which the attorney got my name wrong, misidentified me as the owner of a termite company, omitted material facts, and yet still managed to legally “extort” thousands of dollars from my insurance company. I was totally innocent and told the truth, but that didn’t matter. If you care to read the case, it’s on file in the Superior Court of Los Angeles, number BC 263791. But let’s talk about the future.