While lawsuits may be rare, they are expensive, and people are risk-averse.
Also, the range of behavior that has to be avoided to avoid an unjustified lawsuit is much wider than the range of behavior that has to be avoided to avoid a justified lawsuit, and since even unjustified lawsuits are expensive, the former category is what really matters.
Your second paragraph seems to be agreeing with the first of my parenthetical points, but it sounds as if it’s intended to be a point of disagreement. I mention this just in case it turns out that one of us has misunderstood the other.
Unjustified lawsuits are probably cheaper—you’re more likely to win them, more likely to win them quickly, and more likely (in jurisdictions where this is a real distinction) to have the plaintiff have to pay your legal costs.
Your second paragraph seems to be agreeing with the first of my parenthetical points, but it sounds as if it’s intended to be a point of disagreement.
It was disagreeing with your second point, “much too rare for rational consideration of their risk to yield the reported difference in evaluation”. If the person is risk-averse, then it’s not too rare for rational consideration of the risk to yield the difference. (Don’t assume that risk aversion is inherently iirational. It’s not.)
I don’t understand. It was your first paragraph that was pointing out risk aversion. The second paragraph was the one about unjustified versus justified lawsuits. (Let me try to bridge one possible inferential gap by remarking that I think unjustified sexual harassment lawsuits are also very rare.)
While lawsuits may be rare, they are expensive, and people are risk-averse.
Also, the range of behavior that has to be avoided to avoid an unjustified lawsuit is much wider than the range of behavior that has to be avoided to avoid a justified lawsuit, and since even unjustified lawsuits are expensive, the former category is what really matters.
Your second paragraph seems to be agreeing with the first of my parenthetical points, but it sounds as if it’s intended to be a point of disagreement. I mention this just in case it turns out that one of us has misunderstood the other.
Unjustified lawsuits are probably cheaper—you’re more likely to win them, more likely to win them quickly, and more likely (in jurisdictions where this is a real distinction) to have the plaintiff have to pay your legal costs.
It was disagreeing with your second point, “much too rare for rational consideration of their risk to yield the reported difference in evaluation”. If the person is risk-averse, then it’s not too rare for rational consideration of the risk to yield the difference. (Don’t assume that risk aversion is inherently iirational. It’s not.)
I don’t understand. It was your first paragraph that was pointing out risk aversion. The second paragraph was the one about unjustified versus justified lawsuits. (Let me try to bridge one possible inferential gap by remarking that I think unjustified sexual harassment lawsuits are also very rare.)