See Vous in Court

Like many Europeans, the French have long regarded the U.S. passion for lawsuits with amusement and disdain. But they are discovering just how litigious and inventive their own society has become. Late last year, for instance, the country's highest appeals court ruled in favor of a young man seeking damages for the injustice of "having been born."

The case nominally pitted Nicolas Perruche, 17, against medical authorities who had failed to detect his mother's case of rubella during her pregnancy a diagnosis that would have led her to abort, given the extensive disabilities the disease is known to cause a fetus. Born deaf, brain-damaged and nearly blind, Nicolas argued in his suit that by influencing his mother to carry him to term, the diagnostic error was responsible for what amounted to his "wrongful birth." Though his parents and a sister had previously been awarded damages in the affair, the court granted the additional demand for compensation in Nicolas' name.

The case is just one of a growing number of damage suits that have begun to overwhelm the country's court system. Though French civil suits declined to 1.66 million in 1999, that relative respite followed a 50% increase over the previous 15 years. Legal experts don't believe the letup will last long, given France's growing enthusiasm for seeking redress in the courts. "The French were traditionally passive in looking to the state for protection and the settlement of disputes," says Nolle Lenoir, a judge on the Conseil Constitutionnel, France's constitutional watchdog. "Cultural changes are allowing people to take a more active role in seeking justice and, in some cases, to profit financially from rulings. It's in part a result of the general Americanization of French society, a social and legal change that isn't over yet."

Indeed, some of the highest-profile recent cases appear to have been inspired by U.S. examples. In 1999 a French court upheld claims lodged against Seita, the former state tobacco company, by survivors of a deceased smoker. The court agreed that the firm was partially responsible for the smoker's addiction and financially liable for his resulting cancer and death. The ruling similar to earlier decisions in the U.S. may impact another case in western France, where the regional health insurance administration is seeking $10 million from tobacco firms to pay for treatment of smoking-related illnesses. Comparable claims are being used by a man in eastern France seeking damages from beverage company Pernod-Ricard for his alcoholism. And families of two French victims of a variant of Creutzfeldt-Jakob syndrome are suing Britain, France and the European Commission for allegedly failing to take sufficient measures to prevent the spread of "mad cow" disease.

Some of the lawsuits have broken new and imaginative ground. A family named Bidochon sought damages from a French publisher over a comic book featuring a loutish clan of the same improbable moniker a request judges denied, saying creators of fictional characters could not be responsible for real-life ridicule by association. Conversely, the Renault family of Nantes no relation to the carmaker were forced to wage a series of legal battles to christen their infant daughter Mgane. The judges initially rejected the pair of names in the child's interests as being identical to one of France's best-selling car models. Last May, 46 plaintiffs named Leneuf sought compensation from phone company Le 9 (Le Neuf in French) over a humorous TV ad they said "ridiculed their image" and inspired prank phone callers.

Despite France's litigious surge, experts say there remains one huge dissimilarity with the U.S.: the size of damages. "Awards sought and granted are modest and aren't rising it's still very sane," says John Riggs, a Paris partner of U.S. law firm White and Case. One reason may be that in the U.S., civil damages are often determined by juries of ordinary citizens, who tend to be sympathetic to plaintiffs. In French civil courts, judges make the decisions. "Under-paid judges don't want their courts becoming circuses where other people make fortunes," speculates Riggs. But if a society of reputedly quarrelsome individualists gets any more "Americanized," it won't be long before large numbers of aggrieved French discover the subtle pleasures of using the courts to, as Americans say, take their adversaries to the cleaners.