The Miserable Tide: Civil Litigation as a Remedy for Broken Trust and Unsafe Systems

In Cormac McCarthy's "No Country for Old Men," Sheriff Ed Tom Bell delivers a haunting reflection on his reluctance to confront the evolving nature of violence in his jurisdiction: "It's not that I'm afraid of it... I always knew you had to be willing to die to even do this job. But I don't want to push my chips forward and go out and meet something I don't understand. A man would have to put his soul at hazard. He'd have to say, 'Okay, I'll be part of this world.'"

This concept of "putting one's soul at hazard" resonates profoundly beyond the context of law enforcement. It speaks to a fundamental aspect of modern society—the implicit trust we place in systems and institutions that hold our safety in their hands.

Souls at Hazard: The Trust We Place in Corporate Systems

Every day, we put our souls at hazard. We merge onto highways alongside 80,000-pound commercial vehicles. We walk beneath towering construction cranes in urban centers. We enter hospitals trusting in proper protocols. We consume medications assuming rigorous testing. We shop in stores expecting safe premises.

We participate in these potentially dangerous contexts because we operate under a collective assumption: that trucking companies maintain their fleets, that construction firms secure their equipment, that hospitals follow safety procedures, that pharmaceutical companies conduct thorough research, and that retailers maintain safe environments.

This trust isn't merely personal—it's the bedrock of a functioning society. We couldn't navigate modern life if we had to personally verify the safety protocols of every system we encounter. We must, out of practical necessity, say "Okay, I'll be part of this world," despite its risks.

But what happens when that trust is broken? What happens when the systems we rely upon prioritize efficiency over safety, profit over protection, or expedience over excellence?

The Miserable Tide of Unsafe Systems

Like Sheriff Bell's observation about the rising tide of violence, unsafe corporate practices rarely manifest as isolated incidents. They represent systemic failures—a "miserable tide" of cut corners, ignored warnings, deferred maintenance, inadequate training, and institutional pressures that prioritize production over precaution.

Consider the trucking company that pushes drivers beyond hours-of-service limitations or defers critical maintenance to keep trucks on the road. Each decision alone might seem minor, defensible under the pressures of tight margins and delivery deadlines. But collectively, they create a tide of risk that inevitably crashes into the lives of innocent motorists.

Or consider the retail establishment that understaffs its maintenance department, delays repairs, or fails to implement proper inspection protocols. No single decision caused the ceiling to collapse or the railing to fail—it was the accumulated weight of numerous choices that prioritized short-term savings over customer safety.

This is the miserable tide—not one decision, but the cumulative impact of a system oriented toward profit rather than protection. And just as Sheriff Bell found himself confronting a changing landscape of violence that traditional law enforcement seemed inadequate to address, conventional regulatory frameworks often prove insufficient against these systemic failures.

Civil Litigation: Meeting the Tide

Civil litigation, particularly when pursued with thoroughness and commitment, serves as one of the few effective countermeasures against this tide. It functions not merely as compensation for individual harm but as a mechanism for exposing and addressing the underlying systems that produced that harm.

Thorough and open discovery in a trucking case may uncover not just a single driver's negligence but a pattern of dispatcher pressure, maintenance deferrals, and hiring practices that created the conditions for tragedy. The lawyer who deposes multiple corporate representatives in a premises liability case may reveal not just a single missed inspection but an entire culture of neglect.

This is why settlement without investigation often fails to stem the tide. Quick resolutions may compensate individual victims, but they rarely expose or correct the systemic issues that will inevitably claim more victims. The miserable tide continues unabated.

Restoring the Covenant of Trust

When we place ourselves in potentially dangerous contexts—on highways, in stores, in hospitals—we do so under an unspoken covenant: that the entities controlling these environments have taken reasonable steps to ensure our safety. We put our souls at hazard with the expectation that others have fulfilled their duty of care.

Civil litigation, at its most effective, helps restore and enforce this covenant. It transforms private tragedy into public accountability. It renders visible the invisible systems that failed. It creates financial incentives for safety that may be more compelling than regulatory requirements.

Through thorough discovery, expert testimony, and public trials, litigation can expose the true nature and extent of systemic failures. It can demonstrate how seemingly minor decisions aggregate into dangerous patterns. It can transform individual compensation into systemic correction.

The Attorney's Role: Confronting What We Don't Understand

Sheriff Bell's reluctance stems partly from his unwillingness to "go out and meet something I don't understand." This, too, finds its parallel in civil litigation against complex corporate entities.

It is daunting to confront the inner workings of a national trucking operation, a hospital system, or a retail chain. These are complex systems with specialized knowledge, proprietary procedures, and teams of attorneys dedicated to their defense. Understanding how these systems function—and how they failed—requires commitment, expertise, and resources.

This is precisely why many attorneys settle for what they can easily understand: the immediate facts of the incident, the apparent negligence, the visible injuries. Going beyond this surface understanding to confront the underlying systems requires pushing one's chips forward—investing time, resources, and professional reputation in pursuit of deeper accountability.

Conclusion: Being Part of a Different World

Sheriff Bell ultimately decides he cannot be "part of this world"—the changing landscape of violence he no longer recognizes or understands. But civil litigators face a different choice. They can accept the world of quick settlements and individual compensation, or they can commit to confronting and changing the systems that produce harm.

The attorney who chooses the latter path—who invests in understanding complex corporate structures, who pursues thorough discovery, who prepares every case with trial in mind—contributes to a different kind of world. A world where corporations know they may be held accountable not just for isolated incidents but for the entire tide of decisions that led to those incidents. A world where the covenant of trust between businesses and the public is reinforced through meaningful consequences.

In this sense, civil litigation at its best doesn't merely compensate—it transforms. It confronts not just what happened but why it happened and how to prevent it from happening again. It addresses not just the incident but the tide.

And for those who have put their souls at hazard by trusting in systems that failed them, this transformation may be the truest form of justice.

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