“Put him in jail! He won’t give me his animal cookies!”

I pointed to a stuffed gray elephant innocently sitting in a high chair. My 11-year-old brother, whom I convinced to be the judge in this scenario, hit the kitchen table with a spoon.

“Order! Order! Mr. Ears, you are guilty of eating Jessie’s cupcake. You must give her all of her animal cookies as an excuse or go to jail.”

I smiled and took my winnings while my parents continued to cook dinner.

And that was the last time I sued someone.

This was a normal activity for my brother and me when we were children. We look too much Law in the past and liked to play “Court Time”. I’d say it gave us a warped view of the world where people sued each other every second of the day in the blink of an eye.

But, unfortunately, that’s pretty close to the truth … at least in the United States.

And that is precisely why I have strived to be proactive in protecting my hard-earned wealth. Something I want to emphasize today …

Let’s use last year as an example of what I mean. Some of the top frivolous lawsuits of 2016 include:

1. Two people sued Starbucks in a class action lawsuit alleging too much steamed milk. Another customer filed a lawsuit for excess ice.
2. A woman sued the beauty company Fresh Incorporated because she thought there was more Sugar Lip Treatment lip balm at the bottom of an empty tube. (I’m scratching my head with that too.)
3. Another woman earned $ 161,000 after she climbed a ladder while texting, causing her phone to hit her in the face.
4. PETA sued a photographer, claiming that Naruto, a monkey who took a selfie, owns the copyright to the photo. This case actually started in 2015 and was only resolved in September 2017. In the end, the photographer agreed to donate 25% of his future earnings from the image to protect Naruto. It’s unclear who had to pay the $ 261,200 in legal costs that left the photographer broke.
5. Eventually, a MasterCard holder sued the company for raising more than $ 30 million for cancer research when the original goal was just $ 4 million. Yes, the company was sued for raising too much money for a good cause.

At this point, you could probably sue a stuffed elephant in royal court.

But is it really surprising? As of 2014, 1.2 million attorneys reside in the US, representing more than 70% of the world’s attorneys. That’s an increase of more than 100% from the 1980 total of 574,810.

That dramatic growth simply shows how much American society depends on lawyers to solve problems of any kind.

And it has made us an incredibly litigious society.

About 15 million lawsuits were filed in the United States last year. That is a new demand every two seconds. In September 2016, the American Trial Lawyers Association found that the annual cost to the American economy from civil lawsuits was a whopping $ 239 billion.

And the estimated annual cost to each citizen for these lawsuits is $ 812.

As people committed to growing and protecting our wealth, I think it’s critical that we understand the potential issues here.

People like to sue. And if you have amassed a good deal of wealth, you are particularly vulnerable. So I urge you to start protecting yourself. And the first step is to research how you can protect your life on a lawyer’s test.