What benefits do courts provide to society?

Courts provide an alternative to lethal weapons. Not everybody takes advantage of that, unfortunately.

Posted by: @bill93

↑

Courts provide an alternative to lethal weapons. Not everybody takes advantage of that, unfortunately.

Exactly! After thinking on it I composed the more formal statement from the view of a surveyor:

The judicial system provides a lawful means of resolving disputes, substituting adjudication for self-help and violence, thereby promoting peace and stability between adjoining landowners.

I liked what the U.S. Supreme Court said in Milk Wagon Drivers Union v. Meadowmoor Dairies, 312 U.S. 287 (1941):

"...attempts to persuade others by the application of physical force and violence as a substitute for persuasion by reason and peaceable argument is contrary to the first principles of our government."

For land disputes I think land surveyors are at the core of "reason and peaceable argument".

Whether it's in a report to land owners or testimony at trial, 'reason' should be of the same type used by the court. 

I have faith in our judicial system.  May not agree with many opinions, but I respect same.  I like to think of the 3 branches of government, that courts decisions are not based on politics or whims but on constitution and previously settled opinions.

Caroline County, VA about 20 years ago - Virginia has an agriculture fence law that says if one owner puts up a fence, the adjacent owner need pay half.  Wealthy owner installs fence and sends demand letter to neighbor for half the cost.  Neighbor shoots/kills owner.

Spotsylvania County about 5 year ago - two landowners disputed boundary and one shot/killed the other.

both could have been resolved in a civil suit in court - most Judges like to defuse these types of situations and find common ground.

Neighbor puts up fence ...

The right answer should be that the party wanting the fence can require the other to put up a fence meeting state minimums. He should not be able to specify the fence beyond state minimums, nor to install whatever he wants and ask for half the cost.

No. The right answer should be that no one is forced to put up nor pay for a fence. Anyone desirous of a fence, shall be the one to pay for such fence.

Posted by: @hpalmer

↑

Virginia has an agriculture fence law that says if one owner puts up a fence, the adjacent owner need pay half. 

Oregon also has such law.  https://oregon.public.law/statutes/ors_96.010

just looked up the Caroline County issue: 

On April 19, 2004, in Caroline County, Virginia, lawyer and cattle breeder John Frederick Ames shot and killed his 74-year-old neighbor, Oliver "Perry" Brooks, following a 16-year property and fence dispute. Ames billed Brooks over $45,000 for half the cost of a boundary fence built in 1989,  Ames built an expensive perimeter fence around his 675-acre property and demanded half the cost from neighbors under an old Virginia fence law. There was a lawsuit which ended up in Virginia Supreme Court which ruled in Ames favor.

I spent 3 hrs in car with attorney representing Brooks discussing the fence issue after Circuit Court hearing earlier that day.

Courts did not defuse the animosity.  

For land issues, if courts don't resolve the dispute, the result can be deadly. Thus the roll surveyors play in litigation is very important.

Posted by: @hpalmer

↑

I have faith in our judicial system.  May not agree with many opinions, but I respect same.  I like to think of the 3 branches of government, that courts decisions are not based on politics or whims but on constitution and previously settled opinions.

 

If faith in our judicial system is needed for courts to be utilized, decisions can't be based on whims that arbitrarily show favor to one or the other. Court opinions are based on precedent, formed over decades of the customs, concepts, rules, and principles that are a guardrail for life. It provides a stability the public can respect. Consider a ballgame where umpires changed the rules throughout the game. It would be a recipe for violence.

The best surveys are those that mirror the reasoning and precedent of courts and this is necessary if the profession of surveying is to be respected by the public.