Let me know if there is a better place to ask this. Also I'm not from the United States so if this common knowledge please don't destroy me.
I assume this is something that has developed over time (>20 years). So what is the basis (legal or otherwise) and what have been the contributing factors driving the development and seemingly natural recourse to litigation in the United States - even over things that seem very trivial or beyond the control of the defendent?
One very well know case would be [Liebeck v. McDonald's Restaurants] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liebeck_v._McDonald's_Restaurants)
Where I come from most people probably wouldn't think to sue over something like this and it probably wouldn't make it far in court.
I think this is a dangerously loaded question. You should read the Liebeck Wikipedia entry more carefully. That case is decidedly not an example of American "frivolous litigation" -- a politically charged term, by the way, frequently used by politicians in this country seeking to pass legislation that would inure companies to civil liability. The plaintiff in Liebeck suffered third degree burns to her groin and required skin grafting. During discovery it was revealed that McDonalds boiled its coffee to between 180 and 190 degrees Fahrenheit, a temperature too hot for immediate consumption and which is hot enough to cause major burn damage. Moreover, McDonalds was aware of something like 700 reported incidents of their coffee causing major injury to customers but never sought to reduce their coffee's holding temperature to the industry standard 135 degrees. The American media latched onto the Liebeck case as a joke but did a real disservice to our civil litigation system in doing do: Do yourself a favor and Google an image of Ms. Liebeck's burnt thighs and tell me her case was "frivolous."
Any "why" I might offer would be too speculative for this subreddit, but the American penchant for litigation is not an especially new development.
Conditions in the American colonies seemed to make stamp duties an ideal form of taxation from the viewpoint of the British government. The people were extremely litigious -- indeed, they hauled each other into court upon the slightest pretext -- and since all legal papers required a stamp, this weakness for going to law promised to redound to the profit of the British Exchequer.
-- John C. Miller, Origins of the American Revolution. Boston: Little, Brown, 1943.
This may not answer you question, but most would agree that the libeck case was a bad example. take a look at her burns (nsfw)
They awarded Liebeck US$200,000 in compensatory damages, which was then reduced by 20% to $160,000. In addition, they awarded her $2.7 million in punitive damages. The jurors apparently arrived at this figure from Morgan's suggestion to penalize McDonald's for one or two days' worth of coffee revenues, which were about $1.35 million per day.[2] The judge reduced punitive damages to $480,000, three times the compensatory amount, for a total of $640,000. The decision was appealed by both McDonald's and Liebeck in December 1994, but the parties settled out of court for an undisclosed amount less than $600,000
Sounds like a reasonably just resolution.
This question might also do well in /r/AskSocialScience