2005-07-22 - 10:38 p.m.
We Americans will sue for anything, in fact right now we are at war with McDonalds to �Sue our own fat asses off�
Greed, it is a now an American Value.
�Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of� Everything!�
It seems that that only thing we don�t want for our selves is responsibility. �I want it all, but if it turns out to be bad for me, I�ll sue you.�
This all comes to mind because of a story I heard on NPR tonight
The family of a Garland TX girl who was accidentally killed last month when her father ran over her is suing a major car manufacturer for negligence.
The family is suing Nissan, the parent company of Infiniti. They claim new back-up video cameras or sensors which detect objects behind a vehicle were available, and should have been installed in their SUV.
The suit apparently doesn�t mention that the family could have purchased the camera and sensors as an option but did not. How can you honestly stand up in court and blame a car company because you backed over your daughter?
I can�t imagine the terrible suffering they are going through at the loss of their child, and that doesn�t make what their doing any less reprehensible. I have absolutely no tolerance for this kind of lawsuit.
If Nissan pays you a couple of million dollars, will that make it any better? Will it be any easier to look at yourself in the rearview mirror if that mirror is in a new Lexus?
I don�t even agree with huge settlements in worthy cases, even if your doctor was an idiot and cut off the wrong leg, why should you suddenly become a millionaire?
If you ever take the time to check out some websites dedicated to our overly litigious society, you�ll either realize that the world is a whole lot greasier than you ever imagined. Or you�ll kick your self for not suing more often, depending on your moral character.
I don�t mean the sites that made the McDonalds hot coffee case so famous, sites with titles like �America�s Craziest Lawsuits� of �Lawyers gone Wild�
Unfortunately those sites tend to distort, and sometimes completely leave out important parts of the story. For example, the McDonalds case doesn�t seem nearly so crazy once you read the facts of the case http://www.vanfirm.com/mcdonalds-coffee-lawsuit.htm and here http://www.lectlaw.com/files/cur78.htm)
I prefer sites that allow you to look over the facts of the actual case, not just the opinion and carefully worded summary of a headline story. �Court house news� is a good site, it provides documents and references and doesn�t sensationalize it�s reporting http://www.courthousenews.com/disc8_toc.htm#top
The truth tends to complicate everything, which is why you seldom hear or see any of it.
�Jury Awards Plaintiff $2.7 Million for spilling coffee on herself� Makes such a great headline, and water cooler topic.
�Restaurant chain with of over 500 prior burn complaints, most settled out of court, continues to serve coffee at 180 degrees despite warnings from National burn centers that coffee served so hot can cause third degree burns within 2-7 seconds, offers to pay 79 year old lady $800.00 for burns to her legs and groin that required skin grafts.�
Doesn�t make such a tidy headline.
Few people ever heard that the punitive damages were later reduced to $480,000 and even later there was a secret out of court settlement. Even fewer know of the details of the case, which after reading them myself, have completely changed my feeling on the outcome.
But I digress. I was actually talking about cases that really are outrageous, cases of sheer greed and opportunism. It�s cases like these that make it so easy to dismiss worthy cases as ridiculous.
A woman is suing Lowe�s home improvements for $50,000 because a bird flew into the back of her head while she was in their OUTDOOR gardening center.
Sometimes when you read the case files you say, �Oh, well now that I know the facts, it doesn�t seem so crazy� Other times you read the facts and say, �Wow, the truth is even worse than I thought.�
You can find the details of that case here by the way
http://www.courthousenews.com/disc8_toc.htm#Bird_Attack_at_Store_Leads_to_Customer_Lawsuit
But I like this one better, take a moment to read the following from a case filed this year in New York:
Item 44. That as a result of the negligence of the defendants, the plaintiff, Esther
Hanuka, became, still is, and for a long time to come, will be sick, sore, lame, bruised,
injured, disabled and wounded, in and about the various parts of her head, limbs, body,
blood vessels and surrounding tissues, and has suffered sever and extreme mental shock,
anguish, and psychic injuries, and that the plaintiff was otherwise injured, and upon
information and belief, said injuries are permanent, that by reason of the forgoing, the
plaintiff was obligated to and did necessarily employ medical aid, hospital services,
medicinals and medical supplies, in an attempt to cure the aforesaid injuries, and has been
prevented from his/her usual duties and will be prevented so for a long time to come.
Item 45. That by reason of the foregoing, the plaintiff, Esther Hanuka, has been damaged in the sum of TWO MILLION ($2,000,000.00) dollars.
Gee, what happened to her? Did a police officer shoot her for no reason? Did a bus driver purposely run her over, twice? Was her arm mistakenly amputated when she went in to have a mole removed?
No no no� She bit into an olive that had a pit in it.
Now to be fair, the olives were marked �pitted�
Maybe this kind of stuff drives me crazy because of my grandparents. I lived with them for a while when I was younger and it must have left an impression on me, and that impression called �common sense�
There was probably more than a little shame thrown in for good measure. My grandmothers reaction to a case like this would be something like this:
�Jaysus Goot en Himel! They should be ashamed of themselves, if something like that happened to me I would be so embarrassed I would never tell anyone, much less go to court!�
We were a very �personal responsibility� based family. If my grandparents had purchased a microwave oven, and that oven, through no fault of their own, had suddenly exploded and burned down the house. Their reaction would have been:
�Well, that�s what we get for being to impatient to cook on the oven.�
Who in the world sues for two million dollars because they found a pit in an olive? Well�Esther Hanuka, that�s who.
Why can�t there be a penalty for even filing these kind of suits? I don�t want to take away anybody�s right to just legal action, I just want to take away their right to be complete raving idiots. Is that so bad?
A 17 year old grocery bagger in Idaho had an affair with an assistant manager at the Albertson�s where she worked, he was convicted for statutory rape and sent to jail for a year.
Fair enough I guess, he should have known better and now he is paying the price.
But wait, if I�m writing about it there must be something else�
She (and her parents) filed suit against Albertson� for negligence and (this is the best part) a worker's compensation claim for an injury suffered on the job. That injury�.
A broken hymen.
A district court judge ruled in her favor, and was unanimously overruled by the Idaho Supreme Court. (Thank God someone up there has some sense.)
Writing in the opinion the justices said that while a 17 year old is incapable of legally giving consent for sex, there was no indication that it was not consensual. (I hope so since the affair went on for months and continued after the manager was demoted to �checker� and sent to another store.)
After the Supreme Court overturned the decision they ordered �Jane Doe� and her parents to pay Albertson�s court costs, about $16,000 dollars.
Unfortunately for all of us, that award was later changed on a technicality and �Jane Doe and Folks � didn�t have to pay.
Not willing to slink away into shame and obscurity like they should have, thankful that they didn�t have to pay $16 grand for their own stupidity, they have now appealed that Albertson�s should pay THEIR court and Lawyers fees.
That case is still pending.
Good Grief.
