According to witnesses, faculty had stopped a junior varsity football game at Monarch High School in Fort Lauderdale because of thunder and the players were coming off the field when 15-year-old Schaffner Noel was struck and killed by a bolt of lightning. Now his father Julio Noel is suing the Broward County School Board. “The school did not use a lightning detection device and failed to provide sufficient warning and evacuation measures, attorney Holly Krulik said in a statement Tuesday.” (“Fla. Dad Sues Schools In Lightning Death”, AP/Local6.com, Jun. 27). An amusement-park lightning case can be found here, and our readers have been having a lively discussion over the meaning of the word “accident” here.
Archive for July, 2007
Scottish smoking violation
It’s a bit of humor (via Stuttaford).
P.S. And a bit of medical humor too. Enjoy the July 4 holiday and see you on Thursday.
Stop using the word “accident”?
Revising terminology with the goal of revising attitudes?
The word ‘accident’ is to be banned from the new edition of Britain’s Highway Code, which is published by the UK Department of Transport. Instead the words ‘collision’, ‘crash’ or ‘incident’ will be used to describe events that once were known as accidents.
This adoption of new terms for everyday events does not only have linguistic significance. The banning of the A-word is a consequence of a broader cultural outlook which insists that nothing happens accidentally these days and that there is always someone to blame. …
In June 2001, the prestigious British Medical Journal signed up to the crusade, explaining in an editorial why it had decided to ban the word accident from its pages. ‘[S]ince most injuries and precipitating events are predictable and preventable’, the word accident should not be used to refer to ‘injuries or the events that produce them’.
(Frank Furedi, “The crusade against the A-word”, Spiked-Online (U.K.), May 15)
Teenage McDonald’s employee
At age 15 she began a year-long sexual relationship with her 22-year-old manager, which ended in breakup. Now she wants money from the restaurant for letting it happen. The criminal defense lawyer representing Hector Figueroa, the boyfriend/manager, says the complainant’s family knew about the consensual affair while it was going on. “She saw a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow and decided to pursue [a civil suit].” (Jordana Mishory, “Teen Sues McDonald’s Franchisee Over Sex With Boss”, Florida Daily Business Review, Jun. 21).
July 3 roundup
- Represented by repeat Overlawyered mentionees Cellino & Barnes/The Barnes Firm, this injured upstate New Yorker got a settlement of $35,000 which worked out after expenses to — are you ready? — $6.60 [Buffalo News]
- Not yet a laughingstock: AMA backs off idea of labeling video-game addiction [Wired News, L.A.Times/CinciPost, HealthDay/WilmNJ]
- Restaurant critics fear losing their physical anonymity, which means a Bala Cynwyd eatery has a sword to hold over the Philadelphia Inquirer reviewer it’s suing [PhilaWeekly] (More: AP/CNN)
- Dad of the year? Father who didn’t have much contact with 30-year-old son during his life shows up to claim half his $2.9 million 9/11 compensation award [NYDN, NYLJ, PDF brief courtesy Taranto/WSJ]
- Fie on goodness: Geoffrey Fieger engages Harvard’s Dershowitz to try to quash federal grand jury probe, and he’s still battling Michigan judges too [DetNews]
- In suburban D.C. middle school, high-fiving could mean detention under no-touching rule [Washington Post, AP/CNN]
- Law firm whistleblowers? Ex-employees allege billing fraud in tobacco suit by high-flying Kansas City, Mo. trial lawyer [Legal NewsLine]
- U.K. government panel bans egg ad as not encouraging healthy eating [Times Online, Guardian, Telegraph]
- Lawprof is keen on expanding tort law to open door for more suits against schools over kids’ bullying [Childs]
- 1,001 ways to self-publicize: one is to become a “trial groupie” [Elefant]
- Guess what? This site just turned eight years old [isn’t it cool]
Guestblogger thanks
Thanks to Christian Schneider of the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute for tending the fires over the past week. Check in to the WPRI blog and Atomic Trousers to read more of his work. We’ll be welcoming more guestbloggers as the summer continues.
“So Sue Me” board game
In the mail, but not played yet: So Sue Me, described as “the new board game where you enjoy the wackiness of today’s lawsuits”. The subtitle on the game box sounds straightforward enough: “Sue Your Friends. Take Their Stuff”.