Last year (see Jul. 12-14, 2002) we swiped MedPundit’s description and link for an Ohio product liability case: “Two carpet installers who admit they read the label of an adhesive they used, admit they understood the adhesive was flammable and should not be used inside, used it inside anyway, caused an explosion, were burned badly, sued, and won $8 million dollars.” Now a state appeals court has upheld the award. (“In the Region: $8 million award upheld for 2 men”, Akron Beacon Journal, Jun. 20). More on original verdict: National Law Journal, Jul. 26, 2002.
Posts Tagged ‘personal responsibility’
Update: new trial in Ont. you-let-me-drive-drunk case
The Ontario Court of Appeal last fall ordered a new trial in the case in which Linda Hunt had sued her employer for letting her drink too much at an open-bar office holiday party, contributing to her later car crash (see Feb. 7-8, 2001). The employer defendant, a realty company, “appealed on a number of grounds but succeeded on only one, which was that the trial judge had [incorrectly] discharged the jury on the grounds that the case was too complex.” (case summary by James Thomson and Gerard Chouest, Paterson McDougall LLP, Oct. 1, 2002; Filion Wakely Thorup Angeletti, case summary, undated (PDF)). Further update: executive editor Michael Fitz-James of Canadian Lawyer magazine writes to inform us that the parties settled the case last winter after the appellate ruling.
U.K.: “End this compensation nightmare, say judges”
“Britain’s most senior judges have demanded an end to ‘the culture of blame and compensation’ in a landmark ruling which decrees that individuals must take responsibility for their own actions. The Appellate Committee of the House of Lords has used its judgement in a compensation case to brand Britain’s growing U.S.-style claims system as an ‘evil’ that interferes with civil liberties and freedom of will.” Ruling in the case of a man who sued local councils after he ignored safety warnings and hurt himself diving into a lake, the judges warned that continued expansion of liability “has many evil consequences and one is certainly the interference with the liberty of the citizen” as well as the imposition of “a grey and dull safety regime on everyone.” An example of the latter? “This year, a historic cheese rolling event in Gloucestershire, in which participants race down a hill chasing cheeses, was cancelled because of safety fears.” (Charlotte Edwardes, Daily Telegraph, Aug. 3). “[E]ven rugby, incredibly, is under threat from the compensation culture. There is such a terror of litigation that the number of independent schools offering rugby has fallen by 30 per cent over the past 15 years.” (Boris Johnson, “Knock some sense into the children”, Daily Telegraph, Aug. 7). Plus: decision in Tomlinson v. Congleton Borough Council, via Southern Appeal)(& welcome Volokh Conspiracy readers).
A career of suing foodmakers
“A fast-food company like McDonald’s may not be responsible for the entire obesity epidemic,” litigious law prof John Banzhaf tells Time, “but let’s say they’re 5% responsible. Five percent of $117 billion is still an enormous amount of money.” Brian Murphy, a recent Rutgers law grad who attended this summer’s Northeastern U. let’s-sue-foodmakers confab, said: “It’s a very important and pressing issue, and its outcome will be with us for years to come. I’m hoping to be able to build a career out of this issue.”
However, even many anti-sweets activists gag at Banzhaf’s notion of suing school districts that enter vending-machine deals. “Brita Butler-Wall, executive director of Seattle-based Citizens’ Campaign for Commercial-Free Schools, has been lobbying the school board for more than a year to get rid of the Coca-Cola contract. Yet, as a parent of an eighth-grader in a local public school, she says, ‘I don’t want to see our district spending its money hiring more lawyers to fight a legal battle.’ Adam Drewnowski, director of the Center for Public Health Nutrition at the University of Washington, says, ‘If you want to influence the school board, you run for a seat on the board. Threatening a lawsuit is almost like blackmail. It’s just unconscionable.'” (Laura Bradford, “Fat Foods: Back in Court”, Time, Aug. 3).
Couldn’t get $11 M for drinking himself into coma
From Lowell, Mass. comes word that a jury has rejected a suit asking that Joseph Albert be awarded millions of dollars for drinking himself into a coma. Attorney Peter J. Nicosia of Tyngsboro asked $11 million in a “dramshop liability” suit against Gus & Paul’s Tavern for serving an undetermined number of beers over two hours to Albert, who was found by police later that night with a blood-alcohol level at a startling .48. Complicating Nicosia’s case was a deposition from a boon companion of Albert’s saying that the plaintiff had been drinking from a bottle of Jack Daniel’s whiskey after leaving the tavern. “I played that off to be basically an untrue story and basically a red herring,” said attorney Nicosia of the Jack Daniels. “The bottle was never found; no one ever saw him drink it.” The jury evidently wasn’t persuaded. (Jeanne Greeley, “Tragic Dram-Shop Case Just Had Too Many Holes”, Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly, Jun. 30). In another of last year’s big defense wins in the Bay State, a jury decided it wasn’t General Motors’ fault that a mother had left her Chevy Astro van running with the keys in the ignition and occupied by her infant with her 4-year-old sister; the pre-schooler climbed into the front and shifted the transmission, causing the van to roll into a pond. (Kelly Winget, “Tot rolls van into pond”, Lawrence Eagle-Tribune, Jul. 18, 2000).
Federal bills seek to curb abusive fast-food lawsuits
Sen. Mitch McConnell and Rep. Ric Keller have introduced legislation to bar obesity-related lawsuits against food manufacturers and sellers. (See “US Senator in bid to fry fast-food lawsuits,” ABC News Online, July 18). “Many Americans need to take greater care in what–and how much–they eat. But it is also time to curb the voracious appetite of the personal injury lawyers and put an end to this ridiculous and costly litigation before it gets out of hand,” said McConnell, who managed to work in references to The Onion and diet guru Richard Simmons during his remarks on the Senate floor. For the text of the bills, see S. 1428 and H.R. 339. Apparently undaunted, humorist and Cheez-Its addict Dave Barry says he has decided to “summon up my willpower and accept personal responsibility for filing a huge lawsuit against Big Food.” (“Fatal Attraction,” Washington Post, Aug. 3). See our archives for earlier commentary on fast-food suits – real and satirical.
In other obesity lawsuit-related news, The New York Times has a round-up of employment-discrimination lawsuits brought by obese workers. The newspaper reports that plaintiffs take two different approaches under the Americans With Disabilities Act: “Some claim that their employers should not discriminate against them because they are disabled. Others, using an argument that has had more success in the courts, insist that they are not disabled, and that employers unfairly assumed they could not do the job.” Washington defense lawyer Peter Petesch said: “There’s no magical mathematical formula to say this obese person has a disability and this other person doesn’t. … It’s an individualized assessment. Generally, to be fat or dumpy-looking or not as good-looking as the other applicant isn’t enough to prevail under the Americans With Disabilities Act.” (Steven Greenhouse, “Obese People Are Taking Their Bias Claims to Court,” N.Y. Times, Aug. 4).
Gambler sues casinos for failing to exclude her
Canada: 37-year-old Lisa Dickert “and her husband Steven have filed a $1-million lawsuit against the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corp.” for failing to exclude Ms. Dickert, a compulsive gambler, from the casinos where she gambled away her savings. She had entered a voluntary casino self-exclusion program, but her suit argues that the casinos did little or nothing to enforce the exclusion. (Victor Malarek, “A gambler’s rehab gone wrong”, The Globe and Mail, Jul. 30)(more on gambling suits: May 20-21, 2002).
Another Aussie drunk driver sues
“Francine Parrington lost her arm when she crashed into a tree while driving with a blood alcohol level of 0.118 but says it wasn’t her fault and is suing the hotel for serving her too many drinks. … She crashed into exactly the same tree a year before and claims her drinking habits were caused by her marital difficulties with a straying husband.” (Angela Kamper, “Drink-driver sues the hotel”, Jul. 30)). They do seem to get a lot of these cases down in Oz, don’t they? See, for example, the cases described in this space May 12. (Update Dec. 21: she loses case)
P.S. In Oslo, Norway, a court has just thrown out a man’s conviction on charges of drunken driving on the grounds that he had been much too drunk at the time to give proper consent for the police to interrogate him; the resulting confession had provided the basis for the conviction (“Drunk driver acquitted for drunkenness”, Aftenposten, Jul. 30)(via James Taranto’s Best of the Web, OpinionJournal, Jul. 30).
Firefighters, rescue workers want trauma compensation
New Mexico: “A group of firefighters and rescue workers who responded to a pipeline explosion near Carlsbad that killed 12 people three years ago have filed a lawsuit against El Paso Natural Gas Company.” The lawsuit, filed on behalf of 24 firefighters and rescue workers, “says the plaintiffs suffered physical and emotional pain and were subjected to horrific traumatizing circumstances while fighting the fire and trying to help the victims.” (“Firefighters, Rescue Workers Sue El Paso Natural Gas”, KRQE.com, Jul. 1). Reader Daniel White comments: “While it is true that the subject pipeline accident was indeed horrific and killed several members of a family camping nearby, isn’t it expected that firefighters and rescue workers will observe horrible things in their day-to-day jobs? Don’t such things ‘come with the territory’ so to speak? … Firefighters, law enforcement officers, EMTs and other rescue professionals chose to pursue such careers knowing full well that their jobs involve routinely responding to tragedy.” The mayor of Carlsbad apparently agrees (“Mayor Opposes Pipeline Explosion Lawsuit”, KRQE.com, Jul. 21). Update Apr. 1, 2004: judge dismisses case.
EU: Hard hats for trapeze artists?
From Britain’s Daily Telegraph: “Trapeze artists with one of the world’s most famous circuses have been told to start wearing hard hats to comply with new EU safety rules. Jugglers, tightrope walkers and other acrobats with the Moscow State Circus, which is currently touring Britain, have also been instructed to don safety head wear because of European regulations covering workers employed at heights greater than the average stepladder.” Insurers apparently cited the new rules as reason to exclude coverage of future injuries incurred by helmetless performers (who went ahead yesterday and decided to perform without helmets anyway). One obvious question, which we assume the follow-up reporting will address, was whether the insurers were reasonably interpreting the EU directives. (David Sapsted, “Circus acts told to wear hard hats under new EU law”, Daily Telegraph (UK), Jul. 23).