It all started with spilled coffee at a McDonald’s drive-through.*
Well, not really. Our American tendency to sue for everything probably started long before that.
How many people would buy a CD and give the thin plastic wrapper to their baby and say, “Play with this wrapper – it will do you no harm”?
Anyone who reads magazines today is used to flipping past pharmaceutical ads that use two full pages of fine print after the actual ad that could be summed up in one simple sentence: “Use of this drug is possibly dangerous, and you should consult with your doctor before using.” The television equivalent is 10 seconds at the end of an ad that are some of that fine print, read at 300 words a minute.
Please, please, America…
Just don’t be stupid.
* That incident happened in 1994. And she won the case.
Not just pharmaceuticals. Ladders with warning labels telling you that without due care you might fall off; electric hotplates warning that you should keep your hands off the switched-on appliance as it might be hot and burn you, etc.
And it’s not just America: in the UK, for example, some municipal maintenance departments no longer cut the grass on the sloping sides of railroad and highway embankments because they might get sued by employees in case of an accident.
We humans have a great talent for taking a good thing (the law) and perverting it (the tort crisis).
I totally agree, Wolf!