Comments
by Scoper...
Warning! Hot Coffee Is, Well, Hot!
Once in a great while, you come across
something that almost restores your faith in America's convoluted civil
court system. Not quite, but almost. The case in point is a recent ruling
from the Nevada Supreme Court, which found that restaurants need not put
warning labels on containers of hot coffee, because the "danger is open
and obvious." Well, DUH! (Pardon my Buffy-speak.)
The story begins, fittingly, in Las
Vegas, a town where "you pays your money and takes your chances." Lane
Holmes, it's alleged in his original lawsuit, bought a cup of coffee at
a local convenience store, and as he was getting into his car, some coffee
seeped out of the cup, burning his fingers and his leg. Determined that
he was not going to suffer alone, Homes promptly sued the store, the supplier
of the brewing equipment and the company that manufactured it.
In District Court, Holmes testified
he knew the coffee was hot; indeed, he had seen steam rising from the cup.
Yet, through his lawyer, he stated that he DID NOT KNOW that the coffee
would cause second-degree burns on the skin, because, basically, NOBODY
TOLD HIM. It was not revealed in court documents exactly which planet Mr.
Holmes had been living on.
The District Judge granted a pre-trial
summary judgment in favor of the defendants, effectively bypassing a trial
that would have been almost as frivolous as another case you've probably
heard of, one so mind-numbingly outrageous that it got worldwide attention.
This suit involved McDonalds, a company
with much deeper pockets than any independent mini-mart, certainly. An
elderly woman in New Mexico suffered severe burns when the hot coffee spilled
into her lap as she was trying to remove the lid while sitting in a car.
The jury said McDonalds owed her 2 point 9 million dollars, an amount reduced
to a relatively puny $480,000 on appeal. The final settlement was reached
out of court.
But back to Nevada. What their state
Supreme Court did was uphold the decision of District Judge Gene Porter,
whose final comment on the matter was that if warnings were posted on coffee
cups, they might also be required on knives and other utensils.
Just imagine this sticker on your
Ginsu: "Danger! Knives are sharp and can cut you!" In fact, the average
home kitchen is so potentially dangerous, it probably should resemble a
Winston Cup race car, but with warning labels instead of ads for Goodyear
and Fram oil filters.
"When stove element acquires a cherry-red
color, don't touch it!"
"Remove fingers from inside drawer
before closing it."
"Do not drop this glass on the floor."
I'll leave you to decide whether
such "warnings" are funny, or pathetic. But don't call them far-fetched!
It's happening already. Check the tag on your portable hair-dryer: "Do
not use in shower or tub." "Do not use while asleep."
It's not the companies that think
you're a moron. They're too busy trying to show a profit to make value
judgments. They merely want to protect themselves. It must be frustrating
when they realize that nothing they do is enough.
There are several forces at work
here. Unscrupulous attorneys taking cases for huge contingency fees (50
percent of a multi-million dollar settlement is not a bad day's work, or
a bad month's work.) A tort system - created before Americans got so lawsuit-happy
- that's been largely unchanged and is now rife with abuse. And, most obviously,
plain old human greed. I'm human, too, and I've gotta admit, the idea of
becoming an instant millionaire, and never having to work again, makes
the loss of a little burned skin seem like a small price to pay.
But we're paying a much larger price,
you and I. You don't sue a company; you sue its customers. When big damage
awards are a cost of doing business, the losses must be recouped from everyone
else.
Now, this is not a "baby and bath-water"
argument. Civil courts exist for a reason. If Pinto automobiles were made
with dangerously explosive gas tanks, Ford probably should have had to
pay damages. But friends and neighbors, we are now literally rewarding
people for their own rank stupidity.
And that can't be good.
|
