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Civil Liberties
Tobacco Suits Alcohol Suits Gun Suits Fast Food Suits Imprimis March 2004 Overlawyered |
If you've been a resident of the United States within the past couple of decades, you're probably aware of lawsuit mania. Anytime anyone experiences any hardship, it seems, they look around to see who they can sue.
In many cities, children can't play on the monkey bars anymore. It seems that once, some child did play on them, and fell, and got hurt. His parents then sued the city or the school where the playground was located, and won a large settlement (hundreds of thousands of dollars or more). Not wanting to get sued again, the city or the school took down the monkey bars. The same is often true of swing sets. Some child could fall out of the swing, and be hurt. As a result, cities and schools are taking down swings. Virtually any product you buy nowadays has an enormous number of warnings – some downright stupid. You're warned not to use automobile sunscreens while driving. You're warned not to iron clothes while wearing them. |
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When you get into your car, a beeper warns you if your seatbelt isn't fastened, or your door is open – sometimes if your door is unlocked. You're warned if your lights are on. Some of these warnings you might want, some you almost certainly don't. But you seldom have a choice. Many of the warnings exist because of lawsuits.
Football helmets are generally no longer made in the U.S. It's generally not because of outsourcing mania, but because American manufacturers kept getting sued. Whenever a high school football player (it was usually high school rather than college or professional) suffered a severe head or neck injury, the player's parents would often sue the helmet manufacturer. The manufacturers either went out of business – leaving the manufacturing to industries in Mexico or some other country which didn't allow such lawsuits – or relocated to Mexico to protect themselves. The American light aircraft industry was essentially destroyed by lawsuits. Every time a small plane crashed, it was not unusual for someone to sue the manufacturer. It didn't matter whether maintenance had been performed (or not), or what the pilot had done – lawsuits were the order of the day. Now the trial lawyers who support this lawsuit frenzy argue First of all – this leftist, collectivist, anti-capitalist, rich-people-are-evil rant looks pretty dumb coming from a $400-an-hour litigator, who drives a luxury car, who lives in a multi-million-dollar mansion, and has a couple of nice vacation beach houses. The lawyers don't even believe this drivel themselves. They only use it on working-class juries who envy wealthy people. If the jurors knew how rich the lawyers were, they'd dismiss the case then and there. Secondly – there's nothing defective about most monkey bars, or swing sets, or auto sunscreens, or football helmets, or irons. But that didn't stop their manufacturers from being sued by lawyers who wanted to make a fast buck, and individuals who didn't want to take responsibility for their actions. Thirdly – nothing is absolutely safe. Kids do fall from monkey bars, and get hurt. Tough. That's part of being a kid. Once, when I was around ten years old, I hit a piece of loose asphalt while riding my bicycle. I went flying over the handlebars, and landed on my hands (and wrists and knees and ankles . . . ) Most people have – or at any rate used to have – such stories. You can't grow up without getting hurt. If you really want there to be no chance of your child being hurt on the monkey bars, don't let him play there. If you want to reduce the chances he'll be hurt, supervise him until you're confident he'll be okay. OOPS – I suggested parents actually be parents, and supervise their kids (or tell them what to do). That's a definite no-no. After all, it takes a village? Society or government, not a parent, is responsible for raising kids, right? Which brings us to the fourth point. Adults have the right to make decisions, and they have the responsibility to live with the consequences. If the lawsuit frenzy doesn't stop, we'll soon see a society in which you won't be able to do anything without the government's permission. We'll see a society in which the FDA or the CDC or the EPA or OSHA will decide what you can and cannot do. You'll be told you can't eat this and you must eat this and you have to exercise at least this much but no more than this much. The fifth point – when people really are injured due to someone's negligence, they might not get a fair hearing. They'll be told you just want to make a fast buck and their lawyers will be told you're a sleazebag who wants to get rich suing people. The lawsuit frenzy has clogged the courts with frivolous lawsuits. The lawsuit frenzy has made so many people skeptical of lawsuits, lawyers, and the law, that those things are considered jokes. Fifty years ago, lawsuits were rare enough that those who brought them could be taken seriously. That's no longer true. Walter Olson has a website, Overlawyered, which covers many of these issues. He also wrote a recent article, in March of 2004, explaining how our legal system has, over the past forty or fifty years, become corrupted. |
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