This isn’t so much BASED on a true story. This one is as close to verbatim as I can remember.
This isn’t so much BASED on a true story. This one is as close to verbatim as I can remember.
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Heh.
I’ve had this happen with people asking me to take them to restaurants, hoping to avoid responsibility themselves if the food turns out to be bad. (“Well, you picked it! It’s your fault.”)
Yep, ask for help, show them, they can’t do it and now they expect you to buy them a new one because YOU ruined it; etc.
Snappy reply by Hubris, kudos.
I’ve never really understood the stereotypic American sueing thing. I’m told that people sue for cracks in the sidewalk making them trip (I’m sure that’s an urban legend) but I’m never sure whether to take the more believable stories seriously, or assume they’re as realistic as our Drop Bear warnings or hoop snakes….
We’re a weirdly litigious society. Very weirdly. People seem to think of lawsuits as some kind of side-business. “Oh, I work at WalMart, but I’m suing this company for 3 million, so I’ll quit when that comes through.”
Other countries have a system where the loser of the lawsuit pays, which cuts down on frivolous lawsuits and extortionist lawsuits. Here it’s not the case, hence the abuses. Tons of abuses.
Wow. I didn’t know that. Who pays if the looser doesn’t pay? The government?
Some other countries have such a system.
Short answer: In most of the “advanced” world, the government safety net/mandatory insurance scheme pretty much ensures that everyone is taken care of in case of accidents. In “backwards” countries, the elites don’t have to worry about losing their livelihood to an accident (although they might have an accident). If the poor have an accident, well, of course it’s a disaster for them, but someone else will take their place. The United States is unique among industrialized nations in not providing healthcare for its citizens. Part of the way opponents of providing universal healthcare have been able to avoid it were by being able to point to the tort system: “See, when someone is injured by someone else, that someone has to pay for it. And we don’t keep anyone out of the legal system by ability to pay, like they do in England.” (Could you ever sue Rupert Murdoch, if you had to pay his lawyers if you lost?) “But why should we pay for coverage we don’t want? Why should we pay for people being stupid and putting their hand in the machine?” It worked. They defeated universal health care for 80 years(+/-).
Truth is stranger than fiction. I was called for jury duty in a big burg; and they were seating for a Murder 1 along with several lesser severity crimes that day. They had a ‘one day, one trial’ policy, that most of the time you served the day you were called and seated, and went home. Very few trials went over one day… (and most jury cases needed 3 jurors)
They called for 30 juror candidates. 12 plus 12 alts. We thought it was the Murder 1. Nope. A woman had rented a house, lived in it for 8 months. On the sidewalk halfways to the door, there was a rise in lawn from curb to door so there was a single step in the sidewalk. She had tripped on the step and was sueing the landlord for no handrails on both sides, not being lit at night and damages for her injuries. She was in a neck brace (and I knew from experience what wearing one of these is like) and she’s moving like she doesn’t need it. The lawyers wanted the alts so they could kick out any juror they thought might be prejudiced. Most people parked in the chair to answer the judge questions said this case is a crock of **** and they were very biased; I was excused for (employment hardship if I had to sit and this went any longer and it looked like it was going to) as nearly the last one and they hadn’t even found the first twelve. So they called down for another 30….
If you were excused because you said it was a crock they sent you back down to go to another case… they had to reschedule it for the next session as those that went down said something about it in the mass still waiting, and they couldn’t find 24 jurors in several hundred that didn’t think it was bull. Oh, the murder 1 took six jurors no alts and was settled in three hours (I had a friend that was courthouse staff and found this stuff out). Second session, she couldn’t possibly still be in the collar but she was; and it quickly got tossed (it took three days just to get the jury finally settled and the alts tossed, they did toss 12) as stupid.
I wish the law there was so that the loser had to pay all the costs, that fiasco had cost a major bundle.
Working as a builder and dealing with local codes, I realized that many new codes or practices are based on a lawsuit somewhere .
Read the tags attached to some products sometimes, or the instruction booklet that came with what you bought. Some of those are very laughable at times, but you BET there was a lawsuit in there that the place lost or had to settle out of court behind what’s on there/in there.
When it comes to lawsuits, I always think of Doc Brown’s line from Back to the future 2.
“The legal system moves much faster, now that they have abolished all lawyers.”
Hence, sadly it is fiction.
Great idea though.