School bans tag, other chase games
ATTLEBORO, Massachusetts (AP) -- Tag, you're out!
Officials at an elementary school south of Boston have banned kids from playing tag, touch football and any other unsupervised chase game during recess for fear they'll get hurt and hold the school liable.Recess is "a time when accidents can happen," said Willett Elementary School Principal Gaylene Heppe, who approved the ban.
While there is no district wide ban on contact sports during recess, local rules have been cropping up. Several school administrators around Attleboro, a city of about 45,000 residents, took aim at dodgeball a few years ago, saying it was exclusionary and dangerous.
Elementary schools in Cheyenne, Wyoming, and Spokane, Washington, also recently banned tag during recess. A suburban Charleston, South Carolina, school outlawed all unsupervised contact sports.
"I think that it's unfortunate that kids' lives are micromanaged and there are social skills they'll never develop on their own," said Debbie Laferriere, who has two children at Willett, about 40 miles south of Boston. "Playing tag is just part of being a kid."
Another Willett parent, Celeste D'Elia, said her son feels safer because of the rule. "I've witnessed enough near collisions," she said.
I'm dumbfounded. No, scratch that: I think my head is going to explode.
We've all heard news stories, water cooler gossip and urban myths based in truth about preposterous and infuriating lawsuits filed in our already overbooked court docket. Unscrupulous, bottom dwelling lawyers (also known as "sharks") who defile the nobility of their trade by attacking fast food corporations for serving hot coffee without warning patrons strongly enough, food that's unhealthy and fattening to unsuspecting, innocent patrons, and drive through meals that contained no warning to not eat while driving (see below). Let's take a look at some actual suits that have been filed (but thankfully NOT awarded to the plaintiff) against a variety of entities in recent memory:
* In March 1995, a San Diego man unsuccessfully attempted to sue the city and Jack Murphy Stadium for $5.4 million over something than can only be described as a wee problem: Robert Glaser claimed the stadium's unisex bathroom policy at a Billy Joel and Elton John concert caused him embarrassment and emotional distress thanks to the sight of a woman using a urinal in front of him. He subsequently tried "six or seven" other bathrooms in the stadium only to find women in all of them. He asserted he "had to hold it in for four hours" because he was too embarrassed to share the public bathrooms with women.
* A San Carlos, California, man sued the Escondido Public Library for $1.5 million. His dog, a 50-pound Labrador mix, was attacked November 2000 by the library's 12-pound feline mascot, L.C., (also known as Library Cat). The case was heard in January 2004, with the jury finding for the defendant. In a further case which was resolved in July 2004, the plaintiff in the previous suit was ordered to pay the city $29,362.50, which amounted to 75% of its legal fees associated with that case.
* In 1994, a student at the University of Idaho unsuccessfully sued that institution over his fall from a third-floor dorm window. He'd been mooning other students when the window gave way. It was contended the University failed to provide a safe environment for students or to properly warn them of the dangers inherent to upper-story windows.
* In 1993, McDonald's was unsuccessfully sued over a car accident in New Jersey. While driving, a man who had placed a milkshake between his legs, leaned over to reach into his bag of food and squeezed the milkshake container in the process. When the lid popped off and spilled half the drink in his lap, this driver became distracted and ran into another man's car. That man in turn tried to sue McDonald's for causing the accident, saying the restaurant should have cautioned the man who had hit him against eating while driving.This is not even the tip of the iceberg. The list goes on and on.
I guess what upsets me the most about this sort of litigation or fear of litigation is the greedy, narcissistic "professionals" that are pouring gasoline on the fire: lawyers. I'm taking this to heart for a lot of reasons -- the greatest being my utmost respect and admiration of real lawyers like my brother, Jim. He's a man who chose law as his profession to reach out and help others who need it. Law is an infinitely complex and at times even elegant reality that demands professionals who can navigate its intricacies and pitfalls for clients that would otherwise inadvertently expose themselves to great danger (legally speaking) without the wisdom, experience and guidance of a true expert. This is precisely why lawyers go to law school, spending a fortune on tuition and books, studying case law until their eyes threaten to pop out of their heads, and that's all just a warm up for the hell to come that is STUDYING FOR THE BAR EXAM.
Through my frustration, anger and dumbfoundedness I also feel profound sadness. It's because of the lawsuit happy bottom dwellers who twist the arms of and bully others purely for undeserving financial gain for both their clients and themselves that the honest, good hearted and brilliant lawyers have the work that's cut out for them doubled.
But because of the honesty, integrity and professionalism of true lawyers (like my brother!) I have hope that people who legitimately need guidance and representation through the challenging terrain of law will have the option to select a lawyer who will preserve and protect the Constitution and the rights of America's citizens.
2 comments:
I agree that there are many silly lawsuits out there. And for those, we have the cherished Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 11 which allows the court to sanction a party who brings a frivolous lawsuit (or even a single frivolous motion within an otherwise legitimate lawsuit.) Sure, it could be enforced more, and probably should be.
But one of the things that makes America great is access to the legal system. Literally anyone can sue anyone. This is a stark departure from most of the rest of the world. The downside of the system is that it leads to frivolous lawsuits. But there is an upside.
You mentioned early on the famous suit against McDondalds for serving hot coffee. It surprises most people to learn that the reason McDonalds lost so big in that suit was because they used to have a policy of keeping coffee at a certain temperature, a little below scalding temp. That way, if it gets spilled, it hurts, but no real harm done. The problem was the coffee wouldn't meet their freshness standard for very long at that temperature. To save money, they put a new policy in place where the temperature was increased well beyond the scalding level. That internal communication noted the massive savings that would be realized nationwide, and then offset it against any potential litigation.
Basically, they knew people spilled coffee. They knew those people would now be actually injured, as opposed to simply embarassed and warm. They knew they would sue, but made the business decision to go for the profit in the hopes that it would offset any suits they lost.
So this famously ridiculous lawsuit made coffee safer at McDonalds and probably every other major coffee-serving chain. How many lives does that affect every day?
Don't forget too quickly that we called the lawsuits against tobacco companies crazy. After all, how do you sue a company for making an unhealthy product, especially when they warned you about it right on the package? Well, those lawsuits flushed out the practice of adding nicotene for the sole purpose of making cigarattes addictive. That, to me, is a positive result.
Even some of the crazy sounding lawsuits occassionally have merit. The merit is often too buried in legaleze for the average reporter (if we can even call them that anymore) to sift through and understand.
For example, the crazy lawsuit about the guy who needed to pee in the stadium. Start with the basics: The only reason restrooms were combined was to save money and maximize the profitability of the stadium. Double the number of restrooms, and that reduces the number of vendor booths, right? Solution: maximize profits by combining restrooms.
Now maybe this guy was a little over-sensitive. But maybe he wasn't the only plaintiff. I'd like to see the court record. How may plaintiffs were parents of little boys who walked into a bathroom only to see some woman hunched over a urinal because the stalls were all full (another money saving attempt, fewer stalls). Picture the scene, a dad bringing his 7 year old boy to a game, boy needs to go to the bathroom, and is confronted with pants-down women peeing into urinals. It's disgusting and must be traumatic for that little boy. Would any one of us voluntarily take our child into that environment? Would it be unreasonable for that little boy to have difficulty going under those circumstances?
Now if science or social mores simply don't provide for separate bathrooms, that's one thing. But I would imagine that reading that court file would reveal projections of substantial savings based on the increased space by way of fewer bathrooms. Is that profit maximization passed on to the consumer? If it is, does the consumer even want it? I would say that this suit was probably more about recapturing those ill-gotten profits as opposed to simply villifying an overly sensitive man with a small bladder.
So this is a case where the shark is perhaps the staduim owner, not the lawyer who shined a light on his profiteering.
Two things.
One: Read the case files before passing judgment on any suit. You'd be surprised what you find. Sure, some are completely nuts (McDonalds made me fat), but some are not (RJR gave me cancer).
Two: Assume, en arguendo, that every case you hear about on the news is genuinely silly and has no basis. How many suits do you hear about? How many more suits are there? Perhaps this is just a case of shining a light on only the smallest percentage of cases to the exclusion of the majority of genuinely sincere cases.
The fact is that we have free access to our legal system. This allows in alot of crazy people. But it also allows anyone of any background, of any means, of any race, of any religion to stand and say "I have rights" and to have a forum which genuinely hears their grievance.
I'd take 1,000 frivolous suits if it meant that even one man, woman, or child, gained access to such a system when they really needed it.
"I'd take 1,000 frivolous suits if it meant that even one man, woman, or child, gained access to such a system when they really needed it."
That's what separates you from the sharks, Jim. They attack rich companies and individuals for personal financial gain, you and good lawyers like you tolerate that so that the one person who needs the system has access to it.
Kudos, bro.
>8 ^ ]
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