Sue simple

I was looking yesterday at the bottle of peanut butter at home – and the label says in big bold letters at the bottom – warning : contains peanuts. And goes on in a sombre tone to warn of peanut allergy. Fancy that! Who would imagine peanut butter containing peanuts. heh!

Then I remembered the day I was leaving Dubai (yeah yeah, I went on a holiday to Dubai on some free tickets Indian Airlines sent my way – there, go eat your heart out), I asked my friend about the possibility of finding liquer chocolates at the dutyfree at the airport. Chances are dim, he said, they wouldn’t stock liquer chocolates at the Dubai airport.

And why, please? Because local people might mistake them for ordinary chocolates and eat them. And liquor is forbidden them. As I gaped at him, he shook his head wisely and wore a look that said you don’t know how foolish people can be. (Surely enough, I did not find said chocolates at the duty-free but I have no idea why). I kept thinking of it and smiling at thought of people biting into a liquer chocolate and being suprised (and even offended?) to find it filled with liquer (as for me, I’d be offended to find no liquer inside – as you would too, I am sure).

Bill Bryson writes in notes from a big country on the how America is a sue-happy place – Americans, as, is well-known, will sue at the drop of a hat. In fact, I dare say, someone somewhere sued over a dropped hat and won $20 million for the pain and suffering it caused.

My personal favorite of course, is the famous McDonald’s hot coffee case. I was searching for details of it on the net and found various agitated voiced telling the reader about how frivolous the case had been made out to be, while in reality, the incident went far beyond an old woman not having been warned by McDonald’s that the hot cofee she had ordered and had paid for was actually hot. As I read on, I realized that it there was indeed more to the case than met the eye; the poor woman had just bought cup of hot coffee at a McDonald’s drive-through and was attempting to open the lid to add sugar to the coffee, placing the cup between her knees…

Between her knees, you see – in a moving car (defenders on the net say her grandson had stopped the car) – and the hot coffee fell on her legs, burning the flesh – and McDonald’s paid for it. Applying the principles of comparative negligence, the jury found that McDonald’s was 80% responsible for the incident and Liebeck was 20% at fault. Though there was a warning on the coffee cup, the jury decided that the warning was neither large enough nor sufficient. They awarded Liebeck US$200,000 in compensatory damages, which was then reduced by 20% to $160,000. In addition, they awarded her $2.7 million in punitive damages. Additionally, I am guessing, McDonald’s increased the size and sterness of the warning on the cup.

You go read all about it here, while I go find a lawyer who will help me sue the peanut butter company. Their label contained no warning : contains butter and it so happens, I am highly allergic to butter. Tra la!