Lawsuits Destroy Self-Reliance

Boy are we a whiny people.

Instead of simply running around like Henny Penny with our heads cut off crying, “The sky is falling! The sky is falling!” We’re hiring lawyers to file lawsuits, alleging, “I’m a victim! I’m a victim!” We seem hell bent for leather these days to give up our self-reliance and blame other people for the bad things that happen to us!

A bunch of fire fighters recently won a lawsuit against the City of Everett, Washington, with the city agreeing to pay for lifetime medical monitoring for potential asbestos-related health problems. The settlement supposedly allows the city to avoid paying out millions of dollars (yeah, right). The firefighters were exposed to asbestos in July 2007, while conducting training exercises in city-owned houses.

And several ex-football players are suing the NFL for post-football impairment issues stemming from brain injuries. One former player who reportedly suffers from sleeplessness as a side-effect of playing football says he’s participating in the lawsuit to raise awareness on concussions and to light “a fire under the NFL to help guys who are struggling.” Take a sleeping pill dude!

Of course, we Americans aren’t the only sue-happy people. Some citizens of Chili won a lawsuit against La Tercere, a newspaper in that country, for damages suffered from exploding churros. Apparently, the newspaper printed a recipe for churros and when the oil in which they were fried reached a certain temperature, the churro dough exploded, causing some severe burns.

But in America, lawsuits just keep getting more and more bizarre. We’re so greedy we take a job fighting fires or making gazillions of dollars playing football, knowing full well those occupations are hazardous, then want to make someone else responsible when our health suffers. My gosh, you carry this lawsuit thing to its logical conclusion and cops could sue for being exposed to blood, teachers could sue for being exposed to little kids colds, bank tellers could sue for having to handle dirty money, baristas could sue for being exposed to too much coffee, NASCAR drivers could drag their sponsors and car owners to court because speed maims and kills. Come on people!

Of course Sam and I think a big part of our sue-happy attitude in this country stems from the fact that our law schools annually churn out somewhere in the neighborhood of 45,000 attorneys and all those newly-minted lawyers need to pay off their massive school debts, but there are only about 30,000 new lawyer jobs available each year.

I hope Sam doesn’t decide to sue me someday because I failed to make him fully aware that walks in the park, picking up his poop, buying him snacks and treating him like a full member of the household demeaned him as a dog and stole his canine identity (he’s shaking his head that he won’t).

If anybody in the world SHOULD sue anybody, Britain’s Prince Philip should sue that old dowager broad he’s married to for exposing him to nearly 60 years of those ugly, ugly hats she wears. The constant anxiety he’s suffered biting his tongue more than likely led to his recent heart problems. Where’s a good lawyer when you really need one?