Compensation culture.

[RonD]

This was emailed to me by a friend...

This year's runaway First Place Stella Award winner was Mrs. Merv Grazinski, of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, who purchased a new 32-foot Winnebago motor home. On her first trip home from an OU football game, having driven on to the freeway, she set the cruise control at 70 mph and calmly left the driver's seat to go to the back of the Winnebago to make herself a sandwich. Not surprisingly, the motor home left the freeway, crashed and overturned. Also not surprisingly, Mrs. Grazinski sued Winnebago for not putting in the owner's manual that she couldn't actually leave the driver's seat while the cruise control was set.

The Oklahoma jury awarded her, are you sitting down. $1,750,000 PLUS a new motor home. Winnebago actually changed their manuals as a result of this suit, just in case Mrs.Grazinski has any relatives who might also buy a motor home.

 

[Oldfogey]

Hilarious, and I would not be at all surprised if somebody was stupid enough to assume that cruise control meant you could stop driving.

Unfortunately, this is just a long standing urban myth - no truth in it at all.

 

[Parksy]

My car is an automatic........... but I have to be there

 

[GrahamSouthBrum]

This smaks of the bloke who hired a self drive car & had to be told to drive it himself.

Graham W.

 

[colin-yorkshire]

from local paper few months ago a man got compensation from the council after falling into a unproteced hole dug in his street.

who dug it

he did!!!.

 

[Lutz]

Comment from the Association of Trial Lawyers of America (ATLA):

"These stories, and others like them, are circulated by e-mail and purport to be genuine legal cases, often labelled "The Stella Awards." But they are, at best, wild exaggerations and, more usually, entirely made up. And the Association of Trial Lawyers of America (ATLA) is upset

 

[Val & Frank]

Morning Lutz

Would you believe anything an American lawyer told you ???? never mind an Association of them !!!!!!!!!!

Frank

 

[JeremyClarksson]

There was one a while back about a woman who dried her dog in the microwave and sued the company successfully after it died - I am guessing there was little truth in that either.

 

[colin-yorkshire]

hi all

well wether there is truth in the stories or not you have to accept that the compensation culture as taken over from individual responsability the view that someone is to blame and therefore theres a claim is an unwelcome american import.

in the yard at work a couple of weeks ago a cleaner got injured by a loading truck.

simple enough it had been raining one of the forklifts lost a box off a pallet and caused a spillage a cleaner goes out to clean it up loading truck comes out of warehouse slides on the ground because of the wet floor and skids into the cleaner crushing his foot who is to blame:- answer every one

the loading truck driver because he did not take care to drive in such a manner that would not make the truck skid .

the forklift driver because his actions led to the spillage in the first place

the cleaner for not making his work area safe before commencing his duties

the supervisor for not closing accsess to the yard and there by separating vehicles from pedestrians

and god for making the yard wet.

these were the findings of the incident report inspector, and the health and saftey executive officer.

makes you think does it not

colin