But mommmm, GOOGLE says I can jump off the cliff and it'll save me five minutes!
May 31, 2010 2:10 PM Subscribe
Has anyone ever tried to legally find the plaintiffs of ridiculous consumer lawsuits incapable of handling their own affairs?
I'm always reading about ridiculous consumer lawsuits - you know the ones where they "didn't know" that a hot iron could burn them, or that you shouldn't sleep while driving on cruise control, etc., the most recent being the woman suing Google maps for plotting a walking path along a highway, where she got hit by a car. The common thread is the complete lack of common sense - that and greed of course.
My daydreams of future utopias always include an historical footnote in which this kind of lawsuit gets wiped out by a law that puts anyone making such a claim into the custody of the state, obviously incapable of managing their own affairs (anyone who does not know that hot things are hot*, or that you shouldn't sleep while driving, clearly still needs a babysitter).
So I'm curious: has anyone ever actually tried this? If not, why not? It seems eminently reasonable to me**.
* NOT a dig at McDonald's coffee woman, that shit was way hotter than one would have assumed it to be.
** Admittedly with a really scary loophole for abuse.
I'm always reading about ridiculous consumer lawsuits - you know the ones where they "didn't know" that a hot iron could burn them, or that you shouldn't sleep while driving on cruise control, etc., the most recent being the woman suing Google maps for plotting a walking path along a highway, where she got hit by a car. The common thread is the complete lack of common sense - that and greed of course.
My daydreams of future utopias always include an historical footnote in which this kind of lawsuit gets wiped out by a law that puts anyone making such a claim into the custody of the state, obviously incapable of managing their own affairs (anyone who does not know that hot things are hot*, or that you shouldn't sleep while driving, clearly still needs a babysitter).
So I'm curious: has anyone ever actually tried this? If not, why not? It seems eminently reasonable to me**.
* NOT a dig at McDonald's coffee woman, that shit was way hotter than one would have assumed it to be.
** Admittedly with a really scary loophole for abuse.
This post was deleted for the following reason: This is mostly rant, yeah, and I'm not sure how answerable the question is. If you want to try and reframe this next week as just a straightforward answerable question that might work but this has to go. -- cortex
The deterrent against this is that there are federal and state rules that provide that if a lawsuit is patently frivolous, the attorney, and in some cases, the client can be sanctioned.
posted by ishotjr at 2:22 PM on May 31, 2010
posted by ishotjr at 2:22 PM on May 31, 2010
*or for other screwups besides the suit being frivolous.
posted by ishotjr at 2:22 PM on May 31, 2010
posted by ishotjr at 2:22 PM on May 31, 2010
This seems more like a rant than a question. I'm more concerned about laws that limit the damages (or prevent you from suing at all) you can collect against big businesses and governments for legitimate, life-altering (and worse) mistakes and malfeasance.
Frivolous lawsuits, which get thrown out anyway, don't even register on my outragefilter.
posted by mreleganza at 2:26 PM on May 31, 2010 [1 favorite]
Frivolous lawsuits, which get thrown out anyway, don't even register on my outragefilter.
posted by mreleganza at 2:26 PM on May 31, 2010 [1 favorite]
IAAL.
Courts have enough to do handling frivolous lawsuits, without handling complaints from people who want to stop them.
Therefore, they have created the doctrine of STANDING TO SUE. That is, you can't sue someone just because that person has done something outrageous. You must show in addition that YOU are harmed by it. Likewise, you can't jump into an existing case (in legal parlance, "intervene") unless you show that you will be harmed unless you're permitted to join in.
posted by KRS at 2:40 PM on May 31, 2010
Courts have enough to do handling frivolous lawsuits, without handling complaints from people who want to stop them.
Therefore, they have created the doctrine of STANDING TO SUE. That is, you can't sue someone just because that person has done something outrageous. You must show in addition that YOU are harmed by it. Likewise, you can't jump into an existing case (in legal parlance, "intervene") unless you show that you will be harmed unless you're permitted to join in.
posted by KRS at 2:40 PM on May 31, 2010
Response by poster: I did get kind of ranty, sorry, but the question is still in there. I don't really get how someone can claim to be basically incompetent to manage their own safety and yet not pay any kind of penalty for admitting it in order to get a payout.
As to why they hit my outragefilter, it's seeing innocent parties lose these lawsuits. Gah, /rant.
posted by L'Estrange Fruit at 2:40 PM on May 31, 2010
As to why they hit my outragefilter, it's seeing innocent parties lose these lawsuits. Gah, /rant.
posted by L'Estrange Fruit at 2:40 PM on May 31, 2010
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by L'Estrange Fruit at 2:19 PM on May 31, 2010