You’ve heard the stories: A California man won $74,000 for injuries
when his neighbor ran over his hand with a car... while the man was trying
to steal the car’s hubcaps. The story is completely false. The
fabricated lawsuit and stories like it circulate each year. Some of the
latest fiction include:
A man purchased a motor home. On his trip home on the freeway, he set the
cruise control and left the drivers seat to make a cup of coffee. The RV
left the freeway, crashed and overturned. The man sued Winnebago for not
advising him that he could not actually do this. He was awarded $1,750,000
plus a new Winnebago.
A restaurant was ordered to pay a woman $113,500 after she slipped on a spilled
drink and broke her coccyx. The beverage was on the floor because she threw
it at her boyfriend 30 seconds earlier during an argument.
A woman sued the owner of a nightclub when she fell from the bathroom window and
knocked out two front teeth. This occurred while she was trying to sneak
through the window in the bathroom to avoid paying the $3.50 cover charge. She
was awarded $12,000 and dental expenses.
Although the stories of the fake lawsuits are amusing, they are also dangerous. The
fake lawsuits become a part of our cultural beliefs – that there are too
many lawsuits and that the majority of those lawsuits are “frivolous.”
You’ve heard the claims that the American justice system is out of control. Before
buying into the propaganda these stories propound, consider the source and do your
own research, and ask yourself why someone would spend so much time making up stories
to make Americans doubt their justice system.
|
