On Thu, 31 Jul 2008 11:35:16 +0100, Phil Cook wrote:

>> Oh, I don't know that that's sufficient.  At least here in the US, it
>> still has to be somebody's *fault*.
> 
> Yep - your own :-P

I wish more people would realise this.  But the trend over the last 
several years has been to blame someone else in order to hit the 
"jackpot" with a sizable judgment.  The most famous was Stella, who won a 
judgment against McDonald's because she put a hot cup of coffee between 
her legs and got burned.

All things about the proper temperature to serve coffee at and whatnot 
aside, *she* decided to put a cup of hot liquid there.  McDonald's didn't 
make her do that.

(The judgment she won was reduced significantly upon appeal - that fact's 
not often discussed by people who site this case).

I'm not a big fan of McD's, but the result was that they also had to put 
a warning on the cup that states that the contents are hot.  As if it was 
impossible to tell that.

>> Yeah, but that requires thinking on the part of the school
>> administration, and we can't have *that* going on in our schools....
> 
> Two independent thought alarms in one day! But yeah that would require
> making a judgment call for which you can be sued later.

LOL

>> But there's also (in some schools) a double-standard.  Students have ZT
>> applied to them, but let a staffer do something that is a *fireable*
>> offense and those same non-thinking administration people are willing
>> to overlook it.
> 
> But we both know that the normal rules are suspended in times of
> emergency, just look at all the laws both our governments have been
> ramming through the system. "We think you've got drugs on your person.
> Strip down while I put on this rubber glove"

Yeah, that's true enough.  But a staffer doing something (as opposed to a 
student) doesn't really qualify in my book as an "emergency" of any sort.

Jim

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