From: "William H. Geiger III" <whgiii@amaranth.com>
Date: Thu, 28 Aug 1997 13:26:19 +0800
To: Kent Crispin <kent@songbird.com>
Subject: Re: heart
In-Reply-To: <19970827174950.35762@bywater.songbird.com>
Message-ID: <199708280528.AAA09045@mailhub.amaranth.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



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In <19970827174950.35762@bywater.songbird.com>, on 08/27/97 
   at 05:49 PM, Kent Crispin <kent@songbird.com> said:

>On Wed, Aug 27, 1997 at 12:49:42PM -0400, Sean Roach wrote:
>> At 11:55 PM 8/26/97 -0700, Kent Crispin wrote:
>[...]
>> 
>> Pretty soon every revolver will have a warning label.  "Warning, misuse of
>> this tool can result in injury and death.  By handling this item you consent
>> to bear all legal responsibility reguarding its use."  Never mind that such
>> should be implied.

>Product liability issues are more prominent when something doesn't 
>function as it is supposed to -- say you are trying to defend  yourself
>against a thief, and the gun blows up in your face.  This is  not the
>same as assuming legal liability for when you shoot someone.

>Arguably, even then you should not be able to sue -- the small  aircraft
>industry has been decimated by product liability issues.   And I remember
>when Chouinard went out of the climbing equipment  business because of
>threat of lawsuits.

>My understanding is that warning labels -- even signed liability 
>releases -- are of limited use in these cases, because, while you can 
>sign a binding contract that limits your ability to sue, you cannot  so
>bind your survivors. 

I find that the majority of calls for tort reform here in the US is due to
a lack of plain 'ol common sense in our judges and population in general.

Lawsuits like the robber who sues the homeowner for breaking his leg, or
the McD coffee case, or tens of thousands of other such cases would have
been laughed out of court 50 yrs ago.

- -- 
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William H. Geiger III  http://www.amaranth.com/~whgiii
Geiger Consulting    Cooking With Warp 4.0

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