Tort Reform Hoax
This is an update to an earlier post. I fell for a hoax e-mail from a senior faculty colleague of mine, listing purported examples of outrageous tort awards. I circulated that e-mail as a post of my own. I quickly caught the error and have since corrected that post. I apologize for my mistake in giving further circulation to bogus examples.
Related Posts (on one page):
- Tort Reform Hoax
- TORT REFORM? - Phony Stella Awards Making the Rounds
Ope ope we got one! Hook line and sinker!
Dude: Snopes.com. Bookmark it.
Nick
I recently read a story in the New York Times that quoted con men as saying experts in a certain area were easier to fool that nonexperts because experts pick up on certain clues that are normally reliable in their experience and jump to the usual conclusion.
Really? You mean, the examples of real lawsuits given at sites such as Overlawyered, some of which really are that ridiculous, simply don't exist?
The original Stella lawsuit itself is essentially just as ludicrous as the hoax winnibego suit in question here.
In fact, it's LESS ridiculous than some real lawsuits. You think you can tell them apart because they are so over-the-top, but there are real-world examples of stuff that is WORSE.
Not true. McD's intentinally had coffee machines specially altered (against the manufacturer's safety recommendations) to deliver coffee that was far, far hotter than customary. It knew of this risk, and chose to impose the risk on the customer, but the customer wouldn't know. Stella suffered burns so serious as to require several hospitalizations and skin graft surgery. I dont remember the figure for her actual medicals, but it was several or many tens of thousands of dollars. McD's admitted that its motive for serving the unusually dangerous coffee was profit.
Golly, companies selling things people want! Gotta stamp that out.
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