There have been several stories in the media recently about incidents that seem to break all the laws of common sense. They are of course a result of our increasingly litigious society.
One example tells the story of a company that was forbidden by a Job Centre to advertise for “reliable” staff on the assumption that this would discriminate against “unreliable people”. Indeed the inference was that “unreliable” people would be able to sue for such a slur on their character. Is it worse that there are people who would make such a claim or that there are no win no fee lawyers out there that would be prepared to have a go?
And then “Health and Safety” get in on the band wagon. Another story involves a restaurant that has stopped offering tooth picks to its clients on the basis that they may injure themselves and consequently sue the restaurant. Again this is complete nonesense. Especially when the same clients can apparantly be trusted to use very sharp steak knives to eat their meals with. You could slice through the bone of a finger like butter with a nicely sharpened steak knife. But you’d have to be a bit of an expert to do serious damage to yourself with a small sliver of weak wood.
But there is obviously a fear that such litigation is possible or the restaurant wouldn’t have taken such an action in the first place. Perhaps they should get their clients to sign a disclaimer or maybe they should allow tooth picks but with prominent warnings about the potential dangers of using them.
What about the story where local councils were alledged to have avoided gritting pavements for fear of litigation. The argument was that if the pavement was gritted and someone fell they could be sued for not doing an adequate gritting job. On the other hand if the pavement was ungritted then anyone falling on it would not be able to blame anyone but themselves.
It gets worse. A friend works in a company where they needed to buy a microwave oven for the staff kitchen. Rather than go through tortuous procurement proceedures one enterprising individual bought one from a reputable high street store. Of course the health and safety people wouldn’t allow its use until it had been checked by a qualified electrician who could verify it was safe to use. I’m sorry but since when did well known high street electronics retailers start reserving a corner of their stores to sell unsafe goods?
“Unsafe but discounted” is that it?
When reading these stories it really makes you wonder whether we are living in a fantasy land. But this combination of political correctness and the fact that we are encouraged to take absolutely no responsibility for anything anymore because someone else is always to blame has led us into this sad reality.
Perhaps it is time for a future Government to look at the whole issue of “no win no fee” lawyers and some of the crazy cases we hear about and start to promote the idea of individual responsibility more. An re-introduction of common sense into Health and Safety would be welcome as well.
Hmmmm,touchy subject Grandnat. Most people jump on the ‘litigious society’ and dont understand that there is much much more to the ‘no win no fee’ solicitors. Yes people will always take advantage of this but what about the many cases i know of that are disgusting. The woman who was left all night long whilst her baby died inside her, she pressed the alarm but the staff in the hospital just turned the radio up so they could not hear the alarms. I could go on and on and claims in the work place that improve the safety of the work place blah blah 🙂
An interesting point Stuart and a valid one but I do despair sometimes as there’s a large difference between say a case of hospital neglect and someone tripping over a pavement. The latter is in my own mind just a case of misfortune. Perhaps its time for those passing judgement to focus more on the nature of the case rather than legal precedence? It would also help if insurance companies would stop settling claims below a certain value!! :o)