11:45am Friday 30th October 2009
I have thought of a way to save the country a shed load of money. It would only take the time necessary to draft and enact legislation severely restricting the ability to claim financial recompense for the footling incidents and accidents that are currently manna from heaven to lawyers and the litigious.
Last year, a company selling ice cream directly to the public instructed its staff not to put toppings on customers’ ice creams ‘in case they slipped over them if they dripped off’. Customers now receive their ice cream and the topping in separate containers and must combine the two themselves. Drips are then the legal responsibility of the customer not the vendor. Multiply this by thousands of other companies selling to, or dealing with, the public and the scale of the defensive behaviour dictated by fear of litigation becomes apparent.
Less than a generation ago, if we hurt ourselves doing something fairly normal, we shrugged and dealt with it ourselves. Now the instant reaction for many is to rub their hands together with glee and seek one of those compensation lawyers who advertise their ambulance-chasing wares on morning television. Clearly flagrant and gross breaches or cavalier disregard of sensible safety practices are, and should be seen as, reprehensible and should be punished.
On the other hand, councils should not have to spend our money putting up signs along the sea wall at holiday resorts warning us that falling ten feet and more onto a beach can hurt, or into the sea can cause drowning. But I have seen such signs – as have you probably. And they are of course basically just proclaiming ‘Don’t blame me, if you’re a moron,’ rather than demonstrating excessive anxiety about our well-being.
Stick ‘May contain nuts’ on anything that might be considered edible and you’re safe. And let’s stick it on bags of nuts as well – just in case some hot-shot lawyer can convince a court that his befuddled client thought cashews were sneeze remedies.
The BBC is clearly concerned about public safety for eggs sitting on walls and arachnophobes too. A CBeebies show recently had all the king’s horses and men making Humpty ‘happy again’ and Miss Muffet made friends with the spider. The Brothers Grimm wouldn’t stand a chance now would they? Jack and Jill went up the hill to form a focus group to discuss safe water collection, no doubt.
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