(no subject)

[rowyn]

http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,36~53~2691638,00.html

What's especially sad about this story is that, on some occasions when I've been on a cookie-baking spree, I've thought of making cookies for my neighbors. I've never met most of them.

But I've never done it, because I figured in an age where parents throw out trick-or-treat lollipops because they might've been unwrapped and re-wrapped, my cookies would be as likely to be thrown away as enjoyed.

*sigh*

Comments

We all have our faults

[rowyn]

But that doesn't mean we all have this one.

if you incurred medical expenses, that you would have difficulties paying, from some unasked for action, whatever the motivation, would you want to be stuck with the bill?

Yes. Or, more precisely, I would determine the motivation first, and if I judged there to be no malice, I would prefer to pay my own bill.

In case you don't believe me:

When I was in college, I went into a grovery store several yards ahead of a couple of friends. Then I went back to the door, stood right up next to it as I waited for them, and scratched at it like a cat. I was goofing off.

The store had one of those rubber mats in front of the door, that used to be pressure-activated and would open when stepped on. But, it turned out, the mats were no longer connected to the doors -- they were opened by motion sensors. A few yards before my friends reached the mat it opened, catching me by surprise, tearing my sneaker, and bending back my big toenail. The toenail didn't break and was at such an angle that it couldn't be clipped, either. I wound up in an emergency room for two hours waiting for someone to bring a scalpel and cut it off. (I was tempted to do it myself, if anyone had offered me a scalpel.)

Before I went to the emergency room, the employees at the store had rushed out to attend to me, and within a few minutes, it was obvious they were worried that I'd sue.

Could I have sued? Certainly. Would I have been successful? Possibly. The doors could've been engineered to prevent them from opening if someone was in the way, for example. There were reasonable measures the store could have taken to prevent te injury I received.

But it was my actions that were out of line. I behaved in an unpredictable and improbable way which resulted in someone else's non-malicious actions causing me injury. I had no interest in bringing them to court, or even asking them for money, based on my doing something pretty silly.

For that matter, I didn't even sue the people who sold me a house without disclosing a serious flooding problem that they almost certainly knew about. Why would I sue a couple of schoolkids for unintentionally scaring me?

If you'll notice in my original post, I did not take sides or insist that Ms. Young was the villain of the piece. But I do think it's pretty sad when a couple of kids can be fined for delivering a pleasant surprise.