Topic awaiting preservation: This is ridiculous (Page 1 of 1)

Jeez.
http://www.theonion.com/onion3626/hersheys_pay_obese.html

"3 August 2000"

Somebody havin ya on there warj. <lol>

It won't be long at all before this kind of thing is going to happen. The movement to attack the food industry has just begun. It's the "nanny state" for us all.

. . : slicePuzzle

The Onion is a satire magazine. I'm really not sure if you guys are taking it seriously or just joking here but have a look at the rest of the articles, lots of funny reads.

I can even scan it for you if you want, the two of our (Dutch) newspapers we have featured a massive article about a guy (Caesar Barber) who's going to sue [quote] McDonalds, Burger King, Wendy's and Kentucky Fried Chicken. He claims they are neglecting to tell the people that their products are generally unhealthy and cause high blood pressure, too much cholesterol and fatness. He's demanding a yet unknown sum of money.

(edit)

According to the chairman of the National Restaurant Association, this is an attempt to get some money out of the recent publicity about obesitas (overweight) in America.

Every year 300.000 Americans die due to high cholesterol levels and the effects of overweighth. The estimated health care cost is about 117 billion dollars a year. Roughly 61% of the Americans suffer from overweighth.

The Restaurants claim that the consumers are to blame for what they eat, much the same as the tobacco industry said when they were sued by smokers.

Caesar Barber's lawyer is John Banzhaf, the the same guy who started his crusade against the tobacco industry in the sixties. In the end he convinced the jury that the 5 largest tobacco producers intentinally mislead the public by not telling them the dangerous and addictive ingredients of sigarettes.




[This message has been edited by mahjqa (edited 07-27-2002).]

I know the Onion is satire, I also know that they are a little late because this is happening for real as mahjqa's reference shows. I think this is a very negative trend in our society.

. . : slicePuzzle

I don't believe it's anyone's fault but your OWN for what you eat. If you're obese it's because you haven't been taking care of yourself, no one FORCES you to stuff your face with fast food or chocolate. Suing someone else because you're a fat ass is just fucking retarded.

*Edit: just to clarify, I'm not talking about all overweight people, I'm talking about obese individuals. I realize that some people are just born large and will stay that way no matter what they eat.

[This message has been edited by synax (edited 07-27-2002).]

So what is going to be worse, the fact that this person is suing the food chains or the jury that will award him millions in compensatory damages?

. . : slicePuzzle

It may be dated and/or satire. Either way, it's a sad deal about how some people view responsibility.

I still can't believe that little old lady won over McDonalds. Then there was that cat burglar case.

I'm still waiting for the alcohol companies to get hit the same way the tobacco companies got hit. Hell, my maternal grandfather and father both drank themselves to death. Now it looks like my uncle will die any time now for the same reasons. Budweiser owes me millions in compensation!

I say: Let's make French Fried Obesies. JK JK JK JK JK JK JK

Just got done talking to a friend of mine.

I know this girl. She has a job. She works with a guy. The guy is a truck driver. He drives a truck for the company that my female friend works for. Yagetallthat?

He was driving this truck down the highway. This means quite a few feet of meridian. Even a ditch between the two sets of lanes.

This drunk lady is driving down the *wrong* lane. That is, she's on the wrong side of the highway driving into on-coming-traffic.

They had a head-on collision.

Now the lady is sueing the truck driver. Did I mention that she was drunk and driving on the wrong side of the highway?

Real close contender for the Darwin Awards, but not quite.

Unfortunately there are people who are serious about these kinds of things...

But while on the topic of frivilous lawsuits...

A guy is attempting to break into a house to rob a family.
While on the roof, he trips and falls through a sky-light.
As it turns out, he was right above the kitchen.
When he landed, it was on the knife rack (so the handles were sticking up instead of the blades, which is the only reason he survived).
Following the incident, he sues the family because of his injuries.



________________________________________________________________
-- Jack of all trades, master of that which has my attention at
the moment.

Home Sweet Home

Fun fact: in most (if not all) European countries, if somebody sues somebody else and loses the trial, he's got to pay for the costs. Apparently, it's not the same way in America. Any comments on that?

Guys:
http://www.cnn.com/2002/HEALTH/diet.fitness/07/26/fast.food.lawsuit.ap/index.html

mahjqa, I think "loser pays" would be a very good thing to implement here in the States. It's the only thing I can see that even has a chance of cutting back on this trend.

Good link, Wes, although extremely aggravating.

. . : slicePuzzle

Truly dsigusting, and the trend has existed here for a *long* time now....

In a way, the alcohol industry has been hit by the same type of thing - the simple fact that a drunk driver, or his family and/or vicitms if he were to crash and kill/die, can sue the establishment that sold him the alcohol.

The days of 'free drinks' are long gone for the same reason. A person/company is responsilbe for your actions if they provide you with free alcohol. Making you pay for it adds a 'defenisve step' in the process.

It's all just a part of the big habit of humanity to avoid taking responisbility for anything....

And very heartwarming indeed.

Soon enough, people will have waiting lists for others trying to sue them. It will be the new economic structure for America! Yay!! And if/when you don't win a suit...SUE YOUR LAWYER!!! As a matter of fact, I'm going to sue God for making it so humid today!

Though I agree that there are a lot of 'frivolous' lawsuits in America...but, one should never, ever forget the good side of the American Legal system. It is the system that allows the small man to punish (and penalize) those that have wronged him/her. Which is impossible here in Germany.

Yes, they have the 'loser pays' law...but that really doesn't help much, because just about everyone here is 'insured' for legal cases...leading to one of the 'lawsuit friendliness' lands on this planet...but only small, 'irrelavant' cases. However, winning a lawsuit here in Germany doesn't result in riches...if it results in anything. Also, don't ever try to get a malpractice suit going here...you'll never win. And even if you do, you'll only get a few thousand Euros...thank you very much. Aside from the money (and it's not much), nothing will change...no hospitals getting closed down, no doctors being fired, etc. A case in point : an old woman in an old folks home died (yeah, no big deal, right?). Well, it turns out that she died of malnutrition...which basically means that she literally starved to death...because she wasn't fed...it was, according to those working there, 'Much to tiring to feed her three times aday'. The children of the old woman took the case to court...but to no avail. Nobody was found to be 'guilty'. Just imagine that. There are numorous cases like this here in Germany...

So yeah, there are 'silly' cases in the American legal system...but in comparrison to the rest of the worlds legal systems, I would say it is one of the better ones...