Once again it’s that time of spring when everyone I know is either gloating about her summer job or internship or bemoaning her looming lack of employment. I, however, am looking to do something a little more frivolous than a job this summer. Instead of wasting my time with gainful employment, I’ve decided to find a company to sue.
Litigation is all the rage in this country, and it’s easy to see why. Why should I work for a company if I can get it to just pay me? It shouldn’t be hard for me to find a manufactured source of danger. We live in a perilous world of bacon cheeseburgers, child car safety seats, LCD panels, cereal bowls and more. If I can just find a way to harm myself with one of these products, I should be able to reap the rewards in an out-of-court settlement, right?
Unfortunately for my litigious summer plans, companies are labeling their products with increasingly detailed warnings to escape responsibility for the danger these products pose to unwitting consumers. Now that more and more restaurants are publicly displaying their menu items’ calorie counts, I can’t go the traditional route of getting fat off a restaurant’s burgers and then suing for “false advertising.” Many child car seats now bear the warning “Remove child before folding,” so I can’t fold up my little brother in one and then claim I didn’t know any better. And some LCD panels now warn, “Do not eat,” while certain cereal bowls advise you to “Always use this product with adult supervision.” Sensible advice indeed. But now my habit of eating bowls of LCD panels with no adult in sight will get me nothing but a stomachache.
But I’m one step ahead of all these cautious companies. I’ve realized that books, magazines, movies and TV shows neglect to warn you that by reading or watching them, you may lose intelligence. That one time I watched multiple back-to-back episodes of “The Hills” spin-off “The City,” no one had informed me that I would lose approximately half my IQ. If that doesn’t constitute “mental distress,” I don’t know what does. And I know I’m missing a few brain cells since reading that issue of UsWeekly over Spring Break. Entertainment industry, I’m coming for your billions.
At this point you may be hollering about the need for tort reform, but tort is a delicious kind of cake, and it’s fine just the way it is. And so is all this litigation: It’s much more fun to throw money back and forth than to focus on creating new jobs and products. I’ll leave you with some wise words I once read: If you’re suing me, it’s frivolous; if I’m suing you, it’s legitimate. And remember, curling irons are for external use only.
Weinberg sophomore Hayley MacMillen can be reached at [email protected]
