Superfluous Suing

The term lawsuit has become a household word even to the point that in some cases it almost seems like a term used to define an unsubstantiated threat bound to some type of ineptness whether it is in terms of money, time, effort, or all of the above. This has led to the outbreak of a plethora of frivolous lawsuits. Lawsuits are meant to seek justice from a person through the legal process. However, has filing frivolous lawsuits become just a new trend in our money-hungry American society? Are some lawsuits tainting the pure intentions of seeking justice?

There is a distinct structure to the legal system and its connections to the filing of lawsuits. When you sue someone and take him to court for a civil trial, it is usually based on a tort, when someone did not necessarily break a criminal law but might have acted negligently, causing harm physically, emotionally or financially. When someone breaks a criminal law, then the public prosecutor takes him to court for a criminal trial. The purpose of tort law was to compensate victims for their losses and also to help prevent future losses by punishing the defendant. These compensatory damages are lost as a result of the defendant’s negligence, as well as money to make up for pain and suffering.

In shorthand, that means that in America we’ve learned that if someone does us wrong, we want to get paid for it. This mentality has fostered the idea that you can sue someone just as easily as you can “Google” them.

California alone has filed 1.4 million lawsuits in the last year and the number of Silicon Valley lawsuits is on the rise. Last year a toddler was killed after a neighbor’s rotting tree fell on top of their car. The parents were safely pulled out; however, the baby did not make it. The parents recently filed a lawsuit against the city of San Jose and their neighbor.

Another local lawsuit was recently filed in San Jose over the killing of a mentally ill man by police forces. Are these wrongful lawsuits fulfilling righteous causes and ideals?

At the national level, someone recently sued Taco Bell about the company’s beef. The claim stated that the beef was less than a 1/3 beef while Taco Bell refuted that it was in actuality 88% beef and the rest were seasoning ingredients. Taco Bell won this lawsuit and awareness was raised for consumers by this lawsuit. Taco Bell in fact issued a statement saying, “Thank you for suing us” because of the positive effects and clearing of confusion resulting after the lawsuit.

To be sure, many lawsuits are rightfully filed; however, American culture has given rise to an outbreak of idiotic lawsuits that waste more money and time than necessary. Some of these include the following: a lawsuit filed by a traveler who believed a cruise ship travelling  too fast, a Mom filing a suit against an exclusive preschool denying her child admission and how destroyed her child’s college prospects, a man filing a suit because he believed he became gay after a rear-end collision, and an inmate who sued himself for letting himself get arrested and demanded the state pay him because he had no income.

And it’s not just individuals suing–corporations are getting into the game, too. Caterpillar sued Walt Disney because it claimed the company portrayed bulldozers badly because in the movie “George and the Jungle 2” the bulldozers were used to attack the jungle.

There is also huge amount of lawsuit abuse that harms many innocent lives. “It kind of puts a damper on the American Dream, thinking that everybody is honest and fair, and it doesn’t always work out that way unfortunately,” says Danny Myers, owner of Vintage Pools and Spas, who lost thousands in a lawsuit against his company. This company was sued $20,000 because they built a customer’s pool with the depth of 5 feet instead of 6 feet. They tried to contact the customer after they noticed the mistake because they knew if the customer agreed it would be an easy fix. However, after a few email responses, the customer’s lawyer sent a notice saying that the communication between the customer and the company should be restricted. The customer and his lawyer demanded to get cash to settle the deal and didn’t want to consider just getting it fixed. This has been one of Vintage Pools and Spas biggest financial threats in its 30 years of business.

There also is the story of the Chungs who owned a few chains in dry cleaning businesses in Washington D.C. They were hard-working honest people just trying to support their up-and-coming cleaning business. This all changed the day they had misplaced customer, Roy Pearson’s pants. They tried to help the customer by replacing his pants and offering him $12,000 to avoid the entire lawsuit process. This was not enough for Mr. Pearson. He wanted to bring this to court at the cost of $54 million. Mr. Pearson lost the lawsuit after the first two years, but Mr. Pearson demanded to bring the case up again. The Chungs wanted to plead out because they didn’t have the legal fees to cover further appeals but the case is currently being looked at in District of Columbia Court. The Chungs lost all three of their dry-cleaning chains, time and not to mention lots of money and no this was not over a life or a limb but a pair of pants, which is a replaceable material item that must have cost about most $50.  ”They’re out a lot of money, but more importantly, they’re incredibly disenchanted with the system,” said Chris Manning, their attorney. ”This has destroyed their lives.”

Lawsuits have come in many different varieties in the past years and have transformed into something larger in the last couple of years. Lawsuits have become an integral part of American lifestyle. Some lawsuits waste exorbitant amounts of money, time, and energy; however, there still needs to be a method to achieve justice especially for great causes. Until the time of great judicial reform, the general public will live by the saying, “Where this is a will there is a lawsuit.”

April Fools Day: The History and Best Jokes of All Time

April Fools’ Day is a day of pranks and good-hearted fun, but for those of you who are particularly gullible, it can really throw you for a loop.

The exact origin of April Fools’ Day is unknown, but there are two prominent theories about how the tradition got started. One widely accepted theory is that April Fools started in 1582 in France when the calendar was changed to the Gregorian calendar. The first day of the new year was switched from April 1 to January 1. News did not travel quickly back then, so many people still celebrated the New Year on April 1 for a while after the switch. These citizens were called fools and were often sent on “fool errands,” such as invites to non-existent parties. Now the holiday has evolved, and many countries and cultures celebrate a day of pranks and jokes while putting their own individual twist on the day’s celebrations.

Top Pranks of All Time:

• In 1957, Panorama, a respected TV show on BBC, reported that due to a mild winter and the elimination of the dreaded spaghetti weevil, Swiss farmers were enjoying a bountiful spaghetti crop. This was then followed with images of farmers pulling spaghetti down from trees. Large numbers of viewers phoned in to BBC to ask how they could grow spaghetti. “Place a sprig of spaghetti in a tin of tomato sauce and hope for the best,” was the response given. 
• The Taco Bell Corporation announced on April 1, 1996 that it had purchased the Liberty Bell and was going to rename it the Taco Liberty Bell. Outraged citizens called the National Historic Park in Philadelphia but were calmed a few hours later when Taco Bell announced that it was just a practical joke.
• In 1998, Burger King published a full-page advertisement in USA Today advertising their new “Left-Handed Whopper,” made especially for the 32 million left-handed Americans. Apparently the ingredients were the same as the regular whopper, but everything was rotated 180 degrees. The next day Burger King announced that it was just a joke but thousands of customers had already requested a left-handed whopper.  Many others had also requested their own right-handed version of a whopper.

April Fools’ Ideas:

• Tape a magnet to the bottom of a Styrofoam coffee cup and put it on the top of your car. The magnet will hold the cup in place, and you can enjoy watching people frantically trying to get your attention as you drive away.
• Leave a message for someone saying that “Mr. Lyon” or “Mr. Behr” called and would like that person to call back, then leave the number of the local zoo.
• Take a dollar bill and leave it on the ground where someone is likely to find it and pick it up. Have a piece of cloth ready, and when the person bends over to pick up the dollar, rip the piece of cloth. It is likely that the person will reach behind them to check and see if their pants ripped.
• Get a pack of yellow Jell-O and place it in the toilet of your victim late at night (to give the Jell-O time to harden). They will have a funny surprise when they wake up in the morning and go to the bathroom. (The Jell-O does not harm the toilet; it just needs to be broken up before it can be flushed down.)
• Fill your friend’s umbrella with confetti and then close it up. The next time it rains, there will be more than water falling from the sky!

For more April Fools’ joke ideas visit: http://aprilfoolzone.com/ & http://www.april-fools.us/index.html