Lawsuit Happy
By: KK

Copyright@ 2002

The time has come for me to slice and dice the lawsuit happy Americans. A few facts to keep in mind, I was married to an attorney for ten years, I am a paralegal and I am disgusted with the blatant selfishness of America.

The most current and outlandish lawsuit to date is that the families of the 9/11 victims are suing Afghanistan and Osama bin Laden for the loss of their loved ones. This has been incredibly entertaining since no one can seem to find Osama and serve him with a Civil Complaint. Judging from his lack of desire to be in the public eye and his tremendous ability to play Hide-n-Seek, it's safe to
assume that he won't be sitting in an American court any time soon. Especially for a civil case, let alone a criminal case. The only benefit of winning a judgment against the entire country of Afghanistan is to recoup the millions of dollars that we've been sending them. But then again, the American families have already received millions from the American government to cover their losses. How much is too much? Why is America paying for something that we had nothing to do with? What is the price for a human life? I truly feel sorry for all of those that lost loved ones on that horrendous day. But 9/11 has turned into a money grubbing, free for all. Money will not bring back your loved ones.

Blacks are jumping on the band wagon to sue the American government for reparations for their ancestors being forced to be slaves. The obvious thing to note here is that people are suing for something that they were not involved with and has not directly affected them. Their great-great-great-grandfather, that they didn't even know personally, was a slave. How in the hell does this affect their lives today? Get off your soap boxes. It's a shame that any country would resort to slavery of any type. But truth be known, that's how it was over 200 years ago and we can't change history. Paying over $1 trillion dollars worth of back pay is not going to change the fact that America supported slavery. That money is also not going to pay those slaves back. They are dead. Why are the families, in the year 2002, owed restitution for this? Blacks argue that slavery caused discrimination, lack of jobs and lack of education. I won't argue that it didn't help the situation. But millions of blacks have worked their asses off to be educated and successful and never pulled the "race card". Blacks are not owed money or an apology for slavery. The current government was not involved in slavery and shouldn't have to apologize or pay the blacks for something neither of them were even alive for at the time.

In the top five favorite lawsuits are smokers suing tobacco companies. What a hoot! Geez, it never occurred to these people that smoking was bad for their health? Every package of cigarettes, boldly states that IT CAN KILL YOU! I guess it was a hard label to read through all of that puff of smoke. I don't feel a bit sorry for these losers. You deserve what you get. You knew it was
addictive. You knew it was poisonous. You consciously made the choice to pick up and addictive and expensive habit. The tobacco companies didn't mislead anyone. They made a hell of a lot of money off of people willing to spend their rent money on cigarettes. It pained me to see a court of law award a bunch of imbecile smokers millions of dollars. What's next, liquor companies? I swear your honor, they intravenously fed me Vodka from morning 'til night.

Who can forget the woman that sued Mc Donald's for spilling hot coffee on herself? I really thought that the attorney that took on that case received his law degree through the mail. But he did win, undeniably, the most ludicrous case on the planet. It's fairly simple reasoning that this was not her first time drinking coffee. Which means it's reasonable to believe that she knew it
was hot. Which makes her painfully brainless to sue because it was too hot. My humiliation would have started with the fact that I spilled something on myself. My first inclination would be to run to the bathroom and clean myself up before anyone witnessed my lack of grace. The last thing I would do would announce that I am suing a multi-million dollar company because I acted like a loser and oh, by the way, your honor, I had no idea that coffee was hot. Can you pay me millions now...pretty please?

My working with a law office for so many years has really put America's selfishness into perspective. I am amazed everyday by the lazy, greedy and heartless people that want to file lawsuits. Everyone feels that they are owed cash and lots of it. They all feel that they are owed compensation for pain and suffering, emotional distress, blah, blah, blah. They want millions. How do you put a price on emotional distress? Will $6 million dollars make your stress go away? What happened to the good old apology? People who have legitimate cases, car accidents, medical malpractice, etc., they deserve money for their medical bills, loss of jobs, etc. Most of those people don't get nearly what they deserve and most don't even receive enough to pay their medical bills. Instead people are suing other countries for deaths of their loved ones, blacks want to be paid back for history, addicts are blaming others for their addictions. Grow up America. Money doesn't solve a damn thing. It only feeds your ever growing ego.
 

Readers Respond

01.09.03

Dear Ms K:

I read your peice regarding Lawsuit Happiness in the U.S. It occured to
me that sooner or later you will hear about Beer and Liquor manufacturers
will be sued for all the unwanted/unplanned and ugly children born. Gun
manufacturers are already being hit up for money. Why not the Liquor
men/women?

With respect,
Odo

10.10.02

It was kind of funny that today I read this story of yours. I work at a
Wal-Mart that is in the middle of a remodeling session, where I work on
the remodel crew from 10 pm to 6:30 am. Where this little back story
leads is at sometime around 2 am last night, a woman managed to walk into
the current construction zone (with all the racks moved into the ailses
and the guys laying tile this must not be obvious...) and tripped over a
shelf layed out on the floor in the middle of a group. This turned into
Wal-Mart's fault, even though she was uninjured and she was in an area
that was closed off.
And she will probably win any lawsuit she files...