So I was just in the elevator and overheard the following conversation:
"So yeah, my husband was attacked by a german shepherd and a mastiff - we were in court yesterday"
"A dog attack? you gonna get any money?"

Not, "Oh my! Is he alright?" or "I hope you're okay." but "OHH HONEY YOU WON THE LOTTERY!"

Why is it that accidents are the new big-bucks lottery? A dog attack is an accident. I hate dogs, but I'm sure nobody trains their dogs to attack folks at random. Burglars, sure. But I digress.

WHY is it that ANY misfortune now equals early retirement? When I was a kid, if you spilled hot coffee on your lap, you smacked your head for being a dumbass and went about your business. Because it's coffee. It's hot. That's what coffee does.

Just like a dog. A big dog like a german shepherd. They bark. They bite. It happens. Don't ALWAYS happen, but yeah, occasionally, a person gets bit by a dog. Do ya GOTTA go get money everytime you hurt yourself?

I'm waiting on the lawsuit to Mead for someone getting a papercut. It's gonna happen. Just wait.

I hate lawyers.

The world is a cesspool sometimes Otan but there's no reason to hate dogs.

My Chihuahuas (Ike & Tina) are like family.

Slave2daGroove said:

Do you really have chihuahuas named Ike and Tina?



I can just see that...

Slave2daGroove said:

I think its a personal preferance. I hate Cocker Spaniels because one bit me in my face.

Dogs are great, people are the dumbasses and in some cases deserve to be bitten.

For the legal issue, the law needs to change before the whole of western civilisation goes down the pan.

"Your dog bit me"

"you broke into my house"

"Yea, but your dog bit me can I have 1000 please"

"No you can go to prison, you are lucky he didn't take you leg off you low life piece of shit"

What a happy day that would be.

Headline:

Man tries to sue owner for dog bite: Judge fines dick head for wasting court time and orders him to stop being such a cry baby.

How hard can this be?

VinaBlue said:

Yeah, Ike is a dominating little bastard and keeps Tina down every chance he gets.

The day the little fucker brings rock into the house, family or nofamily, his little tail-waggin ass is on the street.

I am pushing for a "that's the stupidest lawsuit I've ever heard" bill, where you can double back on the bloodsucking lawyers and make THEM PAY YOU for the amount THEY were trying to get for your serving donuts with sprinkles that choked their fatass client.

Or whatever.

Honest, dogs just baffle me. Noisy hyperactive shit machines. And yeah, a collie bit me on the lip when I was 5 but that didn't stop me from having a few dogs awhile back.

All the crap on the lawn, that's what stops me now. That and all the chewed up shit. And the barking at everything and nothing. And all the fur. and slobber.

At least a cat knows where to take a crap in the house.

PREDOMINANT said:

Quality

otan said:

IN THE HOUSE!!!

Dog outside Cat IN THE HOUSE , erm, WTF!

Any dog we have had never craps in the garden, they wait for walkies

Right. Cats in the house. They use a thing called a litter box. And you only have to change it once a month. Sometimes a little more often if the stink gets to you. (it's a JOKE!!)

Dogs crap anywhere. And right - you have to take them for a walk, in the morning, at night, at lunch, or else they get their feelings hurt and chew up your shit. Right. No thanks. I already have a kid.

otan said:

Now, now, Otan, lawyers do not all take these cases, and remember, they follow clients' instructions as much as they convince clients to take courses of action. So clients are at least partially to blame in frivolous lawsuits. And lawyers don't give the big cash verdicts, jurors -- should I say, non-lawyers -- do. So lawyers aren't all to blame.

(Footnote: The woman who got a million in the McDonald's hot coffee case? She offered 20K to settle. McD's said no and got burned at trial.)

I do agree with you that some dog attacks are accidental or otherwise uncontrollable, but dogs are only as careless or hazardous as their conditions. when people fail to make sure their dogs are leashed or locked up, they must take the blame if such an accident happens. That's not legal trickery. That's common sense.

That being said, if you think some people don't train dogs to attach, think again.

Besides, have you seen victims of serious dog attacks? The death scene in the San Francisco dog incident was so gruesome that SOME POLICE ON THE SCENE NEEDED THERAPY. Dogs can do a lot of damage. Particularly big ones.

What needs to happen is that victims, lawyers and courts need to keep such incidents in perspective. If a person needs stitches for a dog bite, that's one thing. But if a child is disfigured or an adult is dismembered in a dog attack, then that's a whole 'nother bone.


[This message was edited Wed Oct 29 12:20:02 PST 2003 by namepeace]

namepeace said:

I understand ALL of what you're saying.

My response tho, is, 25 years ago, nobody would SUE anyone over it... it would be called a DAMN SHAME and an ACCIDENT, but wouldn't nobody be trying to collect millions. EVERYTHING is settled with lawsuits and mind-boggling settlements now over the stupidest shit.

Cigarettes for instance. WHY in the HELL would ANYBODY award money to jackasses that have heard ALL THEIR meaningless lives "CIGARETTES cause CANCER". I mean, shit, I heard that in 3rd grade, and that was in 1943. So for some useless droolbag to show up and say "I was duped into taking this poison everyday and didn't know nothing about it being bad for me"... they should be disconnected from the oxygen tent pronto.

Darwinism baby.

Too many people who dont take responsibility for what they do & try to put the blame on anyone or anything else. These kind of people feel that the world owes the something because they're here but they wont go out & work for it.

So you burn your tounge, that's a quick mil, nevermind that you're the dumbass that took a drink even though you knew it was hot!

dog owners have a responsibility to keep control of their animals...if they don't, they should have to deal with it

i agree with what you're saying about "sue everyone" mentality... but i think if a dog attacks someone, it's fair enough to go after the owners

BlueEyedAngel said:

Actually, there are a lot of frivolous lawsuits every day, but there's something to that McD's lawsuit:

1. McD's intentionally kept the coffee at an above-average temperature so it would stay hot longer, knowing that it could cause damage.

2. Apparently, despite serving scalding-hot coffee, the attendant failed to put the lid on tightly. That's his/her job.

3. The victim was an old lady who suffered acute burns that take longer to heal. It was more than a burnt tongue from what I heard.

4. She only wanted $20,000.00. McD's said no. They went to trial. A JURY (not a lawyer) decided she was entitled to a million.

So it's a little more complicated.

otan said:

I don't disagree. But the reason people get settlements on dumb lawsuits is, quite simply, other money -- the $ it takes to weed out bogus lawsuits. When you go through so many procedural hoops -- complaints and answers, discovery, depositions, pre-trial motions, briefings, voir dire -- and STILL risk a bad outcome, it is cheaper to pay a settlement to make the problem go away (and avaoid paying your lawyer a ton of cash), unless you can hit a home run and win without a trial or have some compelling reasons to spend a lot of cash (that is, you're being sued for a lot of cash or your insurer is fronting the bill).



I agree, to an extent. The surgeon general made his first announcement in 1957 about ciggies and cancer. I grew up reading the notice on every billboard I saw. But those who got hooked before the warnings were required have a plausible case.

The new suits involve a trickier question. Even though the warnings are 40+ years old, and people should know better, the allegations are that those who take up smoking have bought spiked product designed to make it more difficult for smokers to quit. People shouldn't smoke, but ciggie manufacturers shouldn't be allowed to make it more difficult to quit smoking WITHOUT TELLING YOU WHAT'S IN IT. Put it like this: if I eat a Big Mac, I know it's packed with fat, sodium, etc. But suppose McD's made Big Macs tastier by doubling the fat and sodium in them? Still my choice to eat it, right?

But suppose McD's didn't tell me about it and published the old nutritional information. Is that right?

I don't know whether the allegations are true, but that's the theory, which makes it a little different.