Personal Responsibility

There was an interesting story this morning on the Web about a man whose jaw locked as he prepared to bite into a large sandwich and it stayed locked for 14 hours. The interesting part is his refusal to seek legal redress for his appetite for an overstuffed sandwich or the physical anomaly that caused his jaw to lock. His acceptance of personal responsibility is refreshing in our law-suit happy society.

Whenever you read a weird product warning you can be sure a weird lawsuit has been filed somewhere. You wonder who it was that attempted to iron an piece of apparel while they were wearing it? Or who was it that tried to drive a car with a cardboard windshield screen in place?

Sometimes products are defective or food is improperly prepared and a person does not receive the appropriate attention from the manufacturer that the negative results warrant. But it seems to me that most people look at the law courts as a response to a problem that has occurred because of something they did or did not do. In my mind this extends to the issues of overeating and smoking, both of which are issues of personal choice. If I smoke for 40 years, I shouldn't be surprised if I develop a smoking related disease and then go to court claiming I was unaware of the ill-effects of smoking so give me money. Smoking was linked to cancer way back in the 1930s but was certainly in the public domain in the 1950s when my dad, who started smoking at age 14, stopped. There's the difference. When we know something is bad and we do it anyway, who should be held accountable?

Meanwhile, Tiger Woods continues his apology tour but I wonder if he has really accepted that his actions is what caused the problem in the first place. On the other hand California lawyer Gloria Allred is representing one of the mistresses who believed she is owed an apology for having entered into a relationship with a man she knew was married.

Maybe Shakespeare had a point when he had one of the character's in Henry V say, "The first thing we do is kill all the lawyers." Well, maybe not ALL the lawyers, just the personal injury attorneys who have turned the legal system into a lotto for the seriously irresponsible.