Trial Lawyers Are Responsible for Fat (Mostly Unread) Booklets Containing this Kind of Crap
By Mona
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Was just given a gift of a fancy Motorola cell phone. On page four under the subject “Use and Care,” the User Guide says:
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- Don’t try to dry your phone in a microwave oven; and
- Don’t drop your phone.
If one needs to be advised of either of those points, one requires a legal guardian.
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And ought not have a phone of any sort. Or a microwave.
Comment by Watts —
January 30, 2008 @ 10:40 pm
What I always wonder when I read warnings like that: does this mean that someone, somewhere, (a) actually tried this, and (b) tried to sue the manufacturer for it?
Comment by Sean —
January 30, 2008 @ 10:47 pm
I absolutely 100% agree with you, Mona.
And in response to Watts’s comment, I think it’s safe to assume that, yes, someone tried it and sued.
My favorite case from law school is about the dump truck operator whose dump truck was stuck in the upright position. He put his head under the bed to get a closer look and then pulled the lever and, hey, it came unstuck! His family sued but I’m sure that wherever he was, he would have preferred the family not publicize his stupidity.
Comment by Thoreau —
January 30, 2008 @ 10:47 pm
I’m told that in France they don’t have nearly as many of these warnings in their product manuals.
For all our talk of rugged individualism, we sure do insist on a lot of warnings and disclaimers.
Disclaimer: I am not advocating for tort reform in this comment.
;)
Comment by Tejota —
January 31, 2008 @ 12:52 am
Bzzzzt! wrong answer! In fact, it CORPORATE LAWYERS trying to justify their existence that are responsible for these booklets.
The more than can inspire _fear_ of lawsuits in the suits, the more power (and resources) they can command from the corporate power structure. Actual risk of lawsuits is irrelevant, as they are payed to _advise_ how to avoid.
If corporate lawyers were paid to advise how to avoid being stampeded by elephants, they would advise that only way to protect the corporation is constant consultation with corporate lawyers.
Comment by The Modesto Kid —
January 31, 2008 @ 9:05 am
How does one avoid dropping one’s cell phone? It seems impossible to me — I have always been glad that my Motorola cell phone seemed pretty impervious to being dropped. Perhaps I ought to have read the manual more carefully.
Comment by joe —
January 31, 2008 @ 9:28 am
Interesting point, Tijota.
You can’t bill many hours for “this looks fine.”
Comment by wade —
January 31, 2008 @ 9:28 am
Caution: this packet of peanuts may contain nuts
Comment by Chuck C —
January 31, 2008 @ 11:06 am
Actually, I think the microwave thing was probably customer-service driven. I’ve overheard more than one person advising a friend that one can dry out a wet cell phone in the microwave. They probably were sick of dealing with idiots asking for discounted replacements for their nuked phones. It’s not always lawyers: sometimes, people really ARE that stupid.
Comment by Barry —
January 31, 2008 @ 11:20 am
Comment by joe —
January 31, 2008 @ 9:28 am
“Interesting point, Tijota.
You can’t bill many hours for “this looks fine.” ”
And if you say, ‘no problem, the judge will toss this out as soon as I get in front of him and make a motion for dismissal on grounds of crap’, one doesn’t get too many hours. Nor highly-paid hours.
Comment by La Rana —
January 31, 2008 @ 11:24 am
This just strikes me as naive. You can either have the tort system to account for uncaused loss or a government bureaucracy. If you choose the former, a consequence is that people will try to deter lawsuits. End of story.
Comment by CaseyL —
January 31, 2008 @ 11:27 am
I don’t really think those disclaimers are there because consumers are that dumb. I think they’re there as a lawsuit prophylaxis *in case* the consumers are that dumb.
Posting idiot-level warnings everywhere puts the onus on the consumer/user if anything goes wrong: “You were warned!”
Comment by Mona —
January 31, 2008 @ 11:27 am
No, you both are laboring under a number of false assumptions. First, large corporations such as Motorola virtually always have salaried, in-house counsel. Second, the reason these lawyers tell their employer to include so many inane warnings is in response to kinds of lawsuits that have been allowed to go forward, rather than dismissed for being crap. They are certainly overly cautious; but then the plaintiffs bar is highly. . .creative in contriving theories of negligence.
Comment by KCinDC —
January 31, 2008 @ 11:32 am
What I don’t understand is why the legal system apparently believes that endless disclaimers in unreadable type, or flashed on a screen for a second, or spouted by a voice too quick to be understood should have any effect whatsoever on a lawsuit. They’re not communication as any nonlawyer knows it — apparently they’re magical protective spells.
Comment by Mona —
January 31, 2008 @ 11:39 am
I don’t follow this thinking at all. It hardly seems that we need either a National Department of Consumer Communication Device Safety to issue regulations prohibiting the dropping of cell phones or baking them in a microwave, or an exclusively strict liability tort system in which all harm or loss are covered by the vendor.
What about the “sh*t happens” theory in which I drop my cell phone in the toilet and it is just ruined, even after I try to nuke it? I have to replace it myself, and Motorola is off the hook, hmmm?
Comment by Thoreau —
January 31, 2008 @ 11:39 am
Mona-
I’m sure you’re right that they have salaried rather than hourly lawyers. Still, a salaried person has to justify his salary and the number of staff in his department. You don’t need to be a lawyer to understand the importance of justifying one’s job.
And KCinDC makes a good point: If somebody really is that stupid, they won’t read the fine print. If a company can argue “Hey, he was an idiot for not reading the fine print before using the toaster in the bathtub” and prevail, why can’t they argue “Hey, he was an idiot for using the toaster in the bathtub” and prevail?
Comment by Mona —
January 31, 2008 @ 11:47 am
All the company is doing with this endless listing of warnings is protecting itself from the tort of failure to warn. That may or may not impact on other negligence-based causes of action.
But civil defense lawyers — in-house or otherwise — are notoriously risk averse, and not simply to justify their jobs. They are trying to stay one step ahead of a predatory plaintiffs bar that sees nothing but deep pockets in a company like Motorola.
Comment by La Rana —
January 31, 2008 @ 11:58 am
I know you don’t follow that thinking at all - that’s why I used the word naive. You can start by dismissing the idea of strict liability; no one is talking about that. Then you can move on to the options presented as solutions to the problem of uncaused loss. Modern societies have come up with two competing ideas, which I mentioned.
If you choose the tort system, people recover their uncaused loss through lawsuits. If you cause your own loss, you are responsible for it. The court system sorts out which is which. The boundaries are always being pushed in one direction or another, so as a proactive deterrent to lawsuits, companies put stupid shit in pamphlets because it doesn’t cost them anything (relatively). If it works to deter even one lawsuit its worth your confusion as to its provenance.
Comment by RK Jones —
January 31, 2008 @ 12:01 pm
My phone advised me not to paint it.
Comment by MMGood —
January 31, 2008 @ 12:04 pm
And all the lawbreakers in Bush’s DOJ are also just risk averse–they are not expanding bureaucratic turf, but just staying ahead of the predatory Islamofascists, right?
Or does your critique of bueaucracies stop where the state does?
Comment by Mona —
January 31, 2008 @ 12:21 pm
At no point did I express “confusion” over the “provenance” of these warnings. I’ve written in comments here as to what causes them.
I’m not confused; I’m bemused. And again, I do not see how a regulatory scheme would prevent the harm from the two warnings I quoted.
In any event, I am aware that modern legal theorists — including libertarians such as Richard Epstein — view the tort system as a preferable alternative to a regulatory state. I share that preference, but will occasionally write about excesses in tort litigation and the silliness that can induce. You know, kind of like I did here.
Comment by Mona —
January 31, 2008 @ 12:29 pm
OMG. You are either yanking my chain, or are thoroughly unfamiliar with my writing. Just run a search of this site with my name and either the acronym “FISA,” or the word “torture.” I regard the Bush DoJ (and members of his cabinet) as a den of criminals.
But even if I were a neocon, warmongering head of the John Yoo fan club, that would have no bearing on the discussion of tort law in this thread.
Comment by Xanthippas —
January 31, 2008 @ 1:08 pm
Examples? I would like to know of one case where someone nuked their phone where the user was allowed to recover.
Comment by Mona —
January 31, 2008 @ 1:23 pm
I do not know of any such specific example, but I do know that a forum-shopping plaintiffs lawyer will find a judge somewhere who will agree that Motorola had a duty to warn against that, and let the case get to a jury.
I’m so amused at folks who think govt and corporations are all greed-riddled snake pits, but somehow exempt the trial lawyers from the greed motive in contriving breaches of duties and persuading juries to award tons ‘o $$, of which said trial lawyers keep a 3rd.
What, you think these are all altar boys (and grrls) simply fighting for truth, justice and the American way? [eyes rolling] See what happens to their interest in justice if their contingency fee limit were severely capped. (I’m NOT advocating that — simply saying such a phenomenon would be most instructive.)
Comment by La Rana —
January 31, 2008 @ 1:53 pm
I used “confusion” as a euphemism for wrong. Example:
This is incorrect. Though actual data would be superior, I can prove why you’re wrong through the magic of logic, using your own parameters and assumptions.
You said that in-house counsel are writing these things in response to actual court cases because civil defense lawyers are notoriously risk averse. Even if we assume these things to be true (none of which I think is either true or meaningful), why should particularly risk averse people act only in response to past events? Risk aversion is a forward looking process that involves anticipating what might happen, not just what might repeat. So, even if some of what you’ve said is true - an assessment I would take issue with - your conclusion doesn’t make any sense.
I can give other examples if you’d like, but I think my point stands as to your “confusion.”
Comment by Mona —
January 31, 2008 @ 1:59 pm
Honestly, I’d say it is your writing that is confusing. You think my point is wrong. Mmmkay. But it is hard to rebut a critique (yours) that is rather obscurantist and impenetrable.
Comment by Thoreau —
January 31, 2008 @ 1:59 pm
You know, it could be that there are real liability risks AND corporate lawyers urge whatever response most justifies their employment (even if it’s sometimes disproportionate to the risk, and sometimes very proportionate).
Comment by La Rana —
January 31, 2008 @ 2:06 pm
“You are so totally wrong, as soon as I figure out why”
Comment by Patrick D —
January 31, 2008 @ 2:17 pm
Corporate lawyers work “on retainer”.
Trail lawyers are paid “on commission”.
That speaks volumes.
Comment by Patrick D —
January 31, 2008 @ 2:18 pm
Ah, that would be “trial” lawyers. Although being a trail lawyer sounds like a more pleasant way to spend one’s time.
Comment by Mona —
January 31, 2008 @ 2:29 pm
La Rana, if you say so. But I’m not being snarky when I declare that I simply do not understand what it is about my observations you find to be factually incorrect, or what your actual issue with my position(s) might be. Nor do I understand why you feel the need to employ euphemisms. Shoot straight, spit out your thinking in direct language, and then I may understand. I’m on the very literal side in my own approach to writing.
Comment by Leonard —
January 31, 2008 @ 2:54 pm
Frog, there’s actually three theories in play about dealing with possible loss. They are:
(1) command
(2) tort
(3) suck it up
An example of (1) is the prohibition to drive drunk. Car manufacturers probably also put that in their fine print, but if a use is illegal then generally it’s clear that any losses caused by that use are not their fault.
For most things, though, we use (3), with (2) allowed at least theoretically most of the time, but practically speaking (2) in a minority of cases.
What you’re saying is that even if society mostly uses (3), there’s still a boundary between it and (2) (or (1). This is true. And furthermore, there’s plenty of incentive for people to try to push things formerly (3) into (2), i.e., “spill hot coffee on yourself”. Sometimes this is a good thing; sometimes it is mere rent-seeking.
Where this is pernicious, within our monopoly state system, is that there is no similarly powerful incentive pushing things back from (2) to (3). Thus, there’s a ratchet effect. The set of things ending up in (2) ever grows. And thus the fine-print silliness also ever grows.
In theory, the way to prevent this is for courts to implement rules making it clear what torts there are, that is, to draw bright line borders between (2) and (3). But they have little incentive to do this. Same with legislatures, although they do have at least some push towards tort reform coming from corps. This has its own problems, though.
Comment by La Rana —
January 31, 2008 @ 3:53 pm
Most of your errors (in-house v. external counsel is meaningless, risk aversion involves the unknown, strict liability is not at issue, etc., etc.) can be traced to one misconception: that individual actors are somehow responsible for the results that obtain in a carefully structured, closely observed and well maintained system. You write about the fallacy of thinking that trial lawyers are morally superior to any other group of humans, but don’t realize the responsibility-shifting corollary.
Since you don’t like euphemism, lets try sports analogy. You are blaming LT for injuring Theisman, despite the fact that such injuries are part of a game involving extreme physical contact.
It ain’t a bug, as they say, its a feature.
Comment by La Rana —
January 31, 2008 @ 4:04 pm
Leonard, I am only interested in the means used to compensate for loss when the party causing the loss and the party absorbing the loss are different. We have (effectively) two ways of doing this. One is the tort system, which despite the protestation of tortfeasors, works reasonably well. The other solution is to have government bureacracies investigate and compensate for loss, much in the way EPA forces parties to pay for environmental degradation.
Comment by Barry —
January 31, 2008 @ 4:12 pm
Leonard, that’s a pretty good analysis.
Only one comment - the coffee thing? McDonald’s was holding their coffee at significantly higher temperatures than other places, temperatures which made it rather likely that a spill would result in medically serious burns.
By now, anybody who uses that as an example gets my goat for simply not knowing what happened.
See: Liebeck v. McDonald’s Restaurants
Comment by Dave W. —
January 31, 2008 @ 4:48 pm
The main reason those warnings are in there is because they are cheap to do.
Also, it has a lot more to do with avoiding frivolous warranty claims. Having spent the last couple of years next door to the warranty complaints department for a supplier of certain consumer electronics products, I can tell you that a LOT of people will try to get their money back on warranty after they have dropped their product. This was, like, a weekly problem for the fine Sikhs next door. Heck, every couple of months, being the designated English speaker, even I would have to get involved with some disgruntled customer.
Now I never saw a returned product that was microwaved, at least that I could tell, but I certainly did see some returns where the damage was both: (i) mysterious; and (ii) incompatible with any sort of sensible use. Yet people would return these things and want a new one.
Of course, putting the disclaimer in is only limited value because the disgruntled customer will usually deny that his little Billy dropped / microwaved / immersed / did whatever to the product. Still, if you have the warning in the packaging, it is the kind of thing that can make the stupid customer think, “Gee, maybe I am not the first person to try returning a product damaged in this manner. Maybe I should just suck it up and buy a new one.”
Comment by Leonard —
January 31, 2008 @ 5:03 pm
Barry, we’ve argued Liebeck before on this very blog, IIRC. (Or have we? I can’t find it, oh well.) Anyway, my point was not to say one party or the other was “wrong”, just that the remedy for hot coffee-spilling used to be “suck it up”, and the Liebeck case moved it. Or rather, the Liebeck case demonstrated that it had moved — it was in play, in court.
Frog, even when the parties are different, “suck it up” is still an option. But I don’t think anyone is really arguing that, given a tortfeasor who everyone knows to be the tortfeasor, that the victim should suck it up. Rather, the argument is about responsibility when there is joint causation, which is almost always the case. For example the aforementioned hot coffee case — McDonalds sold hot coffee. It was, clearly, their fault that the coffee was hot. The “victim” in question spilled it on herself. It was, clearly, her fault that the coffee ended up on her. Both parties helped to cause the bad outcome.
Comment by Andrew Edwards —
January 31, 2008 @ 5:05 pm
“I do know that a forum-shopping plaintiffs lawyer will find a judge somewhere who will agree that Motorola had a duty to warn against that, and let the case get to a jury.”
Really? You know that? By what usage of “know”?
If it’s such a sure thing, find yourself a phone and drop it in the bathtub. See how far you get.
I used to think the same, but then I found that every time I looked at an “obviously stupid” lawsuit, it turned out that either the plaintiff had a pretty fair claim that just sounded dumb (the McDonald’s coffee example), or the suit was more or less laughed out of court.
Questions:
- Why believe so strongly in rent-seeking by trial lawyers, but not in rent-seeking by corporate lawyers (making up frivolous risks to put in manuals)? I think that’s LaRana’s point….
- Won’t the market in trial lawyers control this? Since they work on commission they only get paid when they win. Doesn’t that create an incentive for them to only take cases they’re likely to win? And even if “I dropped my phone and it broke” got to a jury, I can’t imagine it winning. You’d have to believe something like “juries are much stupider than all of us clever blog commenters” to worry about that.
Comment by Dave W. —
January 31, 2008 @ 5:12 pm
It was, clearly, their fault that the coffee was hot. The “victim” in question spilled it on herself. It was, clearly, her fault that the coffee ended up on her. Both parties helped to cause the bad outcome.
Which the law of Arizona (this is AZ?) handles by comparative fault law:
http://library.findlaw.com/1999/Sep/1/130745.html
However, comparative fault does not work if you settle out of court as Mickey Dee’s did.
We have also been over the reason that Mickey dee’s settled, which is that they had been warned by regulators that their coffee was to hot to be served into a car. Mickey Dee’s had a heightened awareness of the problem, that the old lady did not have. For obvious reasons, that was going to be extremely unhelpful when it came time to do comparative fault analysis, so McD’s played this as a PR ploy, manipulating the way people like our earnest lil bud Leonard and the everyman T. would think about tort law for years to come.
Well played, Mickey Dee’s. When you consider how many people learned to h8 tort law per dollar of settlement paid you can see that the money was hugely well spent.
Comment by Barry —
January 31, 2008 @ 5:22 pm
Comment by Leonard —
“Barry, we’ve argued Liebeck before on this very blog, IIRC. (Or have we? I can’t find it, oh well.)”
I don’t think so, but it’s possible.
“Anyway, my point was not to say one party or the other was “wrong”, just that the remedy for hot coffee-spilling used to be “suck it up”, and the Liebeck case moved it. Or rather, the Liebeck case demonstrated that it had moved — it was in play, in court. ”
You’re right; I overreacted.
Dave W - good points.
Comment by David in NY —
January 31, 2008 @ 5:31 pm
People do do this stupid stuff.
This first person account can be googled:
“hey, dont feel so bad, the idiot thats head of maintenance where i work washed his too, however the dumb ass put it in the microwave to dry it. :eek2 ”
And this was a maintenance supervisor, for heaven’s sake. Some of this stuff they put in to keep people from getting hurt.
Comment by La Rana —
January 31, 2008 @ 5:34 pm
Leonard, I don’t see anywhere the limitation of shared causation. In any event, this has no bearing on what I said. Just insert “portion of” in front of responsibility. The scheme for divvying up the responsibility is only tangentially related to the process through which we compensate for harm.
Comment by David in NY —
January 31, 2008 @ 5:34 pm
“remedy for hot coffee-spilling used to be “suck it up”,”
Well, except maybe people didn’t used to get so badly burned, since McDonald’s kept it at unusually high heat. If you suffer permanent injury, the decision to just “suck it up” is less appealing, since you are reminded of the injury on a daily basis.
Comment by David in NY —
January 31, 2008 @ 5:52 pm
There is a considerable literature in recent years on this stuff with which you may be familiar, although I am not. I think that the real problem with tort reform is that, given the variety of human experience, it’s hard to be much more specific than the basic tort rules: “You aren’t allowed to hurt people on purpose or to hurt them by doing unreasonable things.” Tort “reform,” as I understand it, is just an attempt to keep people from being fully compensated for their loss, or to move the calculation of that compensation from a forum sympatetic to plaintiffs (juries) to one sympathetic to corporations (judges). Neither solution is entirely satisfactory. Worker’s Compensation is an alternative system (perhaps a model of the “command” type Leonard mentions), but I don’t know much about how well it works.
Comment by Fin Fang Foom —
January 31, 2008 @ 8:21 pm
Regarding the kinds of warnings we are talking about, the value to a “corporate lawyer” is extremely limited. “Don’t microwave your cell phone” was probably written once fifteen years ago and has been cut and pasted into every contract and piece of cell phone literature since.
While you might think it requires a judge to be a total dumbass not to think that the kinds of dangers warned against are bullshit, the defendant will lose if the defendant doesn’t at least make a motion to dismiss. If the defendant fails to do this, the defendant loses. It doesn’t take too much time to write up such a motion, but if a young associate attorney in New York has to spend a day writing it, and a day appearing in court, that might cost the client $4,500. The cheapest it would probably get anywhere in the country is probably at least $2000 (for about 16 hours of work, lets say). If it isn’t dismissed before trial, discovery will cost a hell of a lot more. If a claim gets to move to the stage where trial is going to occur, it is probably going to be worth it for the defendant to settle. The easier you make it for BS claims to get dismissed, the less valuable you make it to plaintiff’s attorney’s to pursue them, which saves the client money and time.
A lot of plaintiffs’ attorneys, to be frank, like to engage in what ends up being shakedowns of major businesses.
Also, regarding corporate attorneys attempting to make work for themselves, that is why businesses have in house counsel. The job of in house counsel is usually to manage the business’s relationship with law firms. If the in house counsel thinks that a firm is being inefficient, then the in house counsel will hire other attorneys. Law firms know this, and that is why they don’t pad time. At my firm, when it comes to work that does not require legal analysis or legal writing, we give that to a non-lawyer: a word processor, paralegal, secretary, or other person. There services are much cheaper to the client. Corporate attorneys generally don’t like to screw over their clients.
Regarding the McDonald’s coffee case, this is a good example of why juries suck. Firstly, it is absurd to claim that the coffee was too hot. People like hot coffee. That is why people like McDonald’s coffee. The woman in the case suffered about, I think, $20,000 in medical bills. McDonald’s did not want to pay these bills because by any reasonable person’s judgment, they had not been negligent. Unfortunately McDonald’s counsel made the error of thinking that jurors are reasonable, and forgot that jury trials are theater. As such, the woman one several hundred thousand dollars from the jury.
Tort litigation is absurd in this country owing to punitive damages and other discretion held by the jury. If McDonald’s were actually negligent, then its damages should have been limited to the cost of medical bills and economic damage (usually in terms of lost wages).
Comment by Mona —
January 31, 2008 @ 8:50 pm
Andrew:
From practicing law and thus dwelling among lawyers and judges more than I saw my kids for a duration. And also undertaking my own fair share of claims that I know were utter horsesh*t, but which were likely to result in a nuisance value settlement, and if not, make it past a judge and get to a jury.
Every time, eh? Well, I am among the minority who think McDonad’s should have been held liable in the case of the spilled, roiling, boiling coffee they handed to a customer in a car. But I also know that BS lawsuits buttressed by junk science have removed helpful products from the market, including a morning sickness drug that, tho completely safe, was removed from the market at the point of my final pregnancy — that super sucked, and I barfed for months. That product was subsequently cited as an example in my torts class, in law school, of how a company can win every suit, but (1) cost of constantly defending combined with (2) risk of catastrophic award, removes beneficial products from the marketplace.
That’s nice; someone thinks they understand La Rana’s point. For I have not. In any event, plaintiffs lawyers are paid on commission, i.e.,if they win. They are infinitely more incentivized to devise absurd theories of duty than are corporate lawyers whose jobs are secure to the extent they find ways of forefending against such suits being successful. Anticipating that morons will drop cell phones and/or nuke them, are among the sorts of things risk-averse corporate counsel are paid to “know” would/could be a plaintiff’s ploy, indeed, if it has not been one already.
As I’ve said several times now, among the things admonitions like telling folks not to nuke a cell phone does, is meet the “duty to warn.” The drawback of this risk averse insis, among other things, is that many widgets now come with such lengthy lists of warnings that no one will read them, and thus will miss the two or three they should take note of. They are so effing worried about the most novel theories of liability being accepted in some forum somewhere, they will put 40 pages (ok, that’s bit of hyperbole) of fine-print warning in the step-ladders their company sells.
Comment by Dave W. —
January 31, 2008 @ 9:39 pm
well, the McDonald’s case did go to a jury, but not until after some settlement negotiations:
Liebeck sought to settle with McDonald’s for US $20,000 to cover her medical costs, which were $11,000, but the company offered only $800. When McDonald’s refused to raise its offer, Liebeck retained Texas attorney Reed Morgan. Morgan filed suit in a New Mexico District Court accusing McDonald’s of “gross negligence” for selling coffee that was “unreasonably dangerous” and “defectively manufactured.” McDonald’s refused Morgan’s offer to settle for $90,000.[4]
Morgan offered to settle for $300,000, and a mediator suggested $225,000 just before trial, but McDonald’s refused these final pre-trial attempts to settle.[4]
source: wikipedia
Comment by Dave W. —
January 31, 2008 @ 9:40 pm
The drawback of this risk averse insis, among other things, is that many widgets now come with such lengthy lists of warnings that no one will read them, and thus will miss the two or three they should take note of.
ummm, it is not that hard to make some warnings more prominent than others.
Comment by Mona —
January 31, 2008 @ 10:06 pm
Oh yes it is. Consider the deposition:
Attorney : Mr. Motorola CEO, I note that on page four you bold the warning not to fry the cell phone in vegetable oil, as well as the warning not to insert it into any of your body’s orifices. Why, sir — by all that is holy — why did you not also bold the warnings not to dry the cell phone in the microwave or not to drop it, among the other 104 warnings your User Guide provides, only — let the record show — three of which are bolded!?
Comment by La Rana —
January 31, 2008 @ 11:19 pm
Mona, your conclusions, as erroneous as I may think them, seem to lead to tort reform. Why not take up this cause?
Comment by Bruce Baugh —
February 1, 2008 @ 2:03 am
Fin Fang Foom has a good point here: “Don’t microwave your cell phone” was probably written once fifteen years ago and has been cut and pasted into every contract and piece of cell phone literature since. There’s a strong element of cargo-cult/magical thinking in any legal system, where once a thing is done you keep doing it until you can prove decisively that you should stop, and the effort that proof is nearly always greater than the burden of continuing to do it. Many product warnings likely have nothing to do with the products they’re on, they’re just there because something similar had it.
Comment by abb1 —
February 1, 2008 @ 4:54 am
Frankly, I’m shocked that a libertarian would write an anti-trial-lawyers post. I hereby sentence you to 10 years of daily voluntary choice between painful death and hard labor in the libertarian GULAG.
Comment by Barry —
February 1, 2008 @ 9:03 am
Mona, please give it up.
Fin fang whatever: “Firstly, it is absurd to claim that the coffee was too hot. People like hot coffee. That is why people like McDonald’s coffee.”
Please read the Wikipedia article. It’s rather good.
Comment by Thoreau —
February 1, 2008 @ 11:29 am
Bruce-
This would explain why my car manual instructs me to provide adequate hay and dispose of manure in a safe manner.
Comment by Dave W. —
February 1, 2008 @ 12:30 pm
Probe ideo dominicae diei Psalmistae congruit exclamatio: «Haec est dies, quam fecit Dominus: exsultemus et laetemur in ea» (Ps 118 [117], 24). Haec ad laetandum incitatio, quam Paschalis liturgia suam facit, secum admirationis documentum infert qua mulieres sunt affectae, quae Christi adstiterant crucifixioni cum, «valde mane prima sabbatorum» (Mc 16,2), sepulcro appropinquantes vacuum illud reppererunt. Adhortatio simul est ut experimentum quadamtenus repetatur duorum discipulorum ad Emmaus qui, in itinere cum resuscitatus ipse iis sese coniunxit, «cor ardens» in se senserunt et cum explicatis Scripturis Ipse se patefecit «in fractione panis» (cfr Lc 24,32.35). Est quasi imago vocis illius gaudii, primo dubitantis superantisque deinde, quod sub eiusdem diei vesperam Apostoli sunt experti, cum a Iesu suscitato sunt salutati eiusque pacis et Spiritus receperunt donum.
[edited by Mona]
Comment by Fin Fang Foom —
February 1, 2008 @ 8:19 pm
Barry, what’s your point? I already knew the stuff in the Wikipedia article. You would note if you read it that it concurs with my assessment that people like hot coffee, in more words, but to the same effect.
Comment by Mona —
February 1, 2008 @ 10:57 pm
Barry mystifies by writing:
Why? I agree w/ you about the McDonald’s coffee case. So what exactly am I called to give up?
Comment by dhex —
February 3, 2008 @ 9:58 am
why can’t they argue “Hey, he was an idiot for using the toaster in the bathtub” and prevail?
we don’t live in that kind of america anymore.
whether this is a symptom or a cause of the coming superstate, i know not.
Comment by AlanDP —
February 3, 2008 @ 11:15 am
Back in the days when everyone had a pager and they were still expensive enough to repair instead of just throw away and replace, I worked as a pager repair technician. In 8 years or so I worked on thousands of pagers.
You would not believe how many pagers I saw that had been microwaved. I agree that this is a stupid warning to put on a cell phone, but based on my experience as a pager tech, there are a lot of stupid people out there.
By the way, if you try to dry your pager (or cell phone) by microwaving it, it is Damaged Beyond Repair.
Comment by Thoreau —
February 3, 2008 @ 11:24 am
dhex-
OK, we don’t live in an America where saying “He was an idiot for using the toaster in the bathtub” isn’t a valid excuse, but why is “He was an idiot for not reading the fine print” a valid excuse?
AlanDP-
I should be shocked by what you posted, but I’m not. Still, it mystifies me that anybody thinks that a bunch of fine print will overcome that sort of idiocy.