Wednesday 26 August 2009

Picture This...

So, you're 33 years old, and you decide to celebrate with a skyjump, instead of going to a male stripclub with your girlfriends and sinking 15 mojitos. Well, each to their own, I suppose...

But something goes wrong, and your main chute fails to deploy. Your instructor, with whom you are jumping tandem, heroically saves the day, deploys the backup chute, and you land safely.

Do you:

a) Drop to your knees in breathless gratitude and show him some...errr....appreciation? Or,

b) Sue him because in the panic and landing, you broke a couple of fingers?

If I tell you this happened in New York State, does that make the task easier?

Happily, this was too much even for an American court to take, and the skyjump firm got the case thrown out.

Nice to know it's not just the UK that breeds dumb ingratitude into their people, isn't it?

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm not sure these cases tell us much about gratitude or ingratitude. I think the motive is free money.

Circumstances place the individual in a position where suddenly there is an opportunity for free money. All you need do work up some cockamamie story together with your no-win-no-fee lawyer. Sure someone has to pay but if its a private company, they deserve it and can afford it. If it is a council, who haven't levelled the paving stones then the recipient is just getting their tax dollars back. If they don't claim it then someone else will.

This won't change because the lawyers get enough on the wins to allow a few loses and because the juries don't make the connect between awarding damages against McDonalds and the subsequent higher price in all restaurants. They don't see high award = higher liability insurance = higher costs for all businesses.

Mike said...

Wow Julia, death defying female sky jumper considers public sex act before drunken orgy in strip club and legal battle to compensate for loss of use of fingers.

You need to get some action because I read something quite different. Thanks for the images though. Along with a little imagination and fully operational fingers, I'm set for the week, hurrah.

JuliaM said...

"I think the motive is free money. "

Yes, that's true, but you'd think the sheer delight at being alive would have made this stupid woman think twice about suing her rescuer!

"...because the juries don't make the connect between awarding damages against McDonalds and the subsequent higher price in all restaurants. They don't see high award = higher liability insurance = higher costs for all businesses."

Or perhaps more accurately, they don't care because they don't patronise the establishment in question, and so think it doesn't affect them personally.

But it will, in the long run...

"Along with a little imagination and fully operational fingers, I'm set for the week, hurrah."

Glad to be of, err, service, Mike. I think...

Mike said...

Miss, you have never serviced me. I take it as a personal insult and am quite offended that you would publicly declare your affections in this way.

On the other hand, if you were to.....no thats wrong