"Do Not Use For Personal Hygiene..."

Nick Gillespie | January 7, 2005

...That admonition was the winner of an anti-lawsuit group's contest for the wackiest consumer-warning label of the year.

The sponsor, Michigan Lawsuit Abuse Watch, says the goal is "to reveal how lawsuits, and concern about lawsuits, have created a need for common-sense warnings on products."...

A $250 second prize went to Matt Johnson of Naperville, Ill., for a label on a children's scooter that said, "This product moves when used."

A $100 third prize went to Ann Marie Taylor of Camden, S.C., who submitted a warning from a digital thermometer that said, "Once used rectally, the thermometer should not be used orally."

The personal hygiene label, btw, was on a toilet brush.

Whole story, courtesy of The Washington Times, is here.

Go to Reason Contributing Editor Walter Olson's site Overlawyered.com for more on this and related legal topics.

Comments

|1.7.05 @ 8:59AM|#

I thought that thermometer tasted funny.

|1.7.05 @ 9:05AM|#

Let me be the heartless bastard who says it first: maybe the lives that were saved by such labels are ones that shouldn't have been saved.

Warren|1.7.05 @ 9:06AM|#

It's a lot funnier when you know that it appears on a toilet brush.

"If you look on the side of a box of toothpicks you'll know where the asylum is"

Wonko the Sane

|1.7.05 @ 10:49AM|#

As long as trial lawyers are pumping money into joe's party, there will be never be any significant tort reform.

The same with the AARP providing a solid voting block.. there will never be any substantial social security reform.

We are so fucked.

|1.7.05 @ 11:50AM|#

A few years ago, a French postdoc in my lab said that in France electrical appliances have much shorter manuals. There aren't any warnings like "Don't stick a fork in the toaster while standing outside in the rain".

My favorite will have to be the car sun visor (placed in the windshield so it doesn't get too hot while parked) with the warning "Remove from window before driving car."

|1.7.05 @ 11:52AM|#

Oh, and I wonder how many legal disclaimers the group in question had to put in the contest rules. Because you know that a group like that is just begging for a lawsuit from a lawyer who enters the contest, loses, and then sues.

|1.7.05 @ 12:18PM|#

Toilet brushes are probably great back scratchers. I don't know if you want to use it for more than that as well, though. The warning should probably use some logical predicate.

|1.7.05 @ 12:30PM|#

Ayatollah--

Anybody who lets their cows get that close to the house in the first place is going to win a Darwin award sooner or later.

|1.7.05 @ 12:39PM|#

"The gist of the lawsuit was that there should have been a warning on the ladder as to the viscosity of cowshit."

That's silly. The warning obviously should be on the cowshit. Some cow was irresponsible and should be sued over this.

|1.7.05 @ 1:54PM|#

Don't laugh, but I once used a toilet brush as a back scrubber...

raymond|1.7.05 @ 2:15PM|#

NO NO NO!!!

Next year's winner?

|1.7.05 @ 2:47PM|#

Ayatollah -- That ladder manufacturing fellow was on an episode of 60 Minutes (20/20?) concerning lawsuit abuse about 12 years ago.

|1.7.05 @ 4:25PM|#

Before we reform the judiciary by limiting damages, why don't we reform the jury first? First, raise jury pay to some useful value, like $100/day. Second, punish people who skip out on jury service. Maybe make them inelligible to vote until their next jury summons. (Of course this would require more reforms in the whole eligible voter system, but I think that's already obvious, too). Third, no juror dismissals. The jury is a lottery, and the parties can't game it. Fourth (and most important), the jurors can ask questions of the witnesses. The defense and plaintiff are welcome to object, but if the question is relevant and not leading, the judge should allow it, no matter how damaging to a case it may be. The lawyers should act as advocates, not gatekeepers to the truth. Say, where do you suppose I got that phrase from? ;)

I expect that if given a choice between jury reform and damage limitations, most tort lawyers would take damage limitations. Limiting power by eliminating jury selection and allowing juror questioning would hurt more than limiting their incomes.

|1.7.05 @ 4:56PM|#

The manual for the last new car I bought must have had 10 pages explaining how to rearrange the seat belts if they become tangled. You just know that was in response to losing a lawsuit to someone who got hurt after not buckling up.

|1.7.05 @ 5:11PM|#

You just know that was in response to losing a lawsuit to someone who got hurt after not buckling up.

I teach optics in the evenings at a private college. A memo came down the pipeline warning us not to engage in certain, um, questionable grading procedures. I thought to myself "Well, duh, what idiot would actually do that?" (I'm going to remain suitably vague on what the action in question was.)

Then I found out through the grapevine exactly which idiots would do that, and it wasn't anybody on the faculty: Some administrators had been doing some, um, questionable things to keep students and parents happy and avoid lawsuits. They were caught and faced consequences from lawyers, angry shareholders, and accreditation agencies. Their natural response was to send the faculty a stern memo and add a few more pages to the rule book.

A little bit different from most warning labels, since this warning is actually written by idiots who faced a well-deserved lawsuit, not by somebody facing a frivolous lawsuit. But the absurdity is the same.

|1.7.05 @ 5:40PM|#

thoreau,

That reminds me, where I used to work we had ID badges that were also key cards. The company gave us either a cloth lanyard to hang the badge around our necks, requiring us to lean over to reach the readers at the doors, or one of those spring-loaded spindles that we could clip to our shirts so that we could pull the badge to swipe it and let it snap back.

At one point, we all get a memo warning us not to clip the spring-loaded spindle to the lanyard because without a firm anchor when the badge snaps back to the spindle it could fly up and the metal clip could injure someone's eye.

In this case, not a lawsuit but a worker's comp claim.

|1.7.05 @ 5:59PM|#

I love how this is blamed on big bad lawyers. Lawyers sue no one. People do. Lawyers are people in the business of helping people who want to sue someone. Contingency lawyers risk their own money on cases. Do you think they are anxious to take on "frivolous" claims? Most of these stories concern suits that are filed by the person making the claim. Bad suits are easily dismissed by motions for summary judgment.

The idea that there are loads of frivolous claims clogging the court system and harming the poor insurance companies is a myth supported by hundreds of millions of dollars of insurance co. PR. Name a frivolous suit that made money - there are not many. If your answer is the McDonalds coffee case you have just self identified youself as a victim of the big lie. That case has facts that totally support the award but perhaps one in a million people who have heard of it know the actual facts of the case.

Holding people responsible for their actions is a cornerstone of libertarianism, but for some reason as soon as it is a company that is the wrongdoer that all goes out the window.

|1.7.05 @ 6:11PM|#

underlawyered-

I see your point, but there's another aspect to consider:

My mother was seriously injured at work several years ago. She was injured while performing her normal duties. Let's just stipulate for the sake of discussion that her employer should be held liable for her injuries, so we can get to the often-overlooked point that I want to examine.

Her employer and the insurance company were dragging their feet on paying for physical therapy. My mother contacted a lawyer. Here's the problem she ran into: All she wanted was a few more months of physical therapy and a few months of pay while she recovers. Lawyers didn't want to help her, because the claim was too small. Now, if she had wanted to claim a life-long disability and demand a huge settlement, then lawyers would be more than happy to help her, because there would be more money at stake.

Most people who are injured aren't permanently disabled for life, but it's still bad enough to cause them a few months of financial hardship. Those who just want to get better so they can get back to work can have trouble trying to get the settlement that they deserve. But those who want to claim that an injury has made them unable to ever work again will find plenty of lawyers eager to help them.

Clearly, the system is not functioning to the benefit of the most responsible members of society.

|1.7.05 @ 6:14PM|#

So what if these frivolous suits are tossed out? I still have to pay a lawyer to defend them. Trial lawyers defending thier trade always point to the lack of judgments to prove that everything is just fine. The vast majority of these things never see a courtroom; they're settled beforehand, whether the "aggrieved" party has a leg to stand on, or not. All the principals in the legal system have spent the last several decades creating an environment where the hoi polloi believe in jackpot justice.

|1.7.05 @ 6:38PM|#

I think sulla's use of the phrase "jackpot justice" encapsulates what I was trying to get at: The system is more favorable to those who want to chase after riches than it is to those who just want a little compensation for a little harm.

drf|1.8.05 @ 10:20AM|#

raymond:

gawd. although i have to admit that i wanted to sue ORF one time for trauma and nearly as strong physical reation:

my remote died right as i was surfing and as luck would have it, david hasslehof began, clad in red flanel shirt with red cowboy bandana and shiny leather pants, "rhinestone cowboy". the damage caused in trying to rip the cord out of the wall was considerable.

:)

btw: are you GG, too? :)

SteveinClearwater|1.8.05 @ 3:55PM|#

Guys, I take no shame in saying that a toilet brush not used for the toilet has been a staple amenity in my shower stall for 20+ years....When someone can point me to a better tool for back scratcing and exfoliating skin cleanly in the shower when mixed with a good body wash that costs 99cents, I'll make the change.

Meanwhile, our running favorite is the one that jacks up the cost of your personal lawnmowers.

DO NOT PUT HAND UNDER MOWER WHEN BLADE IS TURNING

(preemptive rebuttal to anyone who posts The Guy Who Tried To Use His Lawnmower To Trim His Hedges urban myth...It's been thoroughly Snoped.)

|1.8.05 @ 4:36PM|#

Steve-

I would never mock you for using a toilet brush to clean your back...

...unless you used it on the toilet first :)

|1.9.05 @ 5:14PM|#

As a public service, I would just like to remind everyone that vacuum cleaners (of ANY size) are NEVER to be used for purposes of sexual pleasure. 'Nuff said.

|1.10.05 @ 1:52AM|#

I once heard of a warning label on a chainsaw that said

"WARNING: DO NOT ATTEMPT TO STOP BLADE WITH GENITALS"