RE: Fw: Why do we put so many warnings in our manuals?

["Andrew Dugas" <dugas -at- intalio -dot- com>]

> FORCED to sue?!??!?
>
> Give me a freakin' break. Me, I'm forced to work for my money.
>
> These tragedies are, well, tragic, but does it necessarily follow that
> somebody ELSE has to pay for them?
>


Hey, that's what insurance is all about. Halt these lawsuits and our economy
will crumble, the insurance industry being the first domino to fall. (Well,
maybe the second after the lawyers.)

It's all about liability and who has the deepest pockets. By "forced to
sue," one means the plaintiff must cast the widest net in search of
liability. That's why so many traffic cases - at least those without an
immediate and obviously wrong (and sweetly insured) party - include the
local municipality. Who planned these roads? Who didn't cut these bushes
blinding the curve? Who didn't repair these potholes? You get the picture.

As for warnings in documentation, here's a snippet from the latest news of
the weird:

<snip>

Despite a warning label reading "Do not use indoors because of flammability"
on its carpet adhesive, the Para-Chem company was ordered by a jury in
Akron, Ohio, in July to pay $8 million to two professional installers who
were severely burned in an explosion when they tried to use the product
indoors. One juror told the Akron Beacon Journal that he and his colleagues
felt the warning did not go far enough in convincing the installers not to
use the product indoors. [Akron Beacon Journal, 7-10-02]

</snip>

"Did not go far enough"! Of course, a lot of that $$8 million will go to the
owner of the property that was damaged in the explosion. Surely they won a
lawsuit against the carpet installers for negligence. (Now that's an open
and shut case if ever there were one.) I'll wager that the carpet
installers' insurance was way insufficient to pay for the damages; so they
were "forced to sue" the adhesive manufacturer to come up with the rest of
the cash.


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