signs of the times!

[tom]

Moody is Right

Fix it yourself or hire someone else to fix it. It seems funny but specifications for an application are tricky. A bolt is not a bolt. Especially in specific applications. Some 1/4 inch bolts are much stronger than others,Same with blocks etc etc.  As for lawsuits some are trivial some only appear so. My brother was ranting about a stupid lawsuit about peanut butter causing cancer. How silly peanut butter causing cancer and the peanut butter people were fighting new standards..how silly. Well I did a little research and found out that a fungus can grow on peanuts and this fungus does cause cancer. the whole lawsuit was about cleanliness standards to make sure kids weren't eating the fungus in their PBand J's. But in the popular press they were trying to make it look trivial and without merit. Lawsuits are how we find fault and sometimes there are errors. My keel falls off who's to blame??? The marina who accidentally dropped the boat but only a few feet?? The manufacturer who used undersized bolts of galvanized steel that had half rusted through??? Or the boat owner who hit the rock at hull speed??? The judge and jury have a difficult task to sort through the facts and assign fault. Should a boat be designed to be dropped and hit rocks and have bolts that don't rust through??? How long before rust through?? 6 months,6 years??? Most of us would agree that a keel should be firmly attached to a hull. Probably survive running aground..a few times. But exactly how long ,how hard??? That is where the lawsuits develope. If the keel falls off as the brand new boat is on it's maiden voyage or if the boat is 40 years old and has documented hard groundings the case probably isn't going to make it to court. Now to the present case. Well harken said it was the right block and then it failed!!! The swing keel fell and cracked the hull...my boat sank and my kid drowned. Harken owes me $100000000000000 and the life jacket manufacturer owes me $400000000000000 because my kid couldn't put his jacket on while in the cold water at night. It could happen.

 

[Steve Dion]

Garhauer Marine!

Contact Gauhauer Marine in Ontario California. They should be able to help you out.

 

[dpatrick]

common sense

that was beautiful. its a heartbreaker isn't it. sad but true-common sense is at an all time low, along with-respect, courtesy. it is getting downright scary out there. i know that i'm getting off track of the original thread, but i would like to encourage those of us who are still looking out for the other guy, to enjoy the ride, knowing that we will get there, and we will get the job done, and whatever it takes we will take care of it. The world is a great place when you care. GOD ALMIGHTY BLESS US WITH YOUR PROVIDENCE AND YOUR PROTECTION, AND OUR FAMILIES AS WELL.

 

[Tom S]

My favorite warning (and this is Marine related)

came along with a Bronze Groco Thru-Hull.I picked it up at a chandlery somewhere and it had a sticker on it that said "WARNING - the State of California has determined that ingestion of this product could cause cancer"What !?! Its a damn piece of metal 'ferkristesakes' ! That is ridiculous. If as a society we have to tell someone that eating a bronze thru-hull is not good for you then we are losing what made this country strong in the first place.

 

[RichH]

Tom S .....

Worse than that ..... If you buy a new car nowadays you'll find that the 'owners manual' is so full of 'lawyer speak' warnings that such manuals are now essentially worthless .... unless you like to 'parse' sentences. Realistically such manuals now contain well over 50% of 'lawyer boiler-plate' and only 50% of 'useful' info. The USA has the second highest percapita amount of lawyers per population in the world .... and until we as a society put limits (or rise up and shed some patriotic blood) on the numbers of these shysters we will continue to be so parasitized by them. If you look at the cost of the environmental 'Super Fund' or the current cost of Homeland Security .... one has to come to the conclusion that such programs are nothing more than 'welfare for shysters'. I estimate that lawyers consume approaching 6-7% of the entire gross national product of the USA .... while adding essentially NOTHING to society. -- just an opinion. Too many lawyers not enough recipies.

 

[kendall]

Agreed,

Far too many lawyers out to make a name or money, trouble is that if you attempt to legislate it, most of the people who'd have a say in it, either strted out as or are still lawyers. I have no idea how many letters I've gotten from Lawyers because I own a certain car, or bought a certain product, and there's a class action suit planned for that car/product (My ranger's thick film resistor, my girls dodge for another are two I remember right now) The problem is Nobody wants to accept responsability for what they do, drive on icy roads at 60mph wipe out, sue the tire company because they didn't have a warning that tires will slide on ice!  The one thing that realy gets me is that if a city worker slips on your sidewalk because of ice and gets hurt, you can be sued because you didn't maintain the sidewalk, But if you're walking on a city sidewalk and fall down, you can't sue because it's natural accumulation, why is that?  Years ago when I first started driving, I was up all night, worked all the next day, and stayed out late that night, I was young, parties girlfriend etc, but pulled into Mcdonalds and grabbed a cup of coffee on the way home, looking for my lighter at a stop I put the coffee on the dash, lit my cigarette, light changed, and I gunned the throttle, figured out right away that it wasn't a good thing.  Now if I'f have been smart, I could have sued because there is no warning about putting coffee on the dash and smoking the tires, and I wouldn't have to worry about funding for my projects!ken.

 

[Ross]

Is it time for lawyer jokes yet?

Heh Heh Heh!!!!

 

[Bob Todd]

An attorney appears at the Pearly Gates...

St Peter says, "Well, well, well...Attorney Fleecem. Let's look at your file. Hmmm, you're nine hundred and seventy years old!"Fleecem replies, "Uh...I think you're mistaken, I'm only sixty-three."St Peter looks him in the eyes and says, "Not according to your billable hours."

 

[Rick A]

Do you know how many Lawyer jokes there are?

Actually there are only two, the rest are true stories.

 

[Mike]

My law firm

is... Dewey, Cheatham, & Howe!

 

[Phil]

A good time was had by all

The real problem is that there aren't enough boats to go around. Lawyer jokes are fun and all, but the real problem is the greed behind the system. There is no shortage of people ready to stand up and make a buck off a misfortune, regardless of whose fault it is. There is no shortage of corporate types (any size company will do) who focus more on profit than on such peripheral issues as whether or not someone might get hurt(unless of course that suffering hurts the bottom line). It only makes capital sense. Cover your a/ss wasn't invented yesterday either. As long as there are people who view the world as us-and-them and the economic reality remains that someone always has a bigger boat, lawyers will be around to ply their middleman trade. Why not blame the religionists instead who proffer god and morals while sliding their hand into your pocket?

 

[Chris]

Lawyer / Liar

nm

 

[Tom Brown]

Warning Labels

Somebody mentioned ladders earlier. Printing labels is my business. Years ago I worked for a company that printed the warning labels for a ladder company. The company president told me that approx 65% of the price of a ladder is to cover their liability insurance. I don't know if it's true, just what I was told. To top that off, if somebody peeled the warning label off and got hurt, I could get named in a lawsuit along with the ladder mfr. My favorite warning story....... I printed some labels for medical suppositories that had an accidental overdose warning on them. I guess it was in case you accidentally sat on a box! Toms/v Orion's Child

 

[Tim C350 April IV]

PWC Warning Labels

While wandering through one of the boat shows a few years ago, I took a close look at the warning label on a personal water craft (PWC). If you haven't done it before, take an opportunity next time you see one.In particular, and in the line of "covering your A**", there is a very specific warning about the danger to your bodily orifices from high speed impact with water.FWIW, My 2003 Catalina 350 has at least three warning labels clearly visible from the helm station: 1) "read the manual before operating this vessel", 2) "hold onto the wheel while operating in reverse", and 3) "Don't attempt to start the engine by cranking for more than 30 seconds - drain aqualift muffler" (or something like that).Being as safe as I can....Tim BroganApril IV #68Seattle

 

[Phil Herring]

Frankly, I'm amazed it doesn't say...

..."not to be used in or near water." Like charts that are not to be used for navigation.

 

[sailortonyb Allied Mis]

Lawyers?

Its not the judges or the lawyers that award large sums of money for what we would normally consider frivolous law suits. Now, guess who are the guilty parties.BTW, does anyone here know the difference between a lawyer and a catfish? One is a bottom dwelling scum sucker and the other is a fish.

 

[monty]

lawyers are an easy target

until you need one of us. people in this country are wrongfully accused, married to abusive spouses and hurt by the wrongful conduct of others. when that happens most people want help and they dont want a wallflower. they want someone who will stand up for their rights, fight for them and try to protect them from future harm. let me address a few common misunderstandings. our system doesn't let us punish people by causing the same harm to them that they caused. money damages are all that is available in the vast majority of cases. hot coffee for example: once again someone who doesn't know the case is critical of the result. the facts, the coffee was 40-60 degrees hotter than industry standard. hotter in fact than the temperature setting on home water heaters. the injuries sustained were 3rd degree burns, not on the lap but on the private area. the award for pain and suffering was low 6 figures. the million dollar punitive damages award was based SOLELY on the profit mcdonalds makes in one day selling coffee. punitive damages go at least 1/3 to the government off the top and not to the plaintiff. punitive damages are only awarded to punish someone, like a corporation, for a practice that they should have known to change before it caused hard and to prevent them from making such a mistake again. one days profits isn't much of a punishment. I hope this gives some of you perspective. lawyering is one of the most important and honorable callings anyone can undertake in our society, but every case has a winner and a loser and losers often complain, loudly.

 

[Bob Todd]

Rich...

Are you insinuating Pinochet was a national hero?

 

[David10790]

Cost of Lawyers is over estimated

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, as of June 2005 there were just over 500,000 practicing lawyers in the U.S. with an average compensation of about $110,000 each. That totals $58.4 billion, or almost 1/2 of 1% of GDP. The total cost of medical care is about $1.5 trillion.I have no brief for an overly litigious society, but it is important to get the facts right.