Rusty Saber: Frivolous lawsuits make for good humor

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The Rusty Saber notebook of column ideas is overflowing with news events that sound too improbable to be true, but they are. Truth, after all, is stranger than fiction. So many of these stories are in my notebook that it will take this and next week's column to include them. |ret||ret||tab|

In serious contention for the most asinine lawsuit of the year is the lady from Knoxville, Tenn. who sued McDonald's for $125,000 in medical expenses and lost wages, claiming that (I'm trying to keep a straight face) a slice of hot pickle fell from her hamburger, burning her chin. |ret||ret||tab|

I'm not making this up. Her suit claims the hamburger was in "defective condition or unreasonably dangerous."Mc-Donald's do to a hamburger, to make it defective, much less dangerous? I'm not sure how McDonald's might have gone about getting a pickle so hot that it could do $125,000 worth of harm to this lady. Granted, I have no scientific evidence to support my conjecture that a pickle would melt long before turning into a chin-burning blowtorch. Even if a pickle could be fired up to the point described in the suit, it surely would have cooled off between the time the defective hamburger was cooked and attacked the victim.|ret||ret||tab|

The legal claim doesn't end here. Her husband is suing McDonald's for $15,000 because the defective hamburger with the blazing pickle caused him to be "deprived of the services and consortium of his wife." Now, I know what that means, but there will be no insidious "services and consortium" talk from me. All I can say is this flaming pickle must have wreaked total havoc with this couple. I would assume that one burned badly enough by a pickle to have to miss work and deprive her husband of, well, you know, "services and consortium," would have gone to seek relief at a hospital emergency room.|ret||ret||tab|

I'm trying to visualize the scene in the emergency room. In my mind's eye, I see a room filled with people near death from gunshots and stabbings, auto accidents and heart attacks. When an attendant asks our pickle burn lady about her injury, I visualize her pointing to her chin, with lip quivering, in a childlike voice saying, "My chin, a hot pickle fell out of a defective, dangerous hamburger and burned my chin." |ret||ret||tab|

Do you suppose the medical team sprang into action, strapping her on a gurney with the trauma physician shouting orders like they do on TV? When she is finally out of the woods, the physician says, in his best bedside manner: "You are mighty lucky. It was just a hot pickle, it could have been worse; it could have been a red-hot slice of onion! You'll be fine; just don't go to work for awhile. None of that services and consortium stuff until after the lawsuit is settled!" |ret||ret||tab|

The burning pickle caper isn't the only court case in the notebook. Thanks to two court decisions, precedent is being set affirming that the person who buys a soft drink owns the can. Legal history is in the making! Both cases involve contests where finding specially marked cans yielded big money. In one case, a Coca-Cola can was worth $10,000 to the lucky finder. A Maryland woman bought the can in a 12 pack, but gave it to a friend who spotted it as a winning can. She believed that she should get the money. The original owner took the friend (former friend, I assume) to court, claiming the can belonged to her because she paid for it. |ret||ret||tab|

The judge apparently knew he was on the cutting edge of judicial history, he actually rendered a decision: The Coke can belonged to the owner. An almost identical case appeared on a court docket in Las Vegas. It was a Pepsi can worth $1 million. The purchaser drank the Pepsi without noticing that she had a winner. An alert co-worker found the can and claimed the prize for herself. The owner went to court; the judicial decision was the same as in Maryland. However, the loser, a believer in "finders keepers losers weepers," will appeal the decision. Alas, the judicial world will have to await the outcome of the appeal.|ret||ret||tab|

This is my one and only comment on the media coverage of the presidential election campaign: According to media, Vice President Al Gore can't tell the truth and Gov. George W. Bush can't pronounce it.|ret||ret||tab|

|bold_on|(Joe McAdoo is former chairman of the communication department at Drury University and a Springfield public relations consultant.)|bold_on||ret||ret||tab|

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