The reason to blog today was from what happened at work to a colleague of mine and a couple of incidents or rather news that I read about. My colleague’s father is ill and is undergoing an operation for Cancer in the liver in India and so my colleague went to India last week to visit his father. I hope and pray that everything works out OK for him. When other friends and I were talking about it, somehow we got into the discussion of how we can operate on the liver and it grows back if the patient is young enough. These talks lead to other conversations where a man in U.K. went to a doctor and was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. He was given a year to live at the most. Knowing that he was going to live for hardly a year he skipped to pay his mortgage payments and other bills, took all his savings, maxed out on his credit cards and spent lavishly visiting places around the world. He was literally broke financially.
Then came the time for his check-up at the end of the year (yes, he was visiting his doctors in the interim as well). During that visit, he was checked thoroughly and was told that he does not have cancer and whatever the cause was can be taken care of with medicines. Imagine the plight of that patient. Should he happy that he is going to live longer or should he curse himself being left out with a rotten life at the end. He worked his brains and sued the doctors for false statement about his health which is legitimate action he took. What happens to all the people who he borrowed money from and the mortgage and bills that he failed to pay? I want to know if he got settled with an amount that would cover all his bills and credit card payments and left with some chunk of change to get him started again in his life.
Another incident was about a judge, Roy Pearson, who gave his clothes for dry cleaning to the service run by the Chungs, South Korean immigrants, only to find out that his pants were lost or misplaced. I have experienced this many a times but my clothes would always be found. In this case of the judge, his pants which were worth $1,000 in value were lost and the Chungs offered to pay him that amount to compensate for his loss. But after a week, his pants turned up and so his payment was refused. What does Mr. Judge do? Sue. Of course he is in the business and that is what he does for a living, so he will know the trick of the trade on how to sue and get more money for his troubles. The Chungs offered him $3,000, then $4,000 and finally $12,000 but Mr. Judge wanted $65 million. Talk about putting what you learn to practice. I think the judge will lose his pants offer from the Chungs, lose the case and lose his job as a judge for misusing his power and knowledge; maybe he will be given orders to go to his job pant less at the court for a month along with being satisfied with a month of free dry cleaning service at the Chungs.
Another incident was when the Brazilian local brewer Ambev was ordered to pay 100,000 reals which $49,000, to an alcoholic beer tester who drank about 16 to 25 small glasses beer with a bottle of beer at the end of the shift for more than a decade. The employee sued the company saying that drinking that much alcohol made him alcoholic. What, he decided to sue the company after 10 years? Maybe he was drinking way too many beers than the company was selling and so they fired him and in return he decided to sue the company saying it made him alcoholic. The employee was alcoholic before joining the company and the company hired him knowing that is the issue. Not that after ten years you drink all you want and then sue the company saying that it had made him alcoholic.
Whatever the case maybe, if you are smart and know that you can make easy money off of someone by suing, one would do it. Cases like these are what make other valid ones weaker. This has become a game in this society where one would ask for hot coffee and then sue the place because the content was hot, smoke all you want even though the cigarette case says ‘smoking is injurious to health’ and then sue the company saying you have become an addict. Yes, this land is full of opportunities and so is full of idiots.
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