>I don't know how it is in Belgium, but we are the epitamy of the frivolous lawsuit :(. A couple of dolts sued a lawn mower company [and won] because their fingers were cut off when they lifted the mower to cut the top off their hedges. Apparently, there was no warning label on the mower to keep body parts out of the blade area while the engine is running.
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>We also had a lady successfully sue McDonalds because they had the nerve to serve her hot coffee which she sat between her legs (she was driving through the Drive-Thru window). She spilled the coffee and burned her legs. Amazingly McDonalds lost, had to pay her a ridiculous amount, and had to put a warning on their coffee cups. Now, many other places have similar warnings and reduced the temperature of the coffee. The taste of coffee is bad enough without it being served luke-warm.
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some fairly lame claims -- primarily the complaint that heads down data entry clerks would no longer be able to enter 2 digits of the year and expect the computer to always figure out which century was implied by the clerk.
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I listened to a program with the jurors from the McDonald lawsuit. The jurors found against McDonalds because company memos etc. clearly showed that it was dangerous and they knew it, but from a company point of view it was cheaper to pay for a few injuries than protect people. I think it was that by serving very hot coffee they actually made more profit through volume and as they assessed the loses from suits etc. they made more. The jurors resented that McDonalds would burn them for a few lousy dollars and gave an award that would discourage it. The award later got lowered. Point is the details make a difference.