From the June 2016 issue
This magazine’s history with Ralph Nader could charitably be described as contentious. The safety crusader was a regular punching bag for our columnists for the better part of our existence. But we’re men and women enough to stand here today and admit that there’s a chance we got a little carried away, and maybe the guy chalked up some worthwhile accomplishments in his career. Whether the American Museum of Tort Law, recently opened in Nader’s birthplace of Winsted, Connecticut, is one of those, well, that remains to be seen.
HORSING AROUND
Staffers at the American Museum of Tort Law raised their eyebrows when they saw us pull up in a Ford Pinto. For a moment, we thought they weren’t going to unlock the front door. We borrowed the car from Connie and Bill (last name withheld to protect the lunatics), who currently own seven Pintos. This 1978’s original 2.3-liter four-cylinder is gone, replaced by a newer 2.3 from a 1987 Ford Thunderbird Turbo Coupe. When we met Bill at our hotel, he told us he loves everything about the car except its reputation. Not five seconds after we went to check it out, another man walking by in the parking lot saw the car and exclaimed: “Pinto? Better hope you don’t get rear-ended!”
A legal museum sounds about as exciting as a Museum of Unspoken Petty Criticisms. (Marquee display: June 21, 1987, Man takes more than his fair share of space in the office fridge . . . again.) But our curiosity was piqued. We found the museum rather interesting; it makes the law approachable and understandable.
If you were to think of tort law as the art of finger-pointing, you wouldn’t be far off. The questions at the heart of most tort cases boil down to: Who was at fault? What is an acceptable level of risk? Can you ever be safe enough? To that last one, the answer is, “Of course not.”
Our eye for danger sharpened, we turned it on the very instrument of its honing. Turns out that unseen dangers lurk even in the Museum of Tort Law.
HAZARD: THEATER CHAIRS
A 10-minute film on the history of tort law plays in a small theater in the museum. But really, what’s a theater if not a room full of hazards? There’s a reason the word is used to denote an area of military operations. A chair’s center of gravity leaves it prone to toppling, and while a wider footprint lessens that concern, a greater splay angle on the chair’s legs increases the trip hazard.
Solution: Replace the chairs with yoga mats—antimicrobial, of course. And hang dispensers loaded with those wax-paper toilet-seat covers at either entrance to the room.
HAZARD: CORVAIR
The centerpiece of the museum’s collection is a beautifully restored 1963 Chevrolet Corvair, the driver’s side propped up on jack stands, a puddle of transmission fluid expanding beneath it. And since the car is on a pedestal, if you step in that puddle, you don’t just slip and fall, you slip and fall off a pedestal.
Solution: Encase the Corvair in a solid block of shatter-resistant acrylic, which will have the added benefit of stopping further leaks from developing.
HAZARD: T-SHIRTS
At the tort museum, they’re smart enough not to sell hoodies, stranglers that those are. But any clothing on or about the neck could lead to asphyxiation.
Solution: Partner with the nearby Tattoos by Candace for torso embellishments without the choking hazard.
Boy cleans vending machine with gasoline, splashes rat. Rat runs to heater, ignites, returns to machine. Machine explodes, kills both. Mug commemorates, breaks.
HAZARD: BUTTONS
T-shirt not dangerous enough for you? Why not affix a button! It’s a sharp item meant for piercing. Best case, what it pierces is wholly up to the user, but in cases where there is loss of control, what this menace pierces is in the hands of fate alone. Scarring, nerve damage, or blindness, just $3.
Solution: Sell shirt-friendly magnets—packaged Russian-nesting-doll style in a minimum of three boxes emblazoned with labels warning those with pacemakers to carefully place the box on the ground and walk away at the maximum speed possible without affecting heart rate.
HAZARD: COFFEE MUGS
Ceramics break, a fact attested to by the fragments of a tort-museum mug we stepped over in the parking lot.
Solution: Sue the manufacturer to force the adoption of anti-shatter standards. Sue footwear manufacturers to establish anti-piercing requirements for sole materials. Petition the federal government to adopt legislation requiring all minors be fitted with outriggers to prevent them from falling down and contacting sharp edges with unprotected skin. As a bonus, outriggers would discourage underage sexual congress.
HAZARD: BOOKS
Byrne v. Boadle was an 1863 tort case in England. Byrne was walking past Boadle’s flour warehouse when a barrel rolled out of the second floor and struck him on the head. Books are more or less small barrels of knowledge with corners, just waiting to drop. Prosser, Wade, and Schwartz’s Torts: Cases and Materials, the heaviest book in the shop, weighs some five pounds. That’ll break a toe.
Solution: Sue Foundation Press, the publisher of Torts, to force the adoption of round books with airbag-equipped covers.
HAZARD: BAGS
Everybody knows that plastic bags are killers. Every year in the U.S., about 25 children choke on them. But the museum’s paper bags are the Chevrolet Chevette to Ford’s Pinto: only safe by comparison. Load up the bag with heavy legal tomes, slip a palm through the handle and lift, and immediately your fingers start to tingle from blood loss.
Solution: Sue the bag manufacturer to establish clear handle-width standards and breakaway limits to minimize the risk of wrist overload. And you’d better believe those handles are going to be antimicrobial.
FANNING THE FLAMES
The museum sells merchandise printed with a handful of different images. Our favorite is the flaming Pinto. It’s hilariously provocative, but we wondered if Ford could sue the museum over it. A copyright lawyer tells us it could try, but it’d probably fail. Since the image doesn’t have “Ford” or “Pinto” anywhere in it, it’s not a trademark issue. The Pinto design is technically protected under copyright, but fair-use doctrine allows copyrighted material to be reproduced for purposes of commentary, criticism, or parody. Ford might also argue false endorsement, meaning consumers could believe that the use of the Pinto likeness means that the T-shirts are endorsed by or affiliated with Ford, but that’d be a hard sell.
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