Just came across this article about a woman who is suing Walgreens. She was picking up her prescription, and noticed that the following was typed in a reserved field on a printout that came with her prescription:
“CrAzY!! … She’s really a psycho!!! Do not say her name too loud, never mention her meds by names & try to talk to her when …”
While this is certainly insulting, why is it that her reaction is to sue Walgreens?? You just know she will be suing for at least a couple of million, does she really feel that she is entitled to this kind of money because she suffered a few minutes of embarrassment?
If this happened to me, I’m sure I would be angry and probably even a little embarrassed about it. It’s possible that I would never shop at Walgreens again. Perhaps I would even send a letter to their corporate headquarters. Never, never would I consider a lawsuit.
So what’s wrong with people? Why do we hear about people suing corporations for millions of dollars, over such silly things? Well, I can’t be sure, but maybe it has something to do with this entitlement society that our government has created.
Many, maybe even most, people in this country believe that it is fundamentally right to take money from one group of people, and give it to another group in the form of welfare, prescription drugs, health insurance, college tuition, emergency relief, foreign aid or any one of the hundreds of other programs that promote the redistribution of wealth. If they already believe that some are just entitled to other people’s money, would they not be more likely to look for situations that would entitle them to their “fair share”?
I could be wrong here, but if our society were more about personal responsibility and less about the government trying to solve every problem, I bet we would have less of these crazy lawsuits.
It’s like that person who is suing Apple because he might be able to damage his hearing while listening to his iPod. So silly.
Comment by AB — March 9, 2006 @ 12:49 am
having just read the article and your post, i contend that your post misrepresents the harm to the woman. these “mcdonald’s coffee” (or whatever trendy slam) suits are easily maligned, but difficult to criticize accurately. she is alleging in her lawsuit the traditional torts of defamation and intentional infliction of emotional distress, and adding a newly invented tort (within the last 10 years) of “negligent supervision”. i would enjoy reading an intelligent critique of each of these torts generally, and specifically in relation to her situation. comparing your post to the article, however, i don’t see much of a case that she had no cause, except that you assume she sued for millions of dollars. let’s say she sued for $1,000 plus costs and lawyer fees. what is your opinion then? what is your opinion of those torts in principle, regardless of the parties?
Comment by charley hardman — March 9, 2006 @ 1:44 am
Best lawsuits ever
Liberty Now stumbles on some bad medicine in Palm Beach County, from this morning’s SoFla Sun-Sentinel…
Trackback by ReidBlog — March 9, 2006 @ 2:07 am
Charley,
The post wasn’t intended as a critique of our legal system. My believe is that, in general, you should be able to sue someone for almost any reason imaginable, and I am not in favor of setting any type of hard limits on punitive damages.
When I read the article I couldn’t help but wonder why this woman sees this as a lawsuit, instead of just incredibly bad service. If she wins, the lawsuit is going to hurt the shareholders and upper management of Walgreens. Does she feel that they are truly responsible? Or does she see this as an opportunity to line her pockets?
I don’t have any stats on this, but it seems like we are seeing a large increase in these types of lawsuits over the last couple of decades. I was simply wondering why that is. One hypothesis that came to mind is that this entitlement society in which we live has changed the mindset of some people, making them more likely to feel that they are entitled to compensation for inconveniences that previous generations may have just brushed under the rug. What do you think?
Regarding the torts, I believe that it sets a dangerous precident to say that the upper management and shareholders of a corporation can be held liable for a sentence typed by an $8 an hour pharmacy tech.
Suppose a McDonalds employee asks an overweight customer if they “really think they should have that milkshake” they just ordered. That would certainly be offensive to the customer, but does their embarrassment entitle them to a check from the shareholders? Using the above logic, it would.
Yes, I am assuming that she will sue for millions of dollars, but my opinion would not change if she were suing for $2. Do you think I’m wrong to guess that the lawsuit will initially ask for millions? Do you seriously think there’s a possibility she will ask for $1000 plus lawyers fees?
Comment by Danny — March 9, 2006 @ 12:21 pm
i agree with you on the socialism breeds moronic lawsuits theory. the general, pervasive air of resentment against others under a socialist regime is one of the sickest, yet least assessed, problems in the US.
thought about this a lot though, and i’m not sure from the evidence in the article that she doesn’t have a case. don’t agree with you on questioning shareholder responsibility. they threw their limited lot in with the company, and it rises and falls on the company’s market outcome. tort litigation would probably be part of a free market.
i think you minimize both the damage of the pharmacy tech and the role of upper management. they have a responsibility for the privacy of their customer relations. if upper management puts in place a system where a malicious statement from a tech is stored and can become public, they rise and fall with their actions. they might have a responsibility in this case for inadequate training. your mcdonald’s example, while mostly similar, doesn’t carry the weight of a privacy breach re medication related to mental problems. however, i do think the embarrassment suffered by your theoretical fatty is to be addressed actively by a good company. many of these companies are almost inviting suits by treating legitimate concerns as trifles. i may not agree with most of them, but the ineptitude in the world still surprises me. i have done plenty of complaining and complimenting in the market, usually directly to managers, so i know how clueless many of these dilberts are.
take, for example, the famous mcdonald’s coffee suit. that incident wasn’t what the media portrayed. there was a history of mcdonald’s superheating their coffee. they’d received documented, multiple complaints, and chose to minimize complaints of warm coffee instead of potential injury from common human error. the lid was allegedly not affixed properly, and the woman was burned. when she approached mcdonald’s with a perhaps reasonable request for coverage of medical expenses related to the burn (which was not disputed, as i recall), they lowballed her and treated her as a nuisance, rather than the victim of, at least in part, their negligence. so she got pissed. looks like something similar happened here, though the woman’s subjective pain doesn’t appear to be as easily appreciated as a burn.
having seen repeated incidents of indiscretion and ineptitude at banks, i’m not surprised if something similar occurs at a pharmacy. i suspect, as you, that the amount requested is (or will be) outlandish, and that the damages suffered trumped into absurdity. however, i don’t believe such suits should be viewed as nonsense across the board. sad that many companies are too stupid to realize that most of these suits never should have escalated as they did. i ran a small business for over 8 years, and there wasn’t a single customer who even came close to suing. that wasn’t because of luck.
easy to ignore from habit (and being worn down) that the real culprit in this instance is the state. the woman should never have been put into an artificial environment where private medications must be processed individually by a cabal. she should be able to walk into the store, pick up a generic package off the shelf, ring it up without attention being drawn, and then go back to her miserable life — all without consulting a “doctor” if that’s what she chooses. perhaps without the state, her life wouldn’t have been so miserable to start with.
under the circumstances, however, i believe harm was done to the woman (however minor), against a reasonable expectation that the contractual transaction would be accorded privacy and care. if she is unable to be satisfied by the company, appeal to a third party is reasonable. isn’t her fault that the third party (and lawyer scum) hold a monopoly on “justice”, turning what should be a minor blip into a national media story.
Comment by charley hardman — March 11, 2006 @ 2:19 am
While I’m usually annoyed by frivilous abuses of the legal system, I do agree with Charley on this matter. The McDonalds coffee lawsuit isa great example of how the media completely distorts news stories for it’s own entertainment. McDonalds was serving coffee at tempatures higher than other restaurants. But they did not take extra precautions in how this superheated coffee was contained. The standard styrofoam cup and plastic lid exposes a customer to a higher risk of severe burns. The elderly woman who filed the lawsuit was severly burned on her thighs.
I’m not arguing that the individual in the pharmacy case deserves millions of dollars but I wouldn’t completely write this off as another frivolous abuse of the legal system. While this particular individual may not really deserve millions of dollars, it is necessary to demand such a high figure so a corporation will take seriously the mistake they made.
Comment by Jack Patrick — March 14, 2006 @ 1:56 am
Charley:
I think you may have missed a point here - from the article and info I’ve read, the embarassing text wasn’t made public until she filed suit. It was, up until then, a private matter between her and Walgreens. When she filed suit, it became a matter of public record.
As for Stella Liebek’s McCoffee suit, have you read the True Stella Awards page? Interesting reading at http://www.stellaawards.com/, and contradicts some of your claims. For example, Stella pulled the lid of her coffee, wasn’t driving the car at the time, and the car was not in motion.
I agree with your assessment of the FDA restricting our access to medicines for the same reasons I have problems with illegal drugs - I guess I must have skimmed over the Constitutional amendment that says I cannot put plant and animal extracts of my own choosing in my own body.
However, that being said, there is also no law, rule, or other guideline that says that you get out of this life without pain and suffering, and my First Amendment trumps your “I Have a Right to Never Be Offended”. She should vote with her feet to a different pharmacy, or have home-delivery if she’s so bloody self-conscious of needing medicine to be normal. Filing the lawsuit actually undid any mortification she may feel at needing prescriptions - did she think lawsuits and trials can be done in private, without public oversight? Does she think she’s George Bush?
–Jon
Comment by Jon — March 14, 2006 @ 8:08 pm
Oh please. the sense of moral outrage is more ridiculous than the lawsuit itself.
This lady with help of an attorney and the Walgreen’s image makers know that the goose can drop a golden egg on occassion, whether by intention or accident.
One would think her sueing Walgreen’s is the same as dropping a dollar in a Vegas slot. She either wins or loses, and the lawyer take 40%. It’s a gamble, and why not? She didn’t make the system.
The collective “we” created the system, not some old bag at a drug counter. Since the collective “we” let the standards slide, then the collective “we” need to appoint the leadership and find the strength to make sure her machine (and her lawyer’s) doesn’t pay off.
Now that means personal responsiblity.
Comment by Sammy D Jones — July 12, 2006 @ 4:33 pm
From a business perspective it makes sense and is absolutely Freemarket in principle.
There is an availability of money from the corporation. What the corporation wants is a good name. The woman has the legitimate ability to tarnish their good name by circulating this story. In order to polish their name from this tarnish, the corporation has to make good with the woman.
In today’s world that doesn’t come from saying “i’m sorry.” In the days of the Ma and Pa corner store SURE it would. However, when a company has that much money, the individual will naturally demand more than mere words.
Like it or not, SILLY or not, it is basic supply and demand.
Comment by Mikhah — July 20, 2006 @ 2:22 pm
A proper response after this exposure to humiliation or disrespect(I’m lost for discription)would be to give the worker back the typed receipt and embarass the worker in return.That alone would have been enough for me,then I would have asked for the receipt back,leaving a fear as to what’s going to happen next.
Comment by bob wills — July 24, 2006 @ 12:22 am
Sincerely, I believe that this woman should be reduced thirty levels and the mods should revoke her MP use.
Comment by AQ McArson — October 20, 2006 @ 8:21 am
I don’t think the system is broken; I think it’s a problem with society in general. Odds are, if she knew the people working at Walgreens (and they knew here), she could have just gone to the people and asked for an apology.
But in today’s corporate culture, corporations are not interested in apologizing or rectifying their errors. And while we can all say that after these incidents we will never shop at Walgreens again, that’s not really the case (b/c none of the corporations are really different). So, while I also find these lawsuits to be disagreeable, aren’t they a necessary way of remedying these conditions and creating a better environment?
Comment by Lis — December 29, 2006 @ 10:15 pm
God bless America. People think that because they’re offended, they have the right to sue for huge amounts of cash. Have these people ever heard of the first amendment? The only time speech should be limited, is when someone is threatening the life, health or property of an individual or group. Calling someone crazy obviously doesn’t infringe on these terms and I hope the judge throws this case out.
Comment by Vozzon — March 7, 2007 @ 12:58 am
Wow, some people are just abusing our justice system.
Comment by HouseofPolitics — March 24, 2007 @ 5:13 am
I really hate group words such as “Corporations” or “Society”. The point is, when did reason go out of our lives. This woman had obviously been off her bi-polar meds for a while, because her reaction is way off base. People today seriously just need to take a breath and say, is what I am thinking of doing right now, such as suing, rediculous? Just be reasonable people.
Comment by ethan — May 13, 2007 @ 12:51 pm
while this lawsuit may be a bit more out of the ordinary, weren’t all lawsuits when they were first brought?
how crazy do you think people thought Gitlow was when he brought a case against the state of new york for infringing upon his right of free speech (even though he was passing out rather inflammatory material)
or how crazy was Mapp when she filed suit against Ohio for illegal search and seizure even though they found porn in her house that they could have convicted her with?
so many cases seem ludicrous at the time (e.g. Morse v. Frederick, the “Bong Hits for Jesus” case) but so many of them become landmark, historic cases
maybe this will be one of them
Comment by Jessica — May 16, 2007 @ 11:49 pm
Entitlement society? Paris Hilton, Scotter Libby, are these people entitled to a different set of rules than the rest of us? are the very rich and corporations entitled to continue to raise the price of everything to the point that its become almost impossible to survive in this country?
Our leaders keep telling us that we must stop this culture of entitlement or the country will go bankrupt
yet the largest corporations and richest individual figure out new and better ways of not paying taxes. Parents are shocked when they discover that the college fund they set up for their kid wont be enough
because the college of their choice just raised tuition fees one hundred percent. the middle class keeps getting squeezed and as amember of that social strata i’m don’t feel entitled to anything I just want what is due me. No not a government handout, but an opportunity to make my own way in the world without a governemnt that gives more and more to the one who need it the least.
Comment by Ray — July 3, 2007 @ 4:15 pm
I agree with you 100%. If American’s did not have the constant reminder of big brother government, and the baby mentality, in which we must suck off the government teats to survive, then you would never have people thinking such a lawsuit was justified.
Comment by Jay — July 10, 2007 @ 11:14 am
I remember an old strip of “Bloom County,” when Sean Penn punched a fictional paparazzi who took his picture. The paparazzi then turned around and sued Minolta Camera Company for 10 mil. Justice Scalia has said that sometime soon a quarterback will sue the coach that give him a buttslap after a touchdown pass. Litigation nation indeed.
Anyway, I am contacting political bloggers around the country since I am one as well. I hope this email is not an intrusion.
I would like it very much if you would go to http://www.bloggerschoiceawards.com/blogs/show/21020 and vote for me for best political blog and best overall blog as well, IF AND ONLY IF you feel my blog is of a high quality. I really think I have a legitimate shot at winning. If you are open to spreading the word, that would be cool as well.
Thank you.
eric aka www.blacktygrrrr.wordpress.com
P.S. If you are open to a link exchange as well, that would be nice.
Comment by eric — July 12, 2007 @ 8:51 pm
Isn’t socialism a good counterbalance to raw captialism?
Does anyone want to live in Upton Sinclair’s “The Jungle”.
Why can’t the leaders lead to the greater good of all?
Wealth should be transferred through taxation, not weakly founded frivolous lawsuits.
Comment by BSI — October 8, 2007 @ 3:18 pm
People should be held accountable to fraud if the case so deems. If this ladys case is fraudulent let her be responsible and her lawyer also
Comment by Gary Finneran — October 29, 2007 @ 3:58 pm
Just because a society allows and even promotes frivilous lawsuits doesn’t mean you should sue. Lawyers are going to encourage any and all kinds of law suits to make a living. It is up to the person involved to stop and think, is this really justified, or am I just hoping to get some free cash because everyone else does.
Did the employee read this statement out loud so that everyone could hear? Did they laugh and snicker at her every time she came in to get her prescription? Or did the employees choose a bad way to warn each other about how to handle a difficult customer?
It sounds like she ws the only one to see the note and is looking for a little free money.
Comment by Robert — November 8, 2007 @ 4:28 pm
Good points here. For some reason this person believes she is entitled to money as a result of an insult. Wow. If everyone got paid for every insult received… As for the second part of the post, people demanding excessive use of our tax dollars seem to have no understanding that government assistance is not free money. Money given is money lost by someone else. No exceptions. In an article I wrote about tax-payer abuse, I describe the view of the collective American tax-payer as a ‘faceless entity’. No one gives any thought to the faces behind the tax-dollars. If this trend continues, we will find ourselves in a socialist country before long. While the rest of the world (countries who have experienced socialism/communism)take strides toward a free-market democracy, we take strides in the opposite direction, having never had to experience what it would be like under an all too powerful central government.
The article is still up if anyone feels like reading it.
Comment by Mike Romig — December 22, 2007 @ 1:37 am
Hi there,
You write pretty well. I want to invite you to join our new community at polzoo.com. We’re a user generated political editorial and social network site that chooses featured columnists from amongst our own pool of bloggers. We need more Libertarians on board, so I think your input would be great!
Comment by Polzoo — March 6, 2008 @ 12:26 pm
Yeah that kind of thing is irritating. I get really tired of this kind of thing. For every frivolous lawsuit there is a scumbag attorney making people feel like a victim and finding some rule under the law that entitles them to money… from those who earn to those who do not… I really hate that. I actually wrote a blog about it a while back, about lawyers enabling legal theft… if you’re interested, it’s on my site.
Collin
www.rejectsociety.com
Comment by Collin Williams — April 23, 2008 @ 7:17 pm
I totally agree with some people who posted here. People spending so much money to sue large corporations for small issues or for things that are their own fault is groundless. IT was their responsibility to know what the consequences of their actions was before they started, so why did they do it anyways? It’s amazing.
Comment by btaylor1 — May 13, 2008 @ 12:50 pm