My experiences growing up in NoDak and later working as a crime reporter may not be typical, and perhaps the people I came to know were by some measures outside, shall we say, the social mainstream, but my first thought when I saw these purportedly wacky, useless warning labels was this: "I can see someone doing that!" Personally I’ve seen folks do much more ridiculous things many times.
UPDATE: thanks to Ted Frank at Overlawyered for the link. I agree with much of Ted’s analysis of the social cost of warnings, particularly his observation that the real issue is whether people have a cause of action for their own lunkhead actions that cause them harm, or in other words, whether they are self-insured for these actions or insured by the manufacturer.
Why wacky warnings matter
David Rossmiller blogs:My experiences growing up in NoDak and later working as a crime reporter may not be typical, and perhaps the people I came to know were by some measures outside, shall we say,…
As one expert I heard testify so cogently put it: “You can make a product that is fool-proof, just not damn-fool-proof!”