Here's something to think about now that spring is here and you're getting ready to do yardwork again:
"A lawn-mower company was sued by a user who picked up the mower to use as a hedge trimmer and proceeded to cut several of his fingers. The user's lawyers argued that nothing told the user the whirling blades were not to be used to cut hedges."Ouch! Double ouch! Just the thought of such an awful accident makes my fingers ache, but the story also sets off my legend alarm.
James A. Martin, an industrial designer and project engineer, told the story in an editorial that appeared last November in the trade journal Machine Design.
Martin concluded, "A homeowner with a garage full of do-everything products might assume that a lawn mower can also be an effective hedge trimmer."
His main point was that good product design should clearly suggest and limit the use of the product. Ambiguous design, on the other hand, could lead to misuse, injuries and ruinously expensive product-liability litigation.
That's all well and good, except that the alleged lawn-mower accident that Martin cited probably never happened.
One reader of Machine Design, whose letter to the editor was published in the Jan. 11 issue, called it "an example that never occurred," explaining:
"A friend contacted all U.S. manufacturers of lawn mowers and many insurance companies. They had all heard of the case, but none had been involved."
Legal scholar Anita Johnson had debunked the same story back in 1978, in the journal Forum. Her article, titled "Behind the Hype on Product Liability," concluded:
"No one can verify that this case actually occurred; nevertheless, it is often repeated and doubtless confirms the impression of rate setters that insurance rates must anticipate the wildest judgments. In this atmosphere, the perception of reality is more important than reality itself."
So much for the tale of the mutilated misuser. But even if it is a fictional story, it's often repeated.
I've collected several variations of "The Lawn Mower Accident." Sometimes people say that two men lifted the machine and cut off all 16 of their fingertips.
The stories usually conclude by describing a lawsuit against the manufacturer that resulted in a massive settlement.
I've heard that lawn-mower salesmen tell the story to teach customers proper use of their machines. Hospital personnel repeat the grisly tale - always heard from a supposed witness - in order to illustrate the kind of domestic accidents that fill emergency rooms.
Most people who tell the story probably encountered it in print, or else heard it from someone else who had read it. In September 1977, several insurance company ads running in national publications claimed that "The Lawn Mower Accident" was true.
But an article in the Oct. 31, 1977, issue of the trade journal Advertising Age called it instead, "The case of the missing case."
The article traced the story to an insurance executive who said he read a newspaper account of the accident in either late 1975 or early '76. He repeated the story to business and political acquaintances, and they in turn repeated it to others, varying the details as they did so.
Neither the original news story nor records of any such court case were ever found. In a 1986 Consumer Reports article titled "The Manufactured Crisis," the story of the lawn mower used to trim fingers as well as hedges was called one of the "favorite horror stories" among insurers.
The article concluded, "The tale has been repeated dozens of times in support of the notion that consumers injure themselves foolishly and then seek out greedy lawyers to bring groundless lawsuits. But the story was purely apocryphal."
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(C) 1990 United Feature Syndicate Inc.