Are We Making the World Too Safe for Fun?
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Steve Moore’s de gustibus column “Off the Deep End: Lawyers Take Our Diving Board” (Taste page, Weekend Journal, June 23) reminded me of how much we have lost and in turn how much our children, especially boys, are losing by the excessive push for safety. I grew up in Northern California and dived competitively for five years. It was one of those sports I planned to share and teach to my children. Unfortunately, as Mr. Moore pointed out, there are no pools with diving boards. We have so sanitized and sterilized our outdoor world that there’s little left for a young boy to do; is it any wonder they get drawn indoors to violent video games? Just once I wish I could show my sons that their old man can still do a layout off the three meter or, better yet, teach them the thrill, power and grace of diving, or let them hear the screams from those poolside when faking a belly flop off the high board. No, in this safe, litigious, PC world, the thrills are fake, created by microprocessors and embedded in lines of computer code. How much more of our boys’ lives will become embedded? Frederic S. Goldstein Steve Moore’s “solution” to the epidemic disappearance of highdiving boards across the country — “outlaw lawsuits except in cases of negligence” — is curious. Had he talked to even a first-year law student he would have learned that any tort-based lawsuit requires proof of at least negligence in order to survive in any court. Tort lawsuits where there is no negligence are thus, by definition, already “outlawed.” Perhaps another solution Mr. Moore could offer next time around is for the community pool owner to talk to the insurance company about safety improvements he or she could make to the highdive that would lower the premiums and keep it in service. Or shop for a different insurer who will lower the cost of underwriting — I hear industry moguls tout the competitiveness of insurance rates all the time. Or, what about asking state insurance regulators to roll up their sleeves and do some gumshoe actuarial work — they might be surprised to discover that the insurance companies are perhaps overpricing some of their risks. The very statistics Mr. Moore cites concerning the actual number of high-dive injuries certainly underscore this suspicion. David M. Cialkowski While it is always easy to bash a lawyer who “often walks off with up to half of the loot,” it is hard to argue with the facts. We do not have the Ford Pinto and many other dangerous products because of trial lawyers. We wear seatbelts, have airbags and numerous other safety devices — all of them “inconveniences” that just happen to save lives and prevent injuries. In the swimming pool case, of which Mr. Moore complains so bitterly, “the less then 20″ injuries yearly often involve paralysis. My question for Mr. Moore: Who pays for the lifetime medical care amounting to millions of dollars? It is either the family medical insurance company or Medicare, which you and I pay for through higher insurance premiums or higher taxes. This is in addition to the emotional devastation to the family. In New York, where I practice, the recovery is limited by law to 33% not 50%, and in complex cases involving these types of injuries, the money laid out by the trial lawyer to prosecute the case can easily reach six figures and is often outstanding for years. Please note that I am a block from the WTC site. While I have been reading the WSJ for the past 20 years, this is my first letter to the editor. More : online.wsj.com |