Published: August 23, 2008 04:15 am         

Teen Talk: Teenhood Today: We are the United States of lawsuits

The United States of America is a nation founded on principle.

There are many principles that the Founding Fathers imbedded in this great nation's foundation: the belief in a man's right to worship freely, for example, or the right of all celebrities to have immunity in criminal courts (revocable only if the celebrity has failed to actually do anything more talented than going to jail, as was established by the 2007 "Like, This is So Not Hot" trial of Paris Hilton).

However, one of the oldest ideals of the United States is that any man should be able to say whatever he guldarn well feels like (unless what he wishes to say displeases the government or any important political voting blocks, in which case his words will be smote down and burned hence fore as a sacrifice unto His Holiest god of Political Correctness _ that is to say, censored). The truthfulness or untruthfulness of what that man might feel like saying is irrelevant; this is America. If you can't take a verbal hit to the jaw, then go back to Canada where you belong _ or sue everyone who's ever slightly offended you until you're old and dead.

Although our Founding Fathers may not have intended it when they laid out the constitutional system of checks and balances, there is a counterpart to the First Amendment that protects the truth from the wicked and the unattractive; that counterpart is the Forgotten Amendment, which states that any man at a whim may sue any other man for any perceived slight. After all, how else is this country supposed to soothe the throbbing temple of a nation of people with too much self-righteous fury and too little money but to set a swarm of leeches upon it to ease the ego ache?

Readers, please know the terms "leeches" and "lawyers" will be interchangeable for the remainder of this column.

America is a litigious (prone to suing people) country. Our citizens have been raised with the belief that all wrongs must be made right _ and if the way to make them right is to demand excessive amounts of money for unfortunate circumstances that may or may not be those citizens' own faults, then so be it. The legal systems of the world were first developed to deal with those wrong-doings that most people agree are particularly not nice things to do, such as murdering people or locking little boys in air-conditioned ovens, without the air-conditioned part. However, the term "crime" in this country is one of the red-headed stepchildren of the English language; it is essentially ready to be beaten and fondled into whatever shape someone might choose.

The American legal system is supposedly protected from what is called "frivolous litigation." I warn you now that my legal knowledge consists of personal biases and Wikipedia, so we're going to move on to a common-knowledge subject. The majority of us know that lawyers are paid to bring lawsuits against people and to defend other people against said lawsuits.

Those who are successful are paid very handsomely, and those who aren't as successful are still paid somewhat handsomely. Yes, I know that some lawyers work for unprofitable, special interest or charity causes and don't make much money, but those lawyers usually have some other way of bringing bread to the table; the majority of lawyers need to feed their families (and their BMWs).

Whether a lawsuit is for charges of rape or charges of an ice-skating rink failing to warn its customers that ice is slippery, suing people and avoiding being sued takes cash. Just like everything else, the American court system is a business _ and so what if a man (a lawyer, in fact) can sue the company that makes Oreos because he wasn't aware that they were unhealthy? (Oh yes; it happened. There will be more stories.)

Lawyers, judges and all the people who work in the court system need to eat too; they're people. Sort of.

Thanks to the litigious American mind-set of the 21st and late 20th centuries, personal responsibility in this country has now been abolished. The idea that any unfortunate happening can be an "accident" is obsolete _ and let's not even speak of the impossibility that anyone could cause his or her own suffering.

Nowadays, even a slip out of the bathtub can be compensated for by suing the company that made the tiles in your bathroom floor. No one is responsible for anything because everything is a corporation's fault. Suck the fat cats and their companies dry; vive la revolution! What do you mean that it's legal here for people to be well-off? That's preposterous; no one ought to have more money than me _ I mean, than anyone else. Why no, I'm not a socialist; why do you ask?

I promised you more "frivolawsity" stories, and I deliver (all of these stories come from the delightful Power of Attorneys website, which, aside from its attempts to put a virus into my computer every time I click a page, is quite entertaining). We all know, from the coverage a few years ago of the two girls who tried to sue McDonald's for making them fat, that Mickey D's is the ultimate target for frivolawsity-guided missiles. In 2003, a couple sued a McDonald's franchisee under claims that a bagel purchased at the restaurant had damaged the husband's teeth. They failed to specify what was wrong with the bagel or the husband's teeth, but the wife also claimed that the bagel had damaged her marriage.

I have no idea if they won or not, but does it really matter?

This next frivolawsuit is particularly special _ and not in the kind of "special" that means interesting or unique. In 1998, Terrence Dickson of Pennsylvania robbed a house and then attempted to exit through the garage. The automatic door opener didn't work, so he was locked in the garage for the next eight days, living on a case of Pepsi and a bag of dog food. He later sued the homeowner for causing him "undue mental anguish."

He won _ and he was awarded $500,000.

Yes, this is a free nation: a nation where a satirical television show can be sued for criticizing a religion, a nation where doctors are terrified to treat their own patients for fear of being sued for malpractice, a nation where beverage companies have to include warnings that the spilling of heated drinks onto human flesh might cause burns. If this litigiousness is one of the products of a society moving forward, then I should think that one day very soon you'll be able to sue your own intestines for the anguish of a tummy ache, your lip for the indignity of a cold sore.

But be at ease, readers and potential litigators. Continue with your daily lives of serving people hot drinks, selling people bagels and locking your garage doors while you vacation. It's not like you're going to be sued.

Jessie Matus will be a senior at Oneonta High School this fall.