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Re: US English (was Instructions for Stupid People)
Subject:Re: US English (was Instructions for Stupid People) From:Vicki Rosenzweig <murphy!acmcr!vr -at- UUNET -dot- UU -dot- NET> Date:Thu, 20 Jan 1994 15:22:52 EST
My hunch is that, in this case, it wouldn't have done any good.
The jury would have found some other excuse to rule in favor of
the woman. What we need (if one may venture this far afield) is
some combination of health reform and tort reform, so that juries
didn't wind up awarding damages on ridiculous bases in order to
pay for someone's admittedly necessary medical care. In the
immediate case, I would want to know if the store had other signs
(such as those for the special of the week) in Spanish, and whether
they advertised in Spanish (on the radio, for example). If so,
a customer might more reasonably claim that she had reason to
believe that information she needed would be provided in Spanish.
But a jury that would award a woman money to recompense her for
what her own dog did is a jury looking to give away money, and the
only thing that's going to stop them is a judge setting aside the
verdict.
Vicki Rosenzweig
vr%acmcr -dot- uucp -at- murphy -dot- com
New York, NY
