With geese comes great responsibility?
December 9, 2008
An old story from The Daily Record is back on the radar thanks to a new ad campaign to combat lawsuit abuse.
A recap: Howard Weiss was the owner of Contemporary Watercrafters, a small pool maintenance business in Rockville. In 2003, a pair of Canadian geese made a home in the planter outside his store. Weiss, justifiably irritated that the villainous geese were doing their “geese business” (you know what I mean) all over the front sidewalk, approached the Humane Society about finding the geese a new home (and toilet).
The society said it was a no-go — the Migratory Species Act forbade him from moving or disturbing the geese. All he could do was wait for their goslings to hatch and hope they then moved on of their own free will. The store put up tape around the area and signs warning passersby of the terrible geese threat.
Unfortunately for Weiss, geese are not known for the literacy and the feathery tyrants ignored the warning signs completely, choosing instead to honk and snap at a woman entering the next-door fabric store. She fell and sued for $750,000.
All reason vanished from the world just long enough for the case to make it to trial. Thankfully, reason returned just in time for the jury to determine Weiss wasn’t responsible for the geese’s behavior and he hadn’t acted negligently. I assume they realized that some animals are just jerks, geese in particular.
Faces of Lawsuit Abuse.org, a project of the U.S. Chamber Institute for Legal Reform, decided Weiss’ story was an excellent opportunity to illustrate the effects that abusive lawsuits could have on people and businesses — especially small businesses. From the site:
Howard says that the costs of lawsuit abuse to small businesses are not just financial. They include “the time taken away from your business – the way you run your business. You start to second guess how you do business because you’re worried about the next lawsuit, and that’s not the way to run a company.”
Weiss’ is one of several stories included in new video campaign by the project.
“The people featured in this campaign all suffered real emotional and financial pain,” said ILR President Lisa Rickard in a release. “By giving voices to their stories, we hope that Americans will understand that our lawsuit-happy culture is taking a toll on their friends, neighbors, and local businesses.”
Go to the site and read some of their other stories from across the country. (And check out our sister blog DC Dicta for a take on the group behind Faces of Lawsuit Abuse.org.)
JOE BACCHUS, Web Specialist
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