Rights I Just Made Up: The Right To Not Be Allergic To My Execution Drug

An inmate in Ohio scheduled for execution by lethal injection is protesting that, since he is allergic to anesthesia, the state can't execute him using their prescribed method.

A doctor is studying what impact, if any, the allergy could have on the execution process after lawyers for Darryl Durr uncovered evidence of Durr's allergy in his 800-page prison medical record. Durr was sentenced to die for raping and strangling a 16-year-old girl in 1988.

"One of the things the Ohio Constitution guarantees is that he has a quick and painless execution," said defense attorney Kathleen McGarry.

"If he's going to react to the anesthetic drugs in such a manner that he's going to have a violent reaction, either vomiting or seizures or whatever the spectrum is that could happen, then obviously the execution has problems," she said.

I get that, while we execute certain prisoners, we need to do it in as humane a way as is possible when murdering someone (and, while I personally support the death penalty in general, let's be clear -- when we execute someone we are committing murder). But seriously, if I was the doctor who was "studying the impact" I would give the defense attorney a prescription that reads like this:


(Link via Overlawyered)

Rights I Just Made Up: The Right To Keep My Job Even Though I Suck At It Because I Don't Have Anywhere Else I Can Go

In Australia, the economic prospects of an employee play a bigger role in firing him than his ability to do his job, his attitidue toward his bosses, or his safety record.

In the latest ruling to concern business, Fair Work Australia found the worker had engaged in "relatively serious misconduct", but ruled the sacking harsh due to his length of service and the fact he was a poorly educated middle-aged family man.

The tribunal accepted that his repeated failure to wear the safety glasses and his disdainful and abusive response to management amounted to serious misconduct.

It also acknowledged that the company's managers were required to give effect to safety policies and procedures.

But the tribunal said the sacking was a "disaster" for Mr Quinlivan, taking into account that he had worked at the mill for 20 years, was married with two daughters, aged nine and 11, and had a mortgage of about $70,000.

No word on whether the Australian government will cover any liability suits when this model employee gets someone injured or killed.

Rights I Just Made Up: The Right To Have Railroad Tracks Behind Fences

A woman in Atlanta is planning to sue CSX railroad after her son, chasing his dog, got hit by a train. Amazingly, the train only knocked the boy off his feet. He was out of the hospital and playing the next day, a scar on his forehead the only permanent injury.

Despite a police report stating the train could not possible have stopped in time and that the boy was trespassing (he's not being charged), the mother has hired a lawyer. Her aim: to get the tracks behind a fence.

This seems reasonable, until you realize that there are tens of thousands miles of track in this country. Coupled with the fact that fencing only some of it makes a lawsuit over an unfenced area that much easier, and you can understand why it normally isn't done.

The best part is this though:

"I’m so blessed. He’s so blessed,” the mom said. “We have all the presents we need.”

Except for the millions you'll no doubt be seeking from the railroad.

Rights I Just Made Up: The Right To Not Be Exposed To Turbulance On An Airplane

That's apparently the theory that two flight attendants are working under, anyway. They are suing the National Weather Service for failing to notify them that there was a pocket of turbulance between Seattle and California.

The lawsuit is being filed now because the statute of limitations runs out on Christmas Day.

This was a terrible accident that resulted in one of the plaintiffs needing several surgeries, but it was an accident nevertheless. I have no doubt that some sympathetic jury will see the poor attendants, note that the government must have millions laying around (they can't have given it all to banks and cash for clunkers, amiright!) and award it to the ladies. Which is reason number 426 why no trial lawyer in his right mind would ever allow me to sit on a jury in a case like this.

Rights I Just Made Up: The Right To Trespass On Your Land Without Seeing You Naked

A man in Springfield,VA is facing charges in connection with an incident in which police say he exposed himself to a woman and her daughter. In this case, however, the man was in his own kitchen and the two females cut through his yard from a path on which they were walking.

The police's theory seems to be that this man was making coffee in his kitchen naked because he somehow knew that someone would leave a path that runs along his property, cut through his front yard, pass the kitchen window, and look into his kitchen.

So let that be a lesson to all you perverts who think that, just because you're in your own house on your own land, you can just walk around naked. Other people are trying to walk through your yard uninvited and they have the right to look in your kitchen window and not see you naked.

Rights I Just Made Up: The Right To Keep The Library Coffee-Free

It really makes me wonder if some town councils have any purpose if they spend their time on things like this. Granted, this "right" comes to us from the U.K., but I can see this happening in some small town in America.

This guy doesn't want to harm your child.

It seems that a local group of retirees who enjoy a morning cup of coffee at the local library are being forced to find other accomodations after their local council passed an ordinance. Said ordinance is designed to protect toddlers from a nearby nursery from having scalding hot liquids poured on them. Seriously.

I had no idea retirees in Cambridgeshire were so bloodthirsty.

It seems like there's more realistic dangers to be found in a library than a random old man throwing coffee on a child. What if a stack of books falls? A rickety old shelf gives up the ghost and clocks poor Timmy in the head with a copy of War and Peace? A book is mistaken for a biscuit and eaten?

Leo Tolstoy, however...

If the town council of Eye really wants to protect children at the library, maybe they should ban books.

Rights I Just Made Up: The Right To Go To A Grocery Store Without My Child Seeing People Drink Wine

Seriously. I mean, the author of the bill put it just that way:

"And you know my feeling was if parents decide that they want to go to a wine tasting in a specialty store and they have a two-year-old or infant in a stroller, that's their choice, it's their children, you know? But when families go into grocery stores and they don't want their children exposed to that they have a right to that too, and so that's what we were trying to do." (emphasis mine)

I don't want my child exposed to smelly guys in wifebeaters buying Cheetos and Mountain Dew, carts that squeak like they're being tortured, or bleu cheese dressing. Do I have the right to go into a grocery store and not have my delicate flower of a child exposed to these things?

I want less of the first, more of the second at my local grocery store.

Of course, the law referenced in the story has the added feature of not being what the author intended at all, but, oops, so sorry, it can't be fixed until the next legislative session. In the meantime, sorry for the inconvenience!

Here in the midwest, people don't realize the exquisite convenience of being able to pick up a bottle of cabernet or a six-pack of beer while shopping for groceries. Don't worry though; at least my fellow North Dakotans don't have to bear the horrible risk of exposing their children to a wine tasting.



(Link via Overlawyered)

Rights I Just Made Up: The Right To Tornado-Proof Windows

That's what a family caught in a tornado say they have anyway, in a suit against Honda. At the very least the owner's manual should say, "don't drive during a tornado", right? I really don't understand how anyone that's not a trial lawyer could ever argue we don't have a problem with lawsuits in this country.

This family is probably going to win a huge sum of money because their car window couldn't withstand the vehicle being picked up by a tornado.

In a nod to both rationality and ludicrousness simultaneously, the husband is also suing his wife for driving in inclement weather.

Rights I Just Made Up: The Right To Closed Captioning At Football Games

An Ohio State football fan has had enough of going to games and not being able to hear everything. So he's suing the school in order to force them to provide closed-captioning on the scoreboard for everything from "referee calls to song lyrics".

I've been to games and couldn't hear the referee calls or anything the announcer said. Admittedly, these games were at the Metrodome, the single greatest abomination in the history of football, baseball, architecture, hot dogs, and parking. That aside though, I never thought, "you know, I paid for a ticket and I have a right to hear every word the announcer says. I have a right to hear the result of a flag from the referee's mouth, rather than having to figure it out by the placement of the ball and the replay showing the infraction".

I'd feel more sympathy for the guy if it wasn't for the following:

• He's been going to Ohio State games since he was a kid, and they were "some of his earliest and happiest memories". Somehow he was able to enjoy them despite the lack of closed captioning. (Yes, he was deaf as a child.)



• His first move wasn't to talk to the school. He went right to lawsuit. Do not pass "ask nicely", do not collect geniality points.



• Like all lawsuits, "it's not about the money". That's why he's not asking for comensatory damages. Oh wait, yes he is. What's the proper compensation for providing someone's "earliest and happiest memories"?

H/T to Overlawyered.