Who is to Blame?
Moms View Message Board: The Kitchen Table (Debating Board): Who is to Blame?
It seems we live in a culture of blame. Someone is always pointing a finger at someone else and saying, " ...it's not my fault". Well whose fault is it?
We blame Hollywood and the media for the lost innocence of our children. We blame tobacco companies for causing our cancer. We blame access to guns for murder, drug dealers for our addictions, bars for our drunk drivers, teachers for our failing students - even our parents for our own faults. The list of blame seems endless, but it does stop and start with one person - the individual who made a choice to do or not do something.
What has happened to personal responsibility in our society? When and how did our attitudes change?
My attitude will never change. I have always said it is the fault of the parents. Period. Until the kids are grown and out of the house and old enough to make their own decisions. I think a lot rides on how they were raised, but a lot of kids will stray from how they were raised and totally rebel once they are "adults". At this point, they are responsible for their own actions. And just because you had lousy parents doesn't give you a right to be a lousy parent. My husband is the most wonderful father a man could be. No thanks to his parents.
The newest is the lawsuit against Kellog's and another group blamed for obesity of kids. No, it is the fault of the parents who let the kid eat an entire box of the cereal in one day. You can eat anything in moderation.
All of these lawsuits pending for decisions made by adults who want someone else to blame drive me mad.
Yes, the coffee is hot. Be careful and don't get burned. Do I sue GE when I get burned while cooking? Or do I go after Crisco because they made their oil get too hot and burn me?
Ultimately, it is the fault of each person. If my child becomes obese, gets ahold of a gun and kills another child, or dies from second hand smoke from my cigarettes (I don't actually smoke), then I am at fault.
I learned during my early adult years that every decision I make is my own. I can walk away from any choice, but if I make a bad one I have only myself to blame. Now, I'm not talking about taking a medication, and finding out the company lied and it made me sick. Those kinds of things rest on the shoulders of the deceitful party.
Now, as a parent, if my child is exposed to something in my care, it's my responsibility. I can't blame the TV producers for the violence in shows if I let my kids watch them. If my kid gets my gun (we don't have any), and shoots someone, I am to blame. I grew up in a house with guns, but I knew better than to mess around with them. As a matter of fact, they weren't locked up (although I was a preteen when we moved in with my stepdad, who owned them). I never got angry in school and shot someone. I went to HS during Columbine, those kids were my peers, but I can't understand how something gets so out of control. What were the parents of those boys doing? It has nothing to do with violent games or movies, I played them and watched them too. It has to do with observant parents, and teaching respect and proper behavior. The same goes for obese kids, how do you let your child do that? Lock the freaking fridge if you have to. There is no excuse for 100+lb 8 year olds, unless they are the next Shaq. Take responsibility for your own actions, and the decisions you make for your family.
Sorry, that's a hot button for me... the sue happy idiots in this country make me sick.
Sorry, that's a hot button for me... the sue happy idiots in this country make me sick.
Ditto that!
And I'll just say (again! LOL), it is the PARENTS' responsibility to monitor themselves, and to teach their kids responsibility.
When and how did our society as a whole change, do you think? I'm trying to figure out why one generation of Americans viewed personal responsibility as the backbone of our society and now our culture seems to be a culture of blame and a culture of entitlement - a poor me society that blames everyone but the individual.
When did we lose our self respect and our self reliance?
I guess I should change the name of this post to "Why do we Blame?"
I know - big philosophical question.  But I'm really curious about what you guys think the reason for the shift in our societal attitude. I guess I'm looking for the "blame"
Ame
Most big companies will screw the public every chance they can get if it adds to the bottom line. Lawsuits keep them in check.
It's nobodys fault but our own. It's just easier to blame others so that's why it continues to happen. Taking responsiblity for your actions seems to be at the bottom of most peoples' priorities list.
Something I teach my son everyday is that every choice has a consequence, good or bad. He has the power to make limited choices at his age and gets to enjoy the benefits of good choices or the pitfalls of bad choices. Hopefully, he will grow to be responsible and thoughtful about the choices he has to make.
I think it all started when one generation all of a sudden figured out they could place the blame on their parents for any poor choice they made and everyone would say "Awwww....poor thing, it's not your fault after all...". So they decided that if blame could be taken off of them and placed on the shoulders of their terrible parents, then quite possibly it could work that way with other things, too, hence all the insane lawsuits we now have.
I think it all started happening around the time parents became afraid to discipline their child because of all the new hoopla about how you would damage your child's self esteem and creativity by telling them no or they were wrong. All of a sudden they had to be protected by anything not completely positive. And, no, I'm not saying parents should start beating their child. I'm talking about discipline in general.
And I don't believe that there shouldn't be any lawsuits. I sincerely believe that if a company or individual ruthlessly wrongs a person than they should be help accountable. But I do not feel that a McDonald's should be held accountable for a person eating too much of their junk and not exercising and discovering one day they are obese. Nor should they be held accountable for someone buying coffee, spilling it on themselves, and discovering it is hot.
No one forces these people to eat their products. No one forces someone to use their tobacco products. No one forces someone to leave a loaded weapon laying around carelessly.
For example. If someone goes out, gets drunk, and gets behind the wheel and causes injury, then sue the drunk, not the alcohol manufacturer.
But also, Adena, if the driver was visibly drunk and the bartender kept serving him, the bartender was breaking the law and is also liable.
Why do people sue manufacturers? Partly because courts and juries have come to realize that "personal responsibility" doesn't work if a product is faulty. If I burn myself cooking, do I sue the pot manufacturer? Probably not - but if the manufacturer produces a pot for cooking purposes and produces a pot where a combination of heat and the weight of something in the pot causes the handle to separate from the pot, who is at fault?
I won't say that most manufacturers will screw the public, but Mommie is right about many manufacturers. Everyone laughs about the hot coffee and holds that up as an example of a frivilous lawsuit, but here are some facts: McDonald's kept its coffee at a temperature some 40 to 50 degrees higher than most restaurants and most home coffee makers, 185 degrees, and McDonald's own expert testified that food kept at temperatures over 140 degrees is a burn hazard and would burn the mouth of anyone who drank it. The woman sustained third degree burns over 6% of her body when the spilled coffee soaked into her sweatpants and burned her skin. She was not driving the car. In fact, the car was not moving. She put the cup between her legs so she could remove the lid in order to put in cream/sugar. More than 700 people had notified McDonalds, prior to this incident, that they had sustained burns from McDonalds coffee, and McDonalds had settled with many of them. Ms. Liebeck, the plaintiff in the famous McDonalds law suit, asked McDonalds for $20,000, for the uncovered part of her medical bills for her 8 day stay in the hospital, and McDonalds refused, even though they had paid other settlements for the same reason. A judge reduced the jury award to less than half a million, and a private, confidential settlement was eventually reached. And McDonalds now keeps its coffee at a safer temperature.
McDonalds own expert testified that, contrary to McDonalds' claim in support of the unusually high temperature that customers bought coffee at McDonalds to drink after they got where they were going, most customers bought it to drink on the spot. McDonalds knew it kept the coffee at a temperature that would produce serious burns withn 2-5 seconds, and hotter than coffee served in other restaurants or at home, paid out money to hundreds of burned claimants, and still refused to lower the temperature - until this lawsuit.
Ford put the Taurus gas tank behind the rear axle, even after their internal experts told them it was in a "crumple" zone and posed a fire hazard in the event of even minor crashes, and didn't move the location until after several lawsuits - which were filed because people were killed or severely burned in fires following relatively minor crashes to the rear of a Taurus. It was an internal decision that it would have cost more to re-work the Taurus than to make damages payments for the X number of people who would be likely to be injured AND would sue. What I personally call a "bean counter" decision (having heard it in a "movie".)
One of the reasons that people in Western Europe don't sue manufacturers is that manufacturers are more highly regulated in most of Europe, and if a product proves unsafe it doesn't take 2 to 5 years for a government agency to have it pulled from the market (which is what it takes here).
I remember reading a few months ago about the government finally posting a public notice and planning to ban the importing of a variety of children's toys meant to be worn as jewelry, because of the dangerously high lead content. For heaven's sake, why were we allowing anything meant for children with a lead content to be imported in the first place?
I remember working on a case where a woman was severely injured because the step stool she was standing on to water her hanging plants collapsed. It collapsed because there were no safety locks to hold it open when in use. This well-known manufacturer had been sued at least a hundred times in the previous 10 years for similar events. And when I stopped at Home Depot for another purpose and saw one of their stepstools, I checked it out - it did not have a safety lock system to hold it open and would collapse in normal use. You'd think that after learning of the people injured for this reason, the manufacturer would install a safety lock, which most other stepstool manufacturers already use. But they didn't. And if I hadn't known about this lawsuit, I could just as easily have bought that nationally known brand of stepstool instead of another, because it was significantly cheaper and it was a well-known, "household name" brand. Would that be my "fault"? Would I be acting irresponsibly?
Or the nightclub that illegaly locks the fire exit doors to prevent crashers? Where does the personal responsibility of the nightclub guest come into it? Or the coal mine company with 200 safety violations on its record? Are the miners irresponsible?
Or, Karen, your air conditioner? Which, as I remember, was ruined because the people who installed your floor didn't take reasonable precautions to protect your airconditioning system from the cement dust their work created. How is that your fault or your responsibility? (And, by the way, how did that work out in the end?)
Recently a national dogfood manufacturer unwittingly sold kibble that was infected with aflotoxin, and a lot of dogs have died. A lot of dog owners have paid thousands in vet bills to treat their dogs, often to no avail. This manufacturer, however, behaved responsibly. They have, by all accounts, a very good system of checking the grain they buy for this toxin, but apparently a truckload can test OK but can have a small batch of infected grain in it. When the manufacturer became aware of the problem, it immediately began a recall and notified veterinarians. It has offered to pay the costs of vet care for affected dogs - without lawsuits. And it publicized the problem widely.
I agree, there are lots of frivolous lawsuits, and I would put the "obesity" lawsuits at the top of my list. The tobacco lawsuits I wouldn't - one of the major facts in those lawsuits is that the tobacco companies publicly, both in advertising and in legal and congressional testimony - denied for years that tobacco posed a health risk, even though their own internal research said otherwise. They are being punished not because they make a product which is dangerous to health, but because they lied about it in order to induce people to start smoking.
And a lot of lawsuits are driven by insurance companies refusing to offer a reasonable settlement even when the liability is clear. Some auto insurance companies will offer $5,000 or less if their insured is clearly liable - rear-end collision, ran a traffic signal, drunk driving, etc. - and even if the injury and costs to the injured party are clearly significantly higher than $5,000. And won't settle, taking the claim through a lawsuit. This is a deliberate strategy on the part of the insurance company because they know a certain percentage of claimants, out of financial necessity or for other reasons, will eventually accept a lowball offer rather than go through the stress and long wait of a lawsuit. It's not that their insured didn't do it, and it's not tht the severity of the injuries doesn't warrant a higher settlement - it's just a strategy.
Yes, indeed, we should all have personal responsibility for our own mistakes. But you can behave as responsibly as possible and still be at the mercy of another driver or a manufacturer who chooses to save money by not making their product "safe for its intended use" (which is the legal term). Other nations use government authority to make manufacturers toe the line. We don't. Instead, we leave it up to the individual to find an attorney who is able to afford the costs of the experts and other costs of litigation. Which is really a crapshoot approach to product safety.
Yes, this is a long post. But this is also a hotbutton issue for me. I agree, people need to take personal responsibility for their decisions - when they can. I agree that parents should monitor and censor their children's viewing and entertainment - when they can. But we are still at the mercy of the internal decisions of large corporations, with little government oversight to make them behave responsibly. Sadly, hurting the manufacturer's (or their insurance company's) bottom line through a lawsuit is often the only way to get them to behave responsibly.
Ginny, I'm glad you explained the McDonald's case so I didn't have to .
My purpose in this post was not to imply that there are too many lawsuits. The more the merrier and please refer the meritorious ones to my husband (just kidding - this is not a solicitation of any kind - that is unethical).
This is more a question of why we have spiraled to the point where we feel we can reasonably blame McDonadld's for obesity or tobacco companies for our continuing to smoke - even now that they have "come clean" even after the surgeon general's warning went on the packages, people continue to chose to somoke. Who will smokers blame 20 years from now?
It's also a general social question. We see it in politics, in daily life, in the failure of government agencies, in the abuse of social welfare programs ... we have become a society of blamers and "takers". The days of "Ask not what your country can do for you ... " are gone. I just wonder why.
Ame
Yep I think people need to be responsible for themselves. It almost makes me ill but you should see all the crazy stuff if you're in the medical field that you can't do just because someone "might" sue you. We were taught that you can't hug your patients. I had this Nun I treated for about 4 months and she gave me a hug after every treatment and it's sad that in the back of my mind everytime I was thinking "I hope she doesn't sue me."
What a great topic Amecmom!
Groove
Ame, in general I agree about personal responsibity. And I agree that to some extent parents who don't want to injure their chldren's self-esteem or egos play a part in it. I also think that parents who either simply don't want to accept responsibility or parents who think that, because their children are extensions of their selves, they and their children ae exempt from the "rules". I think we all know people who want the rules applied to everyone but them and their families. And there is no reasoning with them, no getting them to see that the rules have to apply to them if they are to apply to anyone/everyone else.
Cheating in school at every level is commonplace, to the point where teachers who are evaluated on their students' test scores are helping their students cheat on the test. Teaching for the test is the all-important goal now, and a couple of states have passed laws under which teachers' raises depend on how well their students score on tests. Whatever happened to teaching for knowledge and teaching students to learn how to learn? (Which is a whole other hot button issue for me.)
Some of it, I think, is that people feel more and more anonymous in our society. People do things behind the wheels of their cars that they would never do walking down the street. I remember, back about 45 years ago (oh dear, that long ago), being in a book store where another customer was cursing and using foul language. I told him to stop, and he did. I wouldn't do that today, because I'd be afraid he might assault me. And I find that very frightening. People who are witnesses to crimes don't want to get involved as witnesses - not because they fear they might also become victims of the perpetrator, but because they just don't want to get involved. Both attitudes - fear of speaking up and not wanting to get involved - contribute to the societal problem. A number of moms here have spoken of their experiences in getting involved in a situation where someone was being hurt or picked on, and we praise them - and are always, I think, a bit surprised, because it just isn't the common mode any more.
Most people I know will do anything, including lying, to avoid jury duty, because they don't want to take a day or a week to do their civic duty and help make the legal system work - and more and more, juries are made up of either people who are too dumb to be able to get out of it or people with an axe to grind who really, really want to serve on juries. Either alternative is scary.
There is a whole huge group of people out there who are committed to one cause or another who have decided that the end justifies the means. I include in these the ecoterrorists who firebomb places of business, the PETA type people who "release" all of the animals on a mink farm (and the minks are mostly killed or die in the woods because they can't survive in the wild); the school board members in Dover, PA, who lied under oath about their motives and financial support; the left wing and right wing bloggers and writers who publish lies about "the other side" to try to make political hay (and yes, lefties do it too, which disgusts me even more).
And one of my real favorites - police who lie under oath in a trial because they "know" that if the accused didn't do this crime, s/he did something else, so it's OK to lie in order to get a conviction - and prosecutors who bend and break the rules for the same reason and because the more convictions they get, the better their evaluations. And the assembly-line law practices that handle dozens and hundreds of poor or bad or dishonest personal injury claims because they know insurance companies will settle a lot of them for what is considered "small" settlements, and the lawyer gets a percentage of each one. I really, really hate it when people cheat in the legal system because I believe it undermines a major foundation of what and what we are as a nation.
If I started to make a list of all the ways in which people I know are cheating or gaming the "system" in one way or another (having just started to make such a mental list), well - that is scary too. Because by and large I think of most of these people as good people. I wonder what we have become when good people cheat?
I think to a great extent it is our fault - our collective, societal fault. We accept things for society that we won't accept in our personal lives. We let our leaders lie and cheat and don't call them on it because "heck, I voted for the guy, so I have to support him". We vote for people whom we know are lying or at least misleading because that candidate is "good" on our one or two personal issues, so we are willing to take the good with the bad. And when our leaders get caught, we say "so what - everyone does it", as if that excused the behavior. (Let me be clear. I am as angry or angrier with Bill Clinton - still - as I am with George Bush. And if I ever meet him, I will certainly say so. I do think, however, that what President Bush is doing is a whole lot more dangerous to our nation that what Bill Clinton did.)
I have to stop - I'm getting really depressed just thinking about this.
Or, Karen, your air conditioner? Which, as I remember, was ruined because the people who installed your floor didn't take reasonable precautions to protect your airconditioning system from the cement dust their work created. How is that your fault or your responsibility? (And, by the way, how did that work out in the end?)
Ginny, the flooring company paid us for it, we will be having the repair/replacement done in the near future. We have some other work to do inside the house, which *might* produce some dust, so we are going to wait until after, now that we are informed.
I am really glad you didn't have to "lawyer up". Good for you -it's much faster that way and you don't have a lawyer taking a percentage or an hourly fee. But my point is that it wasn't your fault or irresponsibility, and if the floor company hadn't paid up, what recourse would you have other than a lawyer?
Ginny, your post was completely true, and I mostly agreed with it. But in my posts, I specifically stressed that it is a person's responsibility unless a manufacturer did something to wrong someone. Which basically is what all of your examples were stating.
Of course I agree that Ford was responsible for the gas tank being in a bad spot. Just as Firestone was responsible for making tires that blew out unexpectedly. Why would this be the individuals fault?
Yes, I agree that if a manufacturer makes a product that does not work as it should and it leads to injury, they should be held responsible. I never stated otherwise. I simply stated that all of these frivolous cases need to stop.
And yes, a bartender should not keep selling a person alcohol when they have clearly had enough. But since when do we need babysitters for adults because they are not responsible enough to know when to quit drinking and when to hand over the keys. What if someone handles their alcohol really well, and the bartender can't tell they are over-drinking? Or what if he is drinking his friend's drinks, or what if someone else is buying him additional drinks. Or what if there is more than one bartender. How are they expected to keep up with how much every single person they serve is drinking if different people may be purchasing rounds of drinks?
I know this will hit a hot spot for some, but personally, I have always thought that bars, the ones that don't sell food, they are just walk into and drink up bars, are crazy. We stress that you shouldn't drink and drive, yet we have bars all over the place. Is everyone really so naive to think that every single person that comes in there and drinks will act responsibly when it comes time to go home?
But, I've gotten off subject. The whole tobacco thing is one thing I'll never completely get. I understand about the people who were lied to about the dangers, but there have been warnings in place for a long time, so what's the excuse there. And I have a grandmother and an aunt who died a cigarette related death, and my father is following in there footsteps. And I still feel the same way, so it's not due to being clueless about cigarettes. And as far as the McDonald's suit goes, I guess I can understand it some, but most people do realize that if you spill a hot liquid on yourself and have clothing on top of it, you burn worse more quickly until you get the clothes off. So I'm sure that made a little difference. When I worked at Hardees's as a teen, I always heard complaints that the coffee wasn't hot enough. So I don't guess everyone will ever be happy...
But, mainly I just wanted to clarify that I never once stated the manufacturer should never be held accountable. My post's main topic were those "my child got fat from eating your food, so pay me" kind of suits.
It's time for the correct person to start standing up and taking a little responsibility, regardless of who that may be.
You're right, Adena. I missed that. I apologize.
But for the coffee, at 185 degrees it takes 2 to 7 seconds for third degree burns. It is really hard, when you are sitting in a car, to get out of sweatpants or other clothing in 2-7 seconds. Even taking into account that most of us have an ingrained "no no" about taking off any clothing in public. If the coffee had been at 140 degrees, the risk wouldn't be there.
As for tobacco, I agree, and I'm a smoker, that now that the dangers are known, I am responsible. But before the dangers were know, cigarettes were adverised as "safe", "safer", "less harmful", and tobacco companies denied, over and over, and under oath sometimes, that there was any link between tobacco use and cancer or lung diseases. So that's what they're paying for now.
Same with the asbestos companies. And, I will say, I have nothing but disgust for a couple of doctors who are "reviewing" medical histories by the thousands and certifying people as having asbestosis or other related diseases when they have never even seen the person. The medical equivalent of standing on a street corner and making kissy face at passing cars, in my opinion.
No problem Ginny. And I see what you mean about the coffee. Also, I would literally cringe everytime I saw ads that claimed their cigarette was a "safer" alternative. Yeah. Right.
I live in coal country, and when I worked in a major law firm, it used to break my heart to see all of the men coming in who had spent all their lives in the mines and were dying of Black Lung. Laws were in place stating that the coal companies were at fault for not providing the equipment so that the miners would be safer around all of the coal dust, but these people still had to battle it out in court for years and years to receive any type of benefits, with most dying before ever winning their case. And they clearly died from Black Lung.
I won't even get into Social Security, which is what my work was in. Those lawyers (oops...editing to say lawyers should say *judges*) are ruthless. I saw so many of our clients die before ever receiving benefits that they had paid into their entire lives. But that is off subject.
Well, I thoroughly enjoyed the discussion on product liability litigation since I work for a law firm that defends the big corporations including some y'all mentioned. I can't comment any more, but I would love to. Thanks Ginny and Luv for your knowledgeable input.
Regarding tobacco and obesity (we are not involved in either) - I wonder if there is some ingredient that is added to these products that makes it addictive? Is that possible or has it been a part of discovery? I remember some comment made in SuperSize Me that made it seem like he felt he became addicted to McDonald's food despite making him sick.
I totally disagree that everything a child does is due to parenting. I am much more a nature person than a nuture. Parents could certainly set up an appropriate environment to raise a child but that is no guarantee of a positive outcome. A dad may want an athletic son, yet he produces an uncoordinated nerd child and nothing is going to change that. A parent may set up a curfew for their child, but the child will sneak out the window.
I believe parents don't have nearly the control over their children as they would like to believe they do.
An interesting book to read is The Nurture Assumption. It states that kids tend to act totally different away from their parents. They are raised one way, but that all goes out the window when they are away from their parents. Peers have more influence in their lives. I have had discussions with teachers about which environment a child is their REAL self in - home or away from home. It's like there are two personalities.
Adena, as far as the bartending thing, I've been a bartender, licensed in TX. It actually *is* the bartenders job to babysit in some states, and serve on a "stoplight" method. When you think about it, alcohol is just a drug, and the person giving it to you has to monitor it.
Ginny, I agree, in events of neglect by a manufacturer, there should be checks and balances. Even when Maddie broke her leg, and I called the bed company, everyone played "point the finger", and then clammed up. No apologies, no offers to make it right (not that they could unbreak her leg, but replacement of the beds is not unreasonable). I'm lucky that I had no out of pocket costs, because I'm sure I would have had to sue to recover those.
I don't know Texas law, Crystal, though I'm surprised it is that strict. I do know in Pennsylvania anyone who sells OR gives liquor to a person who is visibly "under the influence" or who has, to the purveyor's knowledge, had enough drinks to probably be drunk in the mind of a reasonable person, has and can be held liable.
Of course, Pennsylvania has some strange laws about liquor (though not as strange as the states with "dry" and "wet" counties or towns, imo). When I moved here in 1966 you couldn't buy a drink on Sunday except in a restaurant or place that sold mostly food, as I discovered when I tried to get a drink with my meal from hotel room service. To this day, closing hours are to some extent dictated by whether or not the place sells food as well as liquor. Private clubs can stay open later than pubic bars. All bottles of "hard" liquor and wine - everything above a certain proof - is sold in State Stores. These are liquor stores owned by the state, with union employees, and the state sets the prices. It is only in the past year or two that some State Stores have been open on Sunday. The state store system decides which brands will be sold, and if you want something special ordered it costs a bundle. Restaurants and bars have to buy their liquor through the State Stores also, and get some sort of discount. Beer and things like "hard lemonade" are sold by beer distributors, who cannot sell anything above a certain proof, and can only sell the stuff by the case. Package stores, which are usually mom-and-pop type sandwich/convenience stores also, can sell beer & low proof alcoholic beverages by the 6-pack, but not by the case. I think they can be open on Sundays, but I think beer distributors cannot.
New Jersey and Delaware, neighboring states, have a private vendor system and usually booze is less expensive there. But if you buy your liquor out of state and don't declare it when you return and pay Pennsylvania's liquor tax, you can be arrested. PA used to have undercover state troopers in the parking lots of NJ liquor stores near the border who'd finger PA licensed cars to state troopers just on the PA side of the border. We're one of the states that allowed internet purchase of wine from only PA wineries, but not out of state vendors. Since the Supreme Court ruling that this is a violation of interstate commerce rules because it discriminates in favor of in-state wineries, that's up in the air, and I think right now all internet wine sales are illegal in Pennsylvania (but I'm not sure).
Weird and wonderful.
Texas has dry and wet towns, even in the same county! In Texas, the law says you can serve someone who is sober, once they begin to act intoxicated (yellow light) you must slow down their consumption, offer them food and non-alcoholic beverages, and if they hit "drunk" (red light), you must refuse to serve them, and call them a cab if they don't have a ride. If they leave my bar and hit someone, I can be sued if I continued to serve them. Plus, alcohol is tightly regulated in bars, all bottles must have stickers, and be accounted for at the end of the night.
Our county has crazy laws, too. The town where I live doesn't serve alcohol after 11:00 p.m. on Saturday. But you can drive 5 or 10 minutes away to the town down the road, same county, and they sell alcohol 7 days a week.
I have managed many restaurants/ bars in my life and have had bartenders handcuffed and taken to jail for serving a person to intoxication and the person got into an accident and injured/killed someone- they are liable as well.
On my personal opinion...the whole lets sue everybody has gotten way out of hand! I find most of the cigarette, McDonalds etc lawsuits laughable!
Ive always lived with the phrase" be responsible for ur actions be them good or bad. Take the credit or the punishment." Ive made a few mistakes that my kids still hold me responsible for and tell them if u are mad at me for them thats ok. but i make them at a time in my life when i made the best decision i could at the time. I dont mind being help responsible for them. People everywhere should be held to this standard in my opinion. You know right from wrong and if it effects others espeically then u need to think twice about it. but give me a break about hot coffee and ciggarettes.
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