(Well, actually, I wasn’t; I’m just taking poetic license.)
MIAMI – A woman who was allegedly severely burned by flaming rum during a Bacardi promotion sued the wine and spirits producer, claiming the product was defective and dangerous.
Danielle Alleyne, of Miami, suffered horrific burns after she was hit by the flaming rum at a Miami night club in August 2002, according to the lawsuit filed Monday in Miami-Dade County Circuit Court.
(…)
A bartender, who was not identified in the lawsuit, was pouring shots when a customer lit a menu on fire and placed it in the stream of alcohol. A bottle of Bacardi 151 that was being used to pour the shots turned into a flame thrower and sent flaming rum all over Alleyne, the lawsuit said.
WTF?
You don’t file a product lawsuit for stupidity. You sue either the server who spilled it on you, or the fucking moron who thought it would be cute to stick a flaming menu in the stream of booze. But you probably won’t get jack from the server or the moron, and Bacardi has deep pockets, so let’s sue Bacardi and claim their product is defective and dangerous!
Look. I’m sorry the lady got burned and all (it does not sound like it was her fault at all; she was just in the wrong place at the wrong time), but bottom line, I hope the judge throws this case out of court, with prejudice. I’m not sanguine about that outcome, though. After all, McDonald’s got nailed for something that was even farther beyond their control — the server in that case wasn’t even involved, the idiot drive-up customer squeezed the cup between her thighs and popped the lid off. That would have been her own damn fault, but she found a good (read, “unscrupulous”) lawyer and a receptive (read, “moronic”) court who found otherwise.
Tort reform — faster, please.