Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1999 11:22:45 +0200 From: Poul-Henning Kamp <phk@critter.freebsd.dk> To: "Jordan K. Hubbard" <jkh@zippy.cdrom.com> Cc: Nick Hibma <nick.hibma@jrc.it>, FreeBSD current mailing list <freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: Re: "The Matrix" screensaver, v.0.2 Message-ID: <4520.935745765@critter.freebsd.dk> In-Reply-To: Your message of "Fri, 27 Aug 1999 01:52:57 PDT." <8062.935743977@localhost>
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In message <8062.935743977@localhost>, "Jordan K. Hubbard" writes: >> > I seriously doubt they'll win this lawsuit. You can sue someone for >> > anything and everything, including having a hair color which >> >> ^ in the States > >Sorry, I've lived in Europe, you can't pull that one on me. :) > >In Germany, for example, it's possible to sue someone simply for >sticking their finger against their forehead. The myth that only the >U.S. is litigious is just that, a myth. Europeans sue the crap out of >one another all the time, and for issues just as silly. :) Jordan, I've lived in the US, Luxembourg, Italy and Denmark. While it is true that anyone can sue anybody else for anything they feel like all over the planet, the likely (lack of) outcome in europe makes it far less likely that they will do so in the first place. The main difference as far as I can tell, is that European courts apply some kind of "common sense" criteria before they award huge compensations to people who burn themselves on coffee, cut their fingers off with chain saws and so on: "Should this person not be realizing that coffee could be hot ? She has been drinking coffee for the last 50+ years ?" "If you use a chainsaw, shouldn't you be smart enough to realize that you cannot stop the chain with your hand ?" etc etc. The secondary difference is that in all the countries I know, they lawyer has to state his fee before the verdict, and it may not depend on the outcome of the verdict. The third difference is that we only use jurys in murder cases, we fully realize the ability of a showman-laywer to sway a jury, therefore we don't use them, unless the issue is the gravest crime we know off. Fourth, "puntative damages" fall to the state over here, so the potential for getting rich that way is simply not present. So while you're technically correct reality looks far different. -- Poul-Henning Kamp FreeBSD coreteam member phk@FreeBSD.ORG "Real hackers run -current on their laptop." FreeBSD -- It will take a long time before progress goes too far! To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message
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