Because of my over six foot height and my size 12 feet, Nantucket can be a hazardous place. When I am outside, I mostly look at my feet because the brick sidewalks look like this and the main streets are paved with large round stones. I sprain my ankle on a daily basis. Inside, since so many of the buildings are from the 1800s, I watch my head because the door headers are often two inches shorter than I am. And yet, I have never seen a taxi with a picture of a personal injury attorney or a 1-800 suethebastards phone number. There are some on TV but they don't seem to be part of the island culture. I am reminded of a summer study-abroad program we took in Oxford, England, where I met a medical expert who often testified in civil litigation cases. He was an expert witness in one particular case in which a woman visiting Oxford, tripped and fell on uneven sidewalk and broke her wrist. Now, the sidewalks in Oxford are mostly huge slabs of granite laid end to end. The edges do not often line up at the same level. The successful defense in this case was, that yes there was significant unevenness BUT in the 1600s when the sidewalks were installed, they were perfectly flat and they had only become uneven due to the passage of time and the shifting and settling of the earth. Not our fault, next case. Monday, July 5, 2010
WATCH YOUR STEP
Because of my over six foot height and my size 12 feet, Nantucket can be a hazardous place. When I am outside, I mostly look at my feet because the brick sidewalks look like this and the main streets are paved with large round stones. I sprain my ankle on a daily basis. Inside, since so many of the buildings are from the 1800s, I watch my head because the door headers are often two inches shorter than I am. And yet, I have never seen a taxi with a picture of a personal injury attorney or a 1-800 suethebastards phone number. There are some on TV but they don't seem to be part of the island culture. I am reminded of a summer study-abroad program we took in Oxford, England, where I met a medical expert who often testified in civil litigation cases. He was an expert witness in one particular case in which a woman visiting Oxford, tripped and fell on uneven sidewalk and broke her wrist. Now, the sidewalks in Oxford are mostly huge slabs of granite laid end to end. The edges do not often line up at the same level. The successful defense in this case was, that yes there was significant unevenness BUT in the 1600s when the sidewalks were installed, they were perfectly flat and they had only become uneven due to the passage of time and the shifting and settling of the earth. Not our fault, next case. 
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Wonder how many P.I. attorneys are "on island" trying to get away from the madness?
ReplyDeleteThe nature of Nantucket is that there are a lot of people here who are somebody off island but you never know who by talking to them. The PI attorneys can't wait to tell you how they can make you a million dollars if you should ever...(fill in tragedy here) Anonymous and two full yellow page advertising are not compatible.
ReplyDelete