COMPENSATION CULTURE

Have you had an accident at work? Injured yourself and it wasn’t your fault?
You may be eligible for compensation.

We’ll deal with your claim and all of the compensation goes to you. You don’t pay us a penny. No win no fee and all that shit.

Drumming up ridiculous law suits against employers and councils when one of you falls on your arse because you weren’t looking where you were going. Oh never mind, diddums, there there. Would you like us to sue the bastards for you? We can blag a few grand for you and even more for ourselves. Go on, let’s give it a go – what have you got to lose.

Oh that’s terrible, you’ve got a hurty thumb from all that repetitive typing on that unergonomic keyboard they made you sit at all day.

We’ll fucking have ‘em, you just wait and see.

Just Google ‘compensation claims’ and look at a few of the 17.5 million hits you get.

Since 1994, when a woman sued the McDonalds restaurant chain after she had spilt coffee all over her toilet area, while holding the cup between her legs, in her car driving away from the place, there has been an explosion of claims – particularly in the US, but now here in the UK – where people are suing for compensation after doing silly shit that is pretty fucking obvious to the rest of us as being dumb, but because there was no ‘warning’ sign, have won their cases.

The spillage caused her to receive third degree burns on her thighs, groin and buttocks, resulting in an 8-day hospital stay. She sued McDonalds stating that they had not issued a large enough warning on the cup, informing people that the coffee inside was ‘hot’.


She was awarded $640,000 compensation for the injuries and McDonalds was held accountable, even though she was driving a car at the time of the spillage.

This opened the floodgates for the milking of a judicial system that did not account for common sense. Not following exact safety procedures could result in huge compensation claims, and it did.

It’s a growth industry, man.

All that is shit in American culture finds its way over here sooner or later: fast food, obesity, calling each other ‘guys’. Gang warfare. Ending a sentence with a question? Graffiti. Whooping instead of clapping at a show. Unnecessary cosmetic surgery. And now, compensation culture.

The law firms are even suing each other. If you don’t get a result with one outfit, you can instruct another to sue the first one for being crap! Is there no honour among thieves??

OK, and get this - Malignant mesothelioma – usually brought about by handling asbestos, which, let’s face it, 50 or 60 years ago nobody knew about the dangers: Law firms are now taking up cases for families of people who have died as a result of Malignant mesothelioma. One in particular I came across, was a bloke who died aged 86, in 2006, after working for a company constructing housing in London from 1945. He came into contact with asbestos. His firm was taken over, during his employment, by a well known national company, who are now being sued on behalf of his estate by a law firm.

Fucking Hell. He lived to 86 after dicking about with asbestos. If I make it beyond 80, I think I will have had a pretty good innings. He was EIGHTY SIX !!!!! There comes a point in life, when you are expecting to die anyway, and at 86 most people are resigned to the fact that they are not long for this world. If Malignant mesothelioma had topped him when he was 35, well then, his family would have had a strong case. But, he was eighty-fucking-six!

The man is dead.

What’s the point? Well obviously, a £100K or so wouldn’t go amiss, would it. Let’s sue the bastards. He doesn’t care – he’s dead. But we might as well get something out of it. “OK I know he was 86, but it was such a shock when my husband died of Malignant mesothelioma, I was traumatised. His life was cut short and I need the 100 grand to get over his premature death at 86”.

Councils live in fear of the compensation claimers.

We had a lot of snow recently, in February. I live next door to a school, and on the morning of the first day of the snow, the council bloke was out there shoveling the snow off the pavement. Why? Because the council were shit scared of being sued by some compensation claiming mother whose little darling might slip up on his arse and hurt his bum. Like it’s the council’s fault that it snowed?

He gets sent round here in the autumn too, when the leaves fall off the tree near the school gates, just in case somebody slips up on their arse and claims for that.


Schools closed everywhere during the snow chaos. In my opinion, it was partly due to parents refusing to send their kids to school, because it meant a difficult drive (well you wouldn’t expect them to go on foot?) But half the buggers are in 4x4’s so what’s the problem??? And partly due to school staff worrying about health and fucking safety. Oh, the little dears might slip and hurt themselves in the playground.

When I was a kid, you walked to school – sun, rain, dark, snow, ice, wind, whatever nature chucked at you. I don’t remember a single day when the schools were closed due to snow. You just got on with it. You might have arrived a bit late, but you went – no question.

These days, everyone is just too fucking pathetic.

You can’t even have a tug of war at the village fete anymore, in case someone gets a rope burn and sues the organizers. They can’t get insurance for it. And public liability insurance is costing so much for event organizers – due to the number of compensation claims – that many events are cancelled.

Makes me bloody sick. Shit happens. Deal with it. OK if there is real negligence, then there is a case to answer. But every time some twat sues a council because they tripped over a paving slab, council tax goes up to compensate for their compensation payout. And so does the insurance premium for any cover you care to mention.


I was in Washington DC with a colleague, in 1994, and after we’d finished our work for the day, we went to a bar/restaurant for a few drinks. A couple of beers (piss-weak American shit), a cocktail or two. When it came to ordering the next round – and bear in mind we’d had three drinks – the waitress told us, “Sorry sir, but we can’t serve you with any more alcohol”.

Why the fuck not?

“Because you’ve already had three drinks, and you might leave here and get hit by a car and sue us for getting you drunk and not telling you that you’ve had enough”.

We were absolutely speechless. I said, “We’re just whetting our whistles. We’re going to start drinking properly now. Are you telling us how much drink we can handle? We’re fucking journalists!”

But they would not serve us another drink for fear of being sued for getting us pissed. Unbelievable.

So we had to move on to another bar.

Unfortunately, my colleague got hit by a truck while trying to cross the Interstate Highway. I tried to tell him he was walking the wrong way, but he couldn’t hear me over the traffic noise. America is not designed for pedestrians.

Still, I sued the highway company on his family’s behalf, for not displaying a prominent sign warning pedestrians of the dangers of walking on the road.

Yours
Bill Turnip