In February of this year National Football League player Derrick Thomas was killed in an automobile accident. He was speeding on an icy road rushing to make a flight. He lost control of his car and both he and a passenger died when they were thrown out of the car — neither was wearing seatbelts. A third passenger, who was wearing his seatbelt, walked away from the crash with only minor injuries.
Since this is the United States the course for Thomas’s mother was clear — sue the maker of the car, General Motors, for her son’s irresponsible driving. And for good measure she’s suing the ambulance company that arrived on the scene as well as the hospital that tried to keep him alive.
Still not quite as bold as the blood sucking lawyers detailed in this San Francisco Chronicle story. In this scam, lawyers wait for a plane to go down, and then sue the airlines claiming they represent a Latin American child who the pilot or one of the passengers had fathered illegitimately. In one case the lawyers made a big mistake — the erson they accused of being the father turned out to be a gay man involved in a 20-year-long same sex relationship. Oops.