re: #194 Dr Lizardo

Many moons ago when I worked for Sears - in the Lawn & Garden department, I asked a veteran co-worker what the deal was with the warning sticker on the lawnmower deck telling you not to place your hand under the deck while the blade was spinning.

He informed me that in the 1970s, many lawnmowers didn’t have a dead-man’s switch. One fine day, a fellow in Florida decided to use his lawnmower to trim his hedges, presumably saving a bit of time with the yard work. When he put his hand under the deck to pick it up, well……you can pretty much guess what happened. The result was a successful civil suit against Sears, the addition of a dead-man’s switch to all Sears lawnmowers, and of course, the ubiquitous warning sticker.

This was in the early 90s, and he’d been with Sears since the late 1960s. I first thought he was a grumpy SOB, but I learned a hell of a lot from him. He was one of the best people I ever worked with.

I am more sympathetic to plaintiff in cases like this than I used to be, but I still find it very hard to imagine a fact pattern that could reasonably have made Sears liable here.