Maryland Injury and Disability Law : Washington DC Metro Injury & Disability Lawyer & Attorney : Greenberg & Bederman : Accidents, Falls, Medical Malpractice : Maryland, DC, Virginia

We aren’t sure if any of you have ever seen any of the films that were released under the name Jackass. Nor are we sure if any of you have seen any of the episodes of the television show that aired on MTV under the same moniker.

For those of you who haven’t seen it, the premise of the show features a group of people engaging in comically absurd and extremely dangerous stunts. For instance, there is the “Fire Hose Rodeo” stunt, in which a man sits on a high pressure fire hose that is dangling from a crane. The hose is then turned on, which causes the hose to rocket back and forth in dangerous arcs.

There are also stunts like “The Ram Jam,” in which two men dress up in marching band uniforms, complete with a tuba and a trumpet, and walk into an enclosed pen with a full grown male ram. The two march back and forth, blowing on their instruments, which causes the male ram to charge them.

There is also “Beehive Tetherball,” which is exactly what it sounds like.

There have been stunts with fully functioning rockets attached to shopping carts and children’s bikes. There have been instances of jumping snowmobiles over hedges in August. There have been men who have had their bodies’ painted bright red and let loose into an enclosure with an enormous bull.

As foolish as these stunts are, at least the people who do all of them are smart enough to put a disclaimer at the beginning of every episode:

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Sometimes, a dead horse actually should be beaten.

We have lost count of the number of times we have mentioned our concerns about the D.C. Metro system. It seems as though we’re always hearing disturbing news about something with metro. If it isn’t fires on tracks, it’s outdated and faulty sensor equipment. If it isn’t a transit police force that is either overstretched or totally uninterested, it’s a poor review from the NTSB.

And in terms of the escalators and elevators in all the stations, we have done everything short of hiring a skywriter to bring attention to the fact that they are in poor condition, badly maintained and dangerous to the general public.

Many of you reading this may think that we are referring to the danger of escalators collapsing (which they have already done,) and while we have certainly mentioned that, we are also very much concerned with the fact that they break down on a regular basis. For those of you who have never ridden the Metro in D.C, or for those of you who do not live in the D.C. area, you might be thinking that an escalator that is suddenly converted to a staircase is not that big of a deal. But you should bear in mind that the D.C. subway is not at all like the subway in New York.

The New York subway system is pretty shallow. You only have to walk about twenty feet underground, which is about the height of the average staircase in an office building. The New York subway doesn’t have escalators because it simply doesn’t need them. The D.C. subway system is a different matter entirely.

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The internet is currently very much buzzing with a story about cell phone use. More specifically, the story seems to be about a suspected link between heavy cell phone use and cancer.

According to a panel of experts who reported to the World Health Organization, there is a suspected increased risk for giloma, a quite malignant form of brain cancer.

The end result was the World Health Organization put cell phone use in the same category as gasoline exhaust and DDT, a pesticide known to have some health risks. Also mentioned in the report is a specific risk to children, mainly due to the fact that their skulls are thinner and provide less of a buffer between the radiation emitted from the cell phones and the brain. This bit of news might make you want to rethink purchasing your ten year old a new iPhone.

So what are we to make of all this? Are we all carrying the equivalent of miniature Chernobyl’s in our pockets and purses? Is this asbestos all over again? Is it serious radiation, or is it the sort that you get from microwave ovens? Should we compare talking on the phone to lying in a tanning bed for an hour a week?

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From the Office of Texas Governor Rick Perry:

Gov. Rick Perry ceremonially signed House Bill 274, which brings important lawsuit reforms to Texas courts, including implementing a loser pays system for frivolous lawsuits in the state. The governor designated this issue as an emergency item for this legislative session. Gov. Perry was joined by Rep. Brandon Creighton and Sen. Joan Huffman for the signing ceremony.

"HB 274 provides defendants and judges with a variety of tools that will cut down on frivolous claims in Texas," Gov. Perry said. "This important legislation will help make Texas that much more attractive to employers seeking to expand or relocate from countries all over the world by allowing them to spend less time in court and more time creating jobs."

It is very possible to “create jobs” without gutting the legal protection of the average citizen, but apparently our friends in Texas don’t see it that way. “Loser pays” is not about “frivolous lawsuits.” It’s about lawsuits in general.

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