In December Dominique Gosbout, of Abitibi, Quebec, petitioned the legislature to restore one word of the province’s old civil code. In the new 1992 code, article 441 lists the only obligations of married persons as “respect, fidelity, care and help.” For the first time in 200 years “love” is no longer required.
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Vicki Jo Daily, 36, filed a lawsuit in July in Jackson, Wyoming, against the widow of the man she collided with and killed in a February accident. The 56-year-old victim’s snowmobile had suddenly cut in front of Daily’s pickup truck, and he died at the scene. Police said Daily was free of blame, but she now wants money from the widow for the “grave and crippling psychological injuries” she suffered watching the man die.
In December a New York appeals court rejected Edna Hobbs’s lawsuit against the company that makes a device called the Clapper, which turns your appliances on when you clap. Hobbs claimed she had to clap too hard and hurt her hands. “I couldnt peel potatoes. I never ate so many baked potatoes in my life. I was in pain.” The judge said Hobbs had merely failed to adjust the sensitivity controls.
According to the December State Legislatures magazine, Kansas is poised to toughen its worker-compensation laws because a former insurance commissioner was awarded $95,000 in benefits last year. The commissioner’s physician also filed a claim alleging that he suffered injuries from having to sit so often in a cramped witness stand while testifying in worker-compensation cases.
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