Rosemary Furber - Official Site

From I SUE YOU by Rosemary Furber
Published by Crombie Jardine Oct 2006

At international accountancy firm Deloittes, getting the staff to walk across burning embers barefoot was just another day at the office. The fire walk was part of a course proving that accountants could do the impossible, and had been used plenty of times before. But one senior accountant had had a pedicure a few days before, leaving the soles of her feet extra-sensitive to 'fire-kisses'. The firm was fined Ł3,000 plus costs.

Smoking can be more dangerous than we think. On 13 July 2003 John Jenkins sat down in a portable loo in Tennessee and to aid the cogitative process, he lit a cigarette. The toilet exploded. Methane was leaking from a broken pipe underneath. (Dominion-Post, West Virginia)

Ohio State University officials closed off streets and called in the bomb squad when a sticker was spotted on a bike saying 'This Bike is a Pipe Bomb'. The bike's owner, 28 year old Patrick Hanlin, was charged with inducing panic. But no bomb was found. 'This Bike is a Pipe Bomb' is the name of a punk rock band, from Pensacola, Florida. (Columbus Dispatch, Ohio, 5 April 2006)

Do you want to speak to the man in charge or the woman who knows what's going on? An accounts clerk in Greenwich, Connecticut, is suing her boss for $28,700 worth of overtime she's had to put in, to cover up while her boss had an 11-year affair. If she loses, she'll set his mobile phone to stun. (Anne Frank v Dept of Parks and Recreation of Greenwich, 2003)

Who got up on the wrong side of the floor this morning? Hats off to Caron and Justin Taylor who recovered Ł2,000 damages from their hotel after the four-poster bed collapsed on their wedding night. (Times, 19 May 2006)

Can't live with them, can't shoot them in the street without somebody trying to interfere. Cindy Lourcey was delivering post when she saw Mr and Mrs Scarlett fighting in the street. She tried to make them see sense. Instead, Charles Scarlett drew a pistol. He shot his wife in the head, then he made sure Lourcey was watching when he shot himself. Lourcey is suing his estate for intentional infliction of emotional distress. (Lourcey v Scarlett, Sup Ct Tenn, 2004)

Louis XV said, 'What is life without coffee? In fact, what is it with coffee?' Stella Liebeck knew the answer: it's a pain, and she knew where. In 1992, Stella bought a cup of coffee from a drive-through McDonald's. She was adding sugar in her grandson's parked car when the coffee spilled into her lap leaving her with third-degree burns over her perineum, buttocks and groin. She was in hospital for 8 days and had several skin grafts. McDonalds offered her $800. A jury in Albuquerque, New Mexico upped that to almost $2.9 million damages, reduced on appeal. She eventually settled for an undisclosed sum around $600,000. (Stella Liebeck v McDonald's Corp, 1992)