Lawsuits

When the parish priest was sharing about his pain of clearing the drive of snow or ice, especially on Sunday mornings, not for fear of people falling but for fear of the lawsuits they'd be filing if they fall in the drive, I was laughing.  Today while listening to the different cases that have come up for hearing, and the bizarre reasons for they being heard and judged upon, I understood his 'pain'.  And we were dealing with only the cases involving freedom of religion or belief, and that too the prominent ones!!

Here are two examples

Grainger v. Nicholson (2009). The latter was terminated from his post in a property firm by his boss (the former) after he refused to board a plane merely to hand over his boss his forgotten mobile phone. The reason: Climate change.  He argued that his principles went against the use of flights for such a silly thing as merely handing over a forgotten phone.  He won. 

Noah v. Desrosiers (2008).  A would be hair stylist successfully claimed indirect discrimination after she refused to remover her headscarf, contrary to the hair saloon's policy that stylists should display their own hairstyles to customers.  

I was thinking, in India even for serious crimes people do not approach the court. For it would take ages for it to come for hearing and even if it did, it would prolong or get so mauled that one would question one's own sanity.  Here in UK, the legal system is quite strict and lethal, so no one dares play games with it.  In India people resist approaching the legal system because it is more crooked and corrupted than the crime one wishes to report!