The "What the Bloody Fuckintosh?" Thread

The "What the Bloody Fuckintosh?" Thread

The "What the Bloody Fuckintosh?" Thread

Even companies in states and countries that do have so-called 'employment protection laws' can and have done this and worse. Getting stranded in the Middle East or Asia has happened so many times to white collar workers (not just laborers, skilled or otherwise), it's not even funny. Even those hired in, say, France, which has 'great' employment protection laws, by a French company have gotten screwed by one or more variant of this conduct.

There are guides floating around for international IT consulting that basically boil down to lists of 'if you work for company X and are suddenly assigned to country Y, make damn sure you pay for and hold an open return ticket home at all times while on that assignment.' The company names on these lists are from all over the world, including Western Europe.

Bottom line: Asshole management is universal and there are a surprising number of asshole managers that will strand employees like this - all over the world, laws or no laws.
 
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Oh, of course there are some examples of this and worse in other states and countries, but usually the company which does that either gets sued, won't survive long or something similar happens which works out good for the employee and bad for the company because there are those laws. When you don't have such laws you can't get a stable job without the fear of being laid off the next day without warning or reason so you can't afford your obligations (car payments, rent, hell, even the basic food) anymore.

I rather have a stable, but a bit lower income with more security to at least have some time to get a new job after being laid off over a job which pays better but where I can be fired every day for no apparent reason, thanks.
 
Oh, of course there are some examples of this and worse in other states and countries, but usually the company which does that either gets sued, won't survive long or something similar happens which works out good for the employee and bad for the company because there are those laws.

Sadly nothing yet of significance seems to have happened to Total (oil) S.A. of France and they're notorious for doing this sort of thing.

When you don't have such laws you can't get a stable job without the fear of being laid off the next day without warning or reason so you can't afford your obligations (car payments, rent, hell, even the basic food) anymore.

I rather have a stable, but a bit lower income with more security to at least have some time to get a new job after being laid off over a job which pays better but where I can be fired every day for no apparent reason, thanks.

It should be pointed out that this cuts both ways - young people in France have been historically unable to find jobs because the employment protection laws are such that employers will not hire them for fear that they will not be able to terminate the new worker if they turn out to be a bad fit, slack off, or just don't want to work. Cite: http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/France-in-a-quandary-in-hiring-new-workers-2537552.php

Or you get the UAW - where once you are hired you can basically only be permanently fired once you are sentenced to jail and therefore are unable to show up. Never mind that you don't do your assigned work or that you show up drunk or dispose of your lunch trash in the cab corners of a truck then weld it in so it can't be removed. Nope, you can skyve off and you'll still have a job. Case in point: https://www.aei.org/publication/13-...moking-weed-during-work-hours-are-reinstated/ And then people wonder why the American makers struggle so much to get their build quality up.
 
In Germany you have a probation period where new employees can be laid off (or quit themselves) on two week's notice, usually the probation period is three to six months. Works fairly well. :dunno:
Of course there is the occasional curious case from both sides, there will never be a perfect system, but in general employment protection laws should provide employees with some sort of security while not strangling companies too much.

I just hear (IMHO) far too many stories like that from the US where you can't be sure to be able to support your family (or even just yourself) the next day.
 
In Germany you have a probation period where new employees can be laid off (or quit themselves) on two week's notice, usually the probation period is three to six months. Works fairly well. :dunno:
Of course there is the occasional curious case from both sides, there will never be a perfect system, but in general employment protection laws should provide employees with some sort of security while not strangling companies too much.

I just hear (IMHO) far too many stories like that from the US where you can't be sure to be able to support your family (or even just yourself) the next day.

Keep in mind that the US has states that have such protection laws as well as states that are 'at-will' employment. There's no way to tell if this is Texas (at will) or California (protection laws) or any of the other places that Six Flags has amusement parks (Georgia, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, Canada...) This is important because I can see (indeed, I *know*) how this would play out even in those states with employment protection laws; their company may have been 'bought' by another but the sale might have only been the intellectual properties, brands, etc. - *not* the workforce or any of the other assets of the company. (Or so the claim would be made.) This would mean that the company could then be shut down in a day and basically there's no employment protection law enforcement possible in a practical sense. The corporation "died" and that's who (or rather what) the charges would be leveled against. The incorporation codes protect the old company officers, the new buyers would deny that's what they had in mind (honestly or not) but they wouldn't likely be responsible. Not much the authorities could do even if they wanted to. I've seen variants of this scenario play out before; yes, in states that had Euro-style employment protection laws. So, yeah, those laws aren't really going to mean much.

However, in the specific case you linked, the stranded employees actually may have a good case for kidnapping no matter which state they were in. There's also a case to be made for charges of theft of any personal property left in the building, which would be leveled against the people responsible for the lockout and not the corporation.
 
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Lawsuit blames Apple?s Facetime app for a car accident
The Modisette family said Apple?s failure to either program a shutoff into the FaceTime program or give strong warning about using the app while driving is particularly egregious given the app fully engages visual components rather than audio ones as with regular cellphone usage.

What?s more, the lawsuit points out that Apple has the technology to incorporate such a feature, as evidenced by a pertinent software patent originally filed by the company in 2008.
Yeah, because you are absolutely able to implement every patent you filed and ... oh, the other person who caused the accident had no fucking common sense, so why not sue the company which produced that piece of distraction?

That's why you have to have laws to wear seatbelts, otherwise there would be idiots who don't wear them and other idiots who sue car manufacturers because nobody told them that common sense and the laws of physics demand the use of seatbelts...
 
Lawsuit blames Apple?s Facetime app for a car accident

Yeah, because you are absolutely able to implement every patent you filed and ... oh, the other person who caused the accident had no fucking common sense, so why not sue the company which produced that piece of distraction?
The accident and death of the child occurred only 6 days ago. I'm thinking this suit was motivated less by the parents, and more by an opportunistic personal injury lawyer.

EDIT: Apparently the accident in question occurred Dec 24, 2014. My bad. Perhaps this was the parents, post grieving, looking for a quick cash-in.
 
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Considering a lot of countries have laws against using mobile phones whilst driving, if the mobile manufacturers want to protect themselves from legal actions such as this, that they would build the function of auto shutdown once the phone is traveling at more than (for example) 10kph. Not even GPS to give you incorrect directions that put you into a lake.

How big would the scream be from people? (and yes, it would shut down if you were a passenger too).
 
Lawsuit blames Apple?s Facetime app for a car accident

Yeah, because you are absolutely able to implement every patent you filed and ... oh, the other person who caused the accident had no fucking common sense, so why not sue the company which produced that piece of distraction?

That's why you have to have laws to wear seatbelts, otherwise there would be idiots who don't wear them and other idiots who sue car manufacturers because nobody told them that common sense and the laws of physics demand the use of seatbelts...

The accident happened north of Dallas. They filed the case in California - because of the two places they would be allowed to sue Texas courts would have thrown it out immediately. They will have to undergo significant expense and disruption they will have to undergo as the case proceeds, so the only reason they'd do that would be because they would be laughed out of court in their home state.

This is 99.44% certain to be an attempt to cash in.
 
How big would the scream be from people? (and yes, it would shut down if you were a passenger too).

The scream would be yuuuge, because of other modes of transport besides a car being shut down on top of car passengers.
I use and even work on my phone while on a train regularly, for example... including having the ticket on the phone.
Every 2nd person on a bus is staring at their phone.
Lots of people use phones on air planes, but I guess it could be smart enough to detect air planes by speed.

Then there's legal use while driving a car... if I attach the phone to an in-car holder, I can legally use it much like suction-cup mobile satnav devices.
 
We need to put caps on lawsuits. This happens way too much.

Texas already has tort reform for medical malpractice suits (passed due to our perennial doctor shortage) and we're working on extending the idea to encompass all lawsuits. To be clear how it works in Texas, there is a $250K limit on most 'pain and suffering' and punitive damages but there is no limit for provable economic damages like medical bill reimbursement, ongoing care, lost wages, etc.

What this means is that the parts that constitutes the 'lawsuit lottery winnings' that are likely fueling this suit are restricted but the actual awards for quantifiable, provable damages are not. So, if a doctor screws up and you need additional medical care for the rest of your life plus you can't work any more, yeah, they have to cough up to pay for your care and for your lost wages for your lifespan. However, they won't get hammered by some absurd $1 billlion "pain and suffering/punitive damages" amount either.

This idea has worked well here and there have been several extensions made over the years. We recently implemented "Loser Pays" where the party losing the case has to pay the costs of the other side's legal team, something long in use in many European countries. More info here: http://www.grayreed.com/NewsResourc...st-Tort-Reform-Law-Explained-in-Plain-English

It's cut way down on idiot lawsuits - which is why these people sued in California instead.

There seems to be a group of people who seem adamantly opposed to ending the lawsuit lotto. I wonder who they could be.
 
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The scream would be yuuuge, because of other modes of transport besides a car being shut down on top of car passengers.
I use and even work on my phone while on a train regularly, for example... including having the ticket on the phone.
Every 2nd person on a bus is staring at their phone.
Lots of people use phones on air planes, but I guess it could be smart enough to detect air planes by speed.

Then there's legal use while driving a car... if I attach the phone to an in-car holder, I can legally use it much like suction-cup mobile satnav devices.
This is why I'm scared of the push for autonomous vehicles. Can't ban phone usage in moving vehicle for fear of upsetting the majority who use their devices while not operating said vehicle, but cannot continue to allow the operator the same access = everyone must ride in lifeless pods.
 
The scream would be yuuuge, because of other modes of transport besides a car being shut down on top of car passengers.
I use and even work on my phone while on a train regularly, for example... including having the ticket on the phone.
Every 2nd person on a bus is staring at their phone.
Lots of people use phones on air planes, but I guess it could be smart enough to detect air planes by speed.

Then there's legal use while driving a car... if I attach the phone to an in-car holder, I can legally use it much like suction-cup mobile satnav devices.

That's the point. I think this whole mentality of 'I'm not responsible for *accident/damage/disaster* because manufacturer/distributor didn't put every last single possible warning on something because they believe that there is still even a minuscule amount of common sense out there' needs an extreme reaction like making all the mobile devices unusable (yes, your kindles, phones, phablets, mobile DVD players etc) with the warning that: 'Because you cannot be trusted to not use these devices when it's stupid to do so, we're making it so you can't'.

Then get the popcorn and watch the mob hunt down the idiots that caused it.
 
We need to put caps on lawsuits. This happens way too much.

The problem is that in America, courts can award punitive damages. In countries without punitive damages people can only sue to be compensated for actual financial losses that they've suffered, or are likely to suffer as a result of the other party's negligence.
 
That's the point. I think this whole mentality of 'I'm not responsible for *accident/damage/disaster* because manufacturer/distributor didn't put every last single possible warning on something because they believe that there is still even a minuscule amount of common sense out there' needs an extreme reaction like making all the mobile devices unusable (yes, your kindles, phones, phablets, mobile DVD players etc) with the warning that: 'Because you cannot be trusted to not use these devices when it's stupid to do so, we're making it so you can't'.

Then get the popcorn and watch the mob hunt down the idiots that caused it.


Mob justice will only cause more problems than it solves.
 
The problem is that in America, courts can award punitive damages. In countries without punitive damages people can only sue to be compensated for actual financial losses that they've suffered, or are likely to suffer as a result of the other party's negligence.

IMHO, the problem isn't the punitive damages but who the damages are being awarded *to*. The prospect of winning the lawsuit lotto and getting millions in punitive damages in your bank account drive a great deal of the lawsuit industry. Sure, sometimes punitive damages may need to be assessed against someone who's intentionally done something particularly egregious and/or willfully reckless, but it doesn't need to be awarded to the other party either. Eliminating punitive damages entirely gets you some of the laughable judgements we've been seeing around the world where the companies or people don't feel the pain enough to bother changing their behavior, so that's no answer either.

This brings us to the next problem, which is if we do retain punitive damages (and I think we should) who do we give the money to? We can't give it to the plaintiffs suing, because that's gotten us to our current state and we don't want that any more. We don't want the government taking it - as history shows, all this will do is make the court system start assessing enormous punitive damages against unsuccessful defendants as a means to increase funding. The only thing I've been able to think of is maybe have it go to a randomly selected charity or something.
 
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Punitive damages simply shouldn't exist. Anything punitive should be a result of a criminal case, not a civil one. Let government agencies such as the EPA, FAA and FDA prosecute companies that should be punished. Instead of massive punitive damages, criminally negligent companies should be subject to massive fines. But most importantly, criminal cases have a higher burden of proof than civil suits. Nobody should be paying hundreds of millions of dollars based on a "balance of probabilities".
 
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