Wacky Labels on Products
Not all American's are crazy. There is a Michigan based group - Lawsuit Abuse Watch - that tries to educate American's on the negative effects of their litigous nature.
Every year, the group awards a prize for 'Wacky Warning Labels' - the winner this year is:
Runners Up:
But why track these strange labels down? Robert B. Dorigo Jones, M-LAW president explains, “Warning labels are a sign of our lawsuit-plagued times. An unpredictable legal system – in which judges allow anyone to file a lawsuit on almost any theory – has created a need for product makers to plaster wacky warnings on everything. When judges see it as their job to dismiss cases that are rooted in frivolous theories, we’ll see fewer wacky labels and more fairness in the courts.”
M-LAW is a non-partisan organization working to increase awareness of how litigation is hurting America. Dorigo Jones is writing a book entitled “Remove Child Before Folding, The 101 Stupidest, Silliest and Wackiest Warning Labels Ever” that will be published next year by Warner Books.
Every year, the group awards a prize for 'Wacky Warning Labels' - the winner this year is:
- A heat gun capable of 1000 deg fahrenheit designed to strip paint with a label advising consumers not to use the device as a hairdryer.
Runners Up:
- For those people who aren’t “the sharpest knife in the drawer.” A label on a kitchen knife that warns: “Never try to catch a falling knife.”
- “Hurry up, bartender! I’m late for the regatta.” A very wacky warning on a cocktail napkin. The napkin has a map of the waterways around Hilton Head, South Carolina printed on it along with this: “Caution: Not to be used for navigation.”
- And don’t eat the yellow snow, either. A warning label found on a bottle of dried bobcat urine made to keep rodents and other pests away from garden plants. It says: “Not for human consumption.”
- But will it get cold in the refrigerator? Another honorable mention goes to Lyne Anton of Elk, California who found the following warning label on a baking pan: “Ovenware will get hot when used in oven.”
But why track these strange labels down? Robert B. Dorigo Jones, M-LAW president explains, “Warning labels are a sign of our lawsuit-plagued times. An unpredictable legal system – in which judges allow anyone to file a lawsuit on almost any theory – has created a need for product makers to plaster wacky warnings on everything. When judges see it as their job to dismiss cases that are rooted in frivolous theories, we’ll see fewer wacky labels and more fairness in the courts.”
M-LAW is a non-partisan organization working to increase awareness of how litigation is hurting America. Dorigo Jones is writing a book entitled “Remove Child Before Folding, The 101 Stupidest, Silliest and Wackiest Warning Labels Ever” that will be published next year by Warner Books.
posted by Michael at
10:09 AM
1 Comments:
You might be interested in knowing that M-LAW, and Bob Jones, are a fraud. A major Detroit newspaper and the IRS both investigated Jones and his group and found them to be nothing more than a theinly vieled front group for big tobacco, the insurance industry and other anti-consumer interests.
According to the IRS investigation, M-LAW was started with a $300,000 grant from a big Washington DC PR firm, and has no real members.
In the past, all of their lables and "contest winners" were phony too. Not sure about his year yet.
Read more below.
Cheers!
Jesse
______________
From the moment M-LAW (Michigan Lawsuit Abuse Watch) crawled on the scene just in time to taint the 1996 elections, they have hidden behind a veil of fraud and half-truths.
1)M-LAW lies about its form and function.
Robert B. Dorigo Jones, president --and the only member-- of M-LAW has repeatedly stated in public that M-LAW “is not a front group for tobacco companies or the insurance industry,” is “non-partisan,” has “no ties to Washington,” is a “citizens organization” and “was created by concerned citizens.” None of this is true.
The truth is that IRS documents uncovered by during a Detroit newspaper investigation show that M-LAW received $284,500 from a Washington DC based lobbying group funded by Phillip Morris, RJR Nabisco and other insurance and corporate interests, and was masterminded by a corporate PR firm, APCO.
The truth is that M-LAW lost a long and bitter battle with the IRS to become a 501(c)(6) non-profit group due to their corporate and big money political entanglements.
Documents submitted by M-LAW during its losing battle to prove its objectivity also reveal M-LAW’s financial ties to tobacco and insurance front-group ATRA, ties that Jones had denied in print. The IRS agent in charge of stopping M-Law’s fraud explained that M-LAW was “flying under false colors, i.e.: a business group masquerading as a public watchdog.”
Despite Dorigo Jones’ public denials that M-LAW is just a front group for corporate anti-civil justice efforts, the truth is that M-LAW’s $ 35,000 bill for radio and TV buys during the 1996 elections was sent to ATRA, to the attention of ‘Tiger Joyce,’ ATRA’s executive director. A letter from the IRS mentions a ‘large grant from a tort reform group’(ATRA) and calls M-LAW a ‘single issue advocacy or lobbying group.’ M-LAW’s counsel in a letter to the IRS admits that “the organization receives support from the American Tort Reform Association in Washington DC.”
Instead of agreeing with Dorigo Jones’ repeated claims that M-LAW is a ‘grassroots organization’ the IRS noted that M-LAW is “not a membership organization.’ Instead, the IRS described M-LAW’s activities as “contracting or advocating on behalf of or performing services for another organization or organizations.”
M-LAW’s application package for 501(c)(6) non-profit status states that “Initially, the organizations funding came from other non-profit advocacy groups and Michigan job providers.’ That interesting term, ‘Michigan job providers’ apparently refers to the large corporations that Dorigo Jones denied had any involvement with M-LAW.
The IRS investigation observed that M-LAW’s “name insinuates that it was established to educate the public” but that the file did not show “that is what this organization is really about.”
M-LAW has admitted in its disclosure statements “the organization has no members” and pointed out to the IRS that it ought to quality for some tax-exempt status as an organization “having some common business interest.”
In short, M-LAW is indeed the big tobacco and insurance lobby front group that Dorigo Jones’ denies. That Dorigo Jones still denies this in public is just further proof of the lack of objectively and honesty in M-LAW’s efforts.
2) M-LAW promulgates false and misleading information under the guise of ‘public education.’
§ -‘Michigan Judicial Evaluation.’ Posing as an objective study,” this thinly veiled propaganda was put together by the ‘Economic Judicial Report’ a front group for Sequoyah Information Systems, Ltd and Sequoyah House Investments, Ltd. According to the contracting documents between these corporations, M-LAW paid Sequoyah “Twenty-Six Thousand and No/100 Dollars for the Michigan Supreme Court and Thirty-Two Thousand and No/100 for the Michigan Court of Appeals.” In addition, Sequoyah/EJR/Sequoyah made it clear that it “has and will continue to receive money from third parties to produce this evaluation.” The slant of M-LAW’s ‘evaluation’ was so obvious that it prompted Legislation aimed at declaring such judicial evaluations ‘political acts’ that would require they be reported as campaign expenditures.
§ -“Wacky Warning Labels.” M-LAW’s ties with Washington DC based corporate lobbying firm APCO are so tight that M-LAW inadvertently followed APCO’s ‘script too close and lifted some of their prop labels off a bogus list that has been circulating on the Internet for years. The rest of the ‘wacky labels’ are of similarly dubious origin.
§ M-LAW has cited as examples of ‘frivolous lawsuits’ a case filed and pursued by arch-conservative Stephan Sefranek, an ally of Engler and the M-LAW board, and the infamous ‘Capitol Chill’ suit, that was of a very suspicious origin and was promptly dismissed.
§ Dorigo Jones and M-LAW claimed in ads that Girl-Scouts were forced to sell tens of thousands of boxes of cookies each year to pay for liability insurance. But the Girl Scouts halted his ads saying they did not necessarily support torn reform and the numbers M-LAW used were undocumented and unsupported.
3) Robert Dorigo Jones is a life-long Republican politician with no non-profit or public education interests or experience.
Dorigo Jones was a Legislative Assistant to Republican House Speaker Paul Hillegonds from 1993 to 1997, was a communications advisor to the Michigan House Minority (Republican) Caucus from 1987 to 1993 and was an aid to former Wayne County Executive and losing Republican Gubernatorial candidate William Lucas.
4) MLAW was accused in 2003 of making ethnic slurs on its Website and forced by an advocacy group to remove the offending content.
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