Andy and I laughed at this cartoon. We don’t watch TV much, but even we have seen commercials advertising law firms.
I was curious to see if people can really sue for hurt feelings here in the US. It turns out people try, but the case is usually thrown out of court. In the UK, though, people have been awarded money for hurt feelings, and in France parents have to be careful if they post pictures of their children on the internet. If the pictures are embarrassing, the children can sue when they become of age:
When baby grows up, she can sue. French privacy laws dictate that parents who post non-consensual photos of their children’s private lives could face a year in prison and pay 45,000 euros if their children decide to take them to court….
Wow!! Fortunately Andy and I wouldn’t have to worry. All of Kaitlin’s baby pictures are adorable.
May 13, 2016
I remember my niece posting a short video of her eldest teen dancing/singing with her friends in their own home – and said teen was astounded to a point where “Mother take that down” – it was a lovely little scene…
I suspect that all kinds of cases come up before law businesses but how many get to the court and sensational headliners…
It certainly is rude to post things without the person’s permission, even if it isn’t illegal.
The question becomes: how can a minor even give consent, legally? With that said, I’m careful about what I post about my grandchildren on Facebook. They are asked for their consent, and their names are not used. I refer to them as “oldest granddaughter,” etc. I do this out of respect for them but also to keep any identifying information off Facebook, as much as is possible. I’d like to share more. For example, one of my granddaughters is deaf, and we have videos of the moments when her first and second cochlear implants were activated. We have a video of her first informal, in-studio dance recital, when she got mad–at me!–for something we never figured out. She spent half the dance doing arabesques and wiggling her behind like a duck and half signing furiously at me (“You’re big and I’m little”!) and all of us, sending us into paroxysms of laughter. I would love, love to post that because she wasn’t supposed to be able to even sit up, was supposedly so challenged mentally that she could hear sound but not mentally process it, explaining why she “appeared” to be deaf. Yet, those videos embarrass her. Hopefully, she’ll realize that I made efforts to respect her wishes and not sue me or other relatives at some future date! LOL.
It’s mainly a matter of being considerate, I think. Apparently in France the kids can’t sue until they become of age, which makes things really dicey. Hopefully it will never come to that here!
It is not for nothing that the USA is called the land of lawsuits!
Who would have guessed the UK and France would be even worse? 🙂
If we all sued for hurt feelings, the courts would be overwhelmed and the waiting list would be decades long. And the hurt feelings wouldn’t go away just because you were awarded a bundle of money.
There would be a lot more hurt feelings if they became profitable! Ambulance-chasing lawyers would be happy to oblige for a percentage of the award.
good grief.
much ado about nothing.
unless the video or picture was totally inappropriate.
but therein lies the rub. what might be appropriate to an adoring parent or grandparent is not appropriate in the child’s later mind? again. good grief.
we have become nations of ‘nit pickers’ methinks.
when there are so many other truly IMPORTANT things to concern us…
starving and homeless… depletion of forests… extinction of wonderful species…
I say to those nitpickers … ” GET OVER YOURSELF!” 🙂
I’m glad it’s not as bad here as it is in France!
I really don’t get these frivolous lawsuits – I was involved with one when I was the president of the Golden Retriever Rescue. It was a *really dumb* lawsuit involving a 14 year old dog that a couple, who were both attorney’s were fostering. Long story, but our insurance company settled with them, just to make them go away. It was a terrible experience, and I hope karma caught up with that couple…. I should have sued them for my hurt feelings…
That must have been frustrating! A lot of people feel it’s worth a try, I guess. Not my style.
Seems like everyone would suddenly have hurt feelings!
Sounds like a waste of time for the courts.
Yes, if it’s lucrative, why not?