Latest Legal battle in the US comes to court..

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Coyote V. Acme
Ian Frazier, The New Yorker, Feb. 26, 1990.
IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT, SOUTHWESTERN DISTRICT, TEMPE,
ARIZONA
CASE NO. B19294, JUDGE JOAN KUJAVA, PRESIDING
Wile E. Coyote, Plaintiff
-v.-
Acme Company, Defendant


Opening Statement of Mr. Harold Schoff, attorney for Mr. Coyote:
My client, Mr. Wile E. Coyote, a resident of Arizona and contiguous
states, does hereby bring suit for damages against the Acme Company,
manufacturer and retail distributor of assorted merchandise,
incorporated in Delaware and doing business in every state,
district, and territory. Mr. Coyote seeks compensation for personal
injuries, loss of business income, and mental suffering causes as a
direct result of the actions and/or gross negligence of said
company, under Title 15 of the United States Code, Chapter 47, section
2072,
subsection (a), relating to product liability.

Mr. Coyote states that on eighty-five separate occasions he has
purchased of the Acme Company (hereinafter, "Defendant"), through
that company's mail-order department, certain products which did cause
him bodily injury due to defects in manufacture or improper cautionary
labelling.

Sales slips made out to Mr. Coyote as proof of purchase
are at present in the possession of the Court, marked Exhibit A.

Such injuries sustained by Mr. Coyote have temporarily restricted his
ability to make a living in his profession of predator. Mr. Coyote
is self-employed and thus not eligible for Workmen's Compensation.

Mr. Coyote states that on December 13th he received of Defendant
via parcel post one Acme Rocket Sled.

The intention of Mr. Coyote was to use the Rocket Sled to aid him in
pursuit of his prey.

Upon receipt of the Rocket Sled Mr. Coyote removed it from its wooden
shipping crate
and, sighting his prey in the distance, activated the ignition.

As Mr. Coyote gripped the handlebars, the Rocket Sled accelerated with
such
sudden and precipitate force as to stretch Mr. Coyote's forelimbs to
a length of fifty feet. Subsequently, the rest of Mr. Coyote's body
shot forward with a violent jolt, causing severe strain to his back and
neck and placing him unexpectedly astride the Rocket Sled. Disappearing
over the horizon at such speed as to leave a diminishing jet trail
along its path, the Rocket Sled soon brought Mr. Coyote abreast of
his prey.

At that moment the animal he was pursuing veered sharply to
the right. Mr. Coyote vigorously attempted to follow this maneuver but
was unable to, due to poorly designed steering on the Rocket Sled and a
faulty or nonexistent braking system. Shortly thereafter, the
unchecked progress of the Rocket Sled brought it and Mr. Coyote into
collision with the side of a mesa.

Paragraph One of the Report of Attending Physician (Exhibit B),
prepared by Dr. Ernest Grosscup, M.D., D.O., details the multiple
fractures, contusions, and tissue damage suffered by Mr. Coyote as a
result of this collision. Repair of the injuries required a full
bandage around the head (excluding the ears), a neck brace, and full
or partial casts of all four legs.

Hampered by these injuries, Mr. Coyote was nevertheless obliged to
support himself. With this in mind, he purchased of Defendant as an
aid to mobility one pair of Acme Rocket Skates.

When he attempted to use this product, however, he became involved in
an accident remarkably similar to that which occurred with the Rocket
Sled. Again,
Defendant sold over the counter, without caveat, a product which
attached
powerful jet engines (in this case, two) to inadequate vehicles,
with little or no provision for passenger safety.

Encumbered by his heavy casts, Mr. Coyote lost control of the Rocket
Skates soon after
strapping them on, and collided with a roadside billboard so
violently as to leave a hole in the shape of his full silhouette.
Mr. Coyote states that on occasions too numerous to list in this
document he has suffered mishaps with explosives purchased of
Defendant: the Acme "Little Giant" Firecracker, the Acme Self-Guided
Aerial Bomb, etc. (For a full listing, see the Acme Mail Order
Explosives Catalogue
and attached deposition, entered in evidence as Exhibit C.)

Indeed, it is safe to say that not once has an explosive purchased
of Defendant by Mr. Coyote performed in an expected manner. To cite
just one example: At the expense of much time and personal effort,
Mr.Coyote constructed around the outer rim of a butte a wooden
trough beginning at the top of the butte and spiralling downward around
it
to some few feet above a black X painted on the desert floor.

The trough was designed in such a way that a spherical explosive of the
type
sold by Defendant would roll easily and swiftly down to the point of
detonation indicated by the X. Mr. Coyote placed a generous
pile of birdseed directly on the X, and then, carrying the spherical
Acme Bomb (Catalog #78-832), climbed to the top of the butte.

Mr. Coyote's prey, seeing the birdseed, approached, and Mr. Coyote
proceeded to light the fuse. In an instant, the fuse burned down to
the stem, causing the bomb to detonate. In addition to reducing all
Mr. Coyote's careful preparations to naught, the premature detonation
of Defendant's product resulted in
the following disfigurements to Mr. Coyote:

1.Severe singeing of the hair on the head, neck, and muzzle.
2.Sooty discoloration.
3.Fracture of the left ear at the stem, causing the ear to dangle
in the aftershock with a creaking noise.
4.Full or partial combustion of whiskers, producing kinking,
frazzling, and ashy disintegration.
5.Radical widening of the eyes, due to brow and lid charring.

We now come to the Acme Spring-Powered Shoes. The remains of a pair
of these purchased by Mr. Coyote on June 23rd are Plaintiff's Exhibit
D.

Selected fragments have been shipped to the metallurgical
laboratories of the University of California at Santa Barbara for
analysis, but
to date no explanation has been found for this product's sudden and
extreme malfunciton.

As advertised by Defendant, this product is simplicity itself: two
wood-and-metal sandals, each attached to milled-steel springs of high
tensile strength and compressed in a tightly coiled position by a
cocking device with a lanyard release.
Mr. Coyote believed that this product would enable him to pounce upon
his prey in the initial moments of his chase, when swift reflexes are
at
a premium.

To increase the shoes' thrusting power still further, Mr. Coyote
affixed them by their bottoms to the side of a large boulder.
Adjacent to the boulder was a path which Mr. Coyote's prey was known to
frequent. Mr. Coyote put his hind feet in the wood-and-metal sandals
and crouched in readiness, his right forepaw holding firmly to the
lanyard release. Within a short time Mr. Coyote's prey did indeed
appear on the path coming toward him. Unsuspecting, the prey stopped
near Mr. Coyote, well within range of the springs at full extension.
Mr. Coyote gauged the distance with care and proceeded to pull the
lanyard release.

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At this point, Defendant's product should have thrust Mr. Coyote
forward and away from the boulder. Instead, for reasons yet unknown,
the Acme Spring-Powered Shoes thrust the boulder away from Mr.
Coyote. As the intended prey looked on unharmed, Mr. Coyote hung
suspended
in air. Then the twin springs recoiled, bringing Mr. Coyote to a
violent feet-first collision with the boulder, the full weight of his
head
and forequarters falling upon his lower extremities.The force of this
impact then caused the springs to rebound, whereupon Mr. Coyote was
thrust skyward. A second recoil and collision followed. The boulder,
meanwhile, which was roughtly ovoid in shape, had begun to bounce
down a hillside, the coiling and recoiling of the springs adding to its
velocity. At each bounce, Mr. Coyote came into contact with the
boulder, or the
boulder came into contact with Mr. Coyote, or both came into contact
with the ground. As the grade was a long one, this process continued
for some time.

The sequence of collisions resulted in systemic physical damage to
Mr. Coyote, viz., flattening of the cranium, sideways displacement of
the tongue, reduction of length of legs and upper body, and compression
of vertebrae from base of tail to head. Repetition of blows along a
vertical axis produced a series of regular horizontal folds in Mr.
Coyote's body tissues---a rare and painful condition which caused
Mr. Coyote to expand upward and contract downward alternately as he
walked, and to emit an off-key, accordionlike wheezing with every
step. The distracting and embarassing nature of this symptom has been
a
major impediment to Mr. Coyote's pursuit of a normal social life.

As the Court is no doubt aware, Defendant has a virtual monopoly of
manufacture and sale of goods required by Mr. Coyote's work. It is
our contention that Defendant has used its market advantage to the
detriment of the consumer of such specialized products as itching
powder, giant kites, Burmese tiger traps, anvils, and
two-hundred-foot-long rubber bands. Much as he has come to mistrust
Defendant's products, Mr. Coyote has no other domestic source of
supply to which to turn. One can only wonder what our trading partners
in
Western Europe and Japan would make of such a situation, where a
giant company is allowed to victimize the consumer in the most reckless
and wrongful manner over and over again.

Mr. Coyote respectfully requests that the Court regard these larger
economic implications and assess punitive damages in the amount of
seventeen million dollars.

In addition, Mr. Coyote seeks actual damages (missed meals, medical
expenses, days lost from professional occupation) of one million
dollars; general damages (mental
suffering, injury to reputation) of twenty million dollars; and
attorney's fees
of seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars.

Total damages: thirty-eight million seven hundred and fifty thousand
dollars.

By awarding Mr. Coyote the full amount, this Court will censure
Defendant, its
directory, officers, shareholders, successors, and assigns, in the
only language they understand, and reaffirm the right of the individual
predator to equal protection under the law.


http://home.nc.rr.com/tuco/looney/acme/acme.html

[H3lx]

fair play

acme have been selling sub standard, and shoddily build equipment for years

bout time someone took them to court over it